All this over IBUPROFEN? You have got to be kidding me. I went to Lutheran parochial school when I was growing up. Our son is going to a Lutheran parochial school. While the discipline is tight,he has more freedom at his school than kids going to public school. For example, he will NOT be expelled for drawing a picture of a gun, doing a report on the armed forces, or taking a plastic sword to school for a halloween costume.

What a world we live in. No wonder we are headed toward fascism, the compliance is being ingrained at a young age in the public school systems.

AZfederalist on March 24, 2009 at 11:39 PM

And people wonder why private school enrollment and home schooling is up and public school enrollment is down……….

People value education for their children, not indoctrination. It will be a cold day in Obama’s office before my son goes to public school.

This should be a 9-0 slam dunk ruling in favor of the girl with those involved in the search branded as sex offenders and sent to prison. However, with this lot of “judges” I’m guessing 5-4……either way, depending on the prevailing legal statutes in 18th century Sweden and the latest Romanian polling data….but not the Constitution of the United States!

Seriously … had that been my daughter, I would have have beaten the hell out of everyone involved. Hell, I might have shot someone.

wytammic on March 25, 2009 at 11:58 AM

AMEN!

Ridiculous.

Before all of that happens, conduct an extensive cavity search on them, because they might be masterful at hiding contraband.

I fear no man either.

Spiders, though, creep me out.

And zombies.

JohnGalt23 on March 25, 2009 at 10:55 AM

Then stop using the reference to it.

Personally, I think equating Freedom and Liberty to smoking dope id ridiculous.

catmman on March 25, 2009 at 10:26 AM

And this is where your fear has blinded you.

Smoking dope does not equal freedom and does not equal Liberty. But attempts by prohibitionists, frightened into fighting a “war” on some plants or some chemicals will, invariably, lead to a degradation of those freedoms that are esential to American Liberty.

Don’t believe me? Just look around, and look at the examples I gave. Wealth is being seized outside of what conservatives should consider proper due process channels. Doors are being kicked in despite what conservatives should consider necessary search-and-seizure protections. THIRTEEN YEAR OLD GIRLS ARE BEING EXPOSED TO STRIP SEARCHES SOLELY ON THE WORD OF THEIR PEERS!! All in the name of protecting ourselves from ourselves, brought on by the fear you have fallen victim to.

Fear, my dear catmman, is properly used with children and slaves. Free citizens deserve better.

the district acknowledged the lack of a disciplinary record, but said that the inference should have been that she’d just been masterful at avoiding getting caught.

Well, comrade, there is no evidence of any wrong-doing, therefore we need to have a full scale investigation.

Are they presuming the GUILT of EVERY student without a record? Are they strip-searching EVERY student in the district? If not, why not? When people in authority are allowed to continue the practice of this form of socialism the United States of America as a free nation, is dead and gone. The a@@holes in this school district appear not to know that the foundational documents presume innocence, NOT guilt. And the people who perpetrated the crime should be prosecuted for child sex crimes. One last thought; where the perps LESBIANS?

Your over the top pontification does not in fact mean you ARE John Galt. Just an observation.

Think what you want. Personally, I think equating Freedom and Liberty to smoking dope id ridiculous.

We need to shut the public schools down tight. Sell off the buildings to the highest bidders and privatize the entire system. Parents need to be treated like the customer that they are and not like people that are trying to interfere with the self-righteous know it all school system.

Of course this means no more teachers union and no more National Education Association. Good riddance to all of those self absorbed leaches that don’t give a wit about teaching sound knowledge to our children.

What a world we live in. No wonder we are headed toward fascism, the compliance is being ingrained at a young age in the public school systems.

Ms. Redding, an honors student, had no pills. But she had a furious mother and a lawyer, and now her case has reached the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on April 21.

And if it were my daugter and two male school employees, there would be two dead male school employees.

In fact, a case far closer to point is Minnesota v. Dickerson
JohnGalt23 on March 24, 2009 at 8:59 PM

You are right that Minnesota v. Dickerson is more relevant. Though New Jersey v. T. L. O. is very likely the case the Court will look at most closely if they hear this one.

The question with Terry is “probable cause” vs “reasonable suspicion”. In TLO the Court held that there was the lower “reasonable suspicion” standard for school officials when dealing with students. And that schools had a lower threshold than for LEO’s in their dealings with the public.

In this case the school may be hampered by the “plain view” consideration and the quality of the evidence that formed the suspicion. Also, in TLO the search was of a bag rather than the more invasive strip search.

dedalus on March 24, 2009 at 8:15 PM

Stop-and-frisk. Weapons search. Non-invasive. These are key parts of Terry.

In fact, a case far closer to point is Minnesota v. Dickerson

In that case, cocaine seized was thrown out because LEO’s didn’t follow the strictures set down in Terry. To wit:

Rather, the officer determined that the item was contraband only after conducting a further search, one not authorized by Terry or by any other exception to the warrant requirement. Because this further search of respondent’s pocket was constitutionally invalid, the seizure of the cocaine that followed is likewise unconstitutional.

No strip search. No body cavity search. The LEO’s just went into a pocket, without a warrant, and cocaine was tossed out of evidence.

Terry was about immediate safety of LEO’s and citizens, granting the police the authority to engage in a topical search for deadly weapons. To try to pass it off as a free-for-all to examine 13 year-old vaginas labia is, IMHO, unconscionable.

As I always say, “Too much Government”………..

JohnGalt23 on March 24, 2009 at 8:05 PM

I think it was a strip search not a cavity search based on what I read.

A hunch might be “hey that girl is wearing a Phish concert shirt, let’s frisk her”. Do you believe that a police officer who finds crack vials on one person can’t frisk a second person who is fingered by the first? Are judges likely to throw that evidence out of court because it was just a hunch? Maybe, but I’d guess that a lot of teenagers got busted and convicted that way.

One can argue the exact contours of the rights of students at school, but this case before the Supreme Court really shouldn’t take much time to decide. Savana Redding still remembers the clothes she had on — black stretch pants……

dedalus on March 24, 2009 at 7:41 PM

Any prosecutor that tried to use Terry to cover this would be immediately laughed out of court.

If I remember my con law properly, didn’t Terry say something about “articulable facts”? What are the articulable facts here… that someone said she might be stashing dope? Sounds like something approximating an officer’s hunch to me, which SCOTUS specifically ruled out in Terry.

Also, didn’t Terry rule on a stop-and-frisk by an officer? If you are going to try to tell me, with a straight face, that a vaginal exam qualifies as a “stop-and-frisk”, then let’s stop wasting everyone’s time, and punt the idea of “unreasonable searches” altogether.