In 2003, a 13-year old girl named Savanna Redding was called into the assistant principle\u2019s office for questioning by Kerry Wilson. Redding was shown a day planner containing several knives, lighters, a permanent marker and a cigarette, prescription strength Ibuprofen pills, and one over the counter blue Naproxen pill. She admitted the day planner was hers, but the other things belonged to Marissa Glines, a student whom Redding lent her planner to. Glines said she obtained these items on school property from Redding. Redding agreed to let them search her backpack, and denied any involvement. Then the school nurse, Peggy Schwallier, administered a physical search that involved removing Redding\u2019s clothing down to her underwear and physically moving her bra and opening her elastic pants a few inches to allow space for pills to fall out. No drugs were found in Redding\u2019s possession.<\/p>\n
Redding\u2019s mother sued the school district because she believed her daughter\u2019s Fourth Amendment right was violated when she was subjected to a search of her bra and underpants by school officials acting on reasonable suspicion that she had brought forbidden prescription and over-the-counter drugs to school. The Fourth Amendment states the \u201cright of the people to be secure in their persons against unreasonable searches and seizures.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court found in an 8-1 rule that yes, Redding\u2019s rights were violated due to the search being \u201cunreasonable\u201d in relation to the scope of circumstances which justified the interference. The majority opinion, written by Justice Souter, found it to be excessively intrusive in light of the infraction for two reasons. First of all, the medication had \u201climited threat\u201d and Wilson had no reason to suspect that large amounts of the drugs were being passed around. Secondly, Wilson had no reason to suspect that Redding was hiding painkillers in her underwear. A school search to reasonable scope requires the support of reasonable suspicion of danger or evidence of hiding before a search can reasonably make the physical intrusion down to undergarments. The outer clothes and backpack search was permissible, however anything more intrusive violates the Fourth Amendment in this case.<\/p>\n
Justice Thomas\u2019s concurring opinion states that the reasonable suspicion that Redding possessed the pills for distribution purposes did not dissipate simply because the search of her backpack turned up nothing. He felt that the conditions did permit the school officials to physical intrude the extent that they did. He also feels that the painkillers can be dangerous and people may have unknown tolerances. He feels parents, school administration, and local officials are better suited than judges to determine the appropriate limits on searches conducted by school officials.<\/p>\n
Although I agree with the opinion that it was excessive to strip search down to undergarments, I think using \u201creasonableness\u201d as a factor can be arbitrary. As mentioned in the article, anything can be consumed to the point of toxicity. For example, eating glue at some point will become toxic. To use the danger of a drug as a regulating assessment will prove to have many loopholes as an argument. Furthermore, to use her former incident of having a party where alcohol was consumed as a factor to determine reasonableness is weak. Having a party does not make it reasonable to assume she was distributing drugs. She had no former incidents of drug distribution. Reasonable suspicion itself is always a flimsy means to regulate at what point a school official should intervene. It should just be a set procedure upon entering the school, similar to a police checkpoint checking every car for drunk drivers. It wouldn\u2019t require a complete violating frisk, but it might require shaking your clothes out when walking into the school. When in the confines of the school, you should be subject to being searched, regardless of the conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2003, a 13-year old girl named Savanna Redding was called into the assistant principle\u2019s office for questioning by Kerry Wilson. Redding was shown a day planner containing several knives, lighters, a permanent marker and a cigarette, prescription strength Ibuprofen pills, and one over the counter blue Naproxen pill. She …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2744,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","column","twocol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2744"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/americanlegalsystem-bowie01\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}