This May Have All Been Avoided (Safford v. Redding) – FYS 100 – 34: The Rights of the Criminally Accused

Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding was a case that reached the Supreme Court in 2009, handling the issue of a possible fourth amendment violation. Savana Redding was a teenager at Safford Middle School in Arizona. Redding was accused of possessing and distributing prescription and over-the-counter drugs at school. The school district has a policy that prohibits the “non-medical use, possession, or sale of any drug on school grounds.” Students and their parents must receive administrative approval prior to allowing the drugs on the school campus. With the accusations from classmates and the school’s administration, Savana Redding was subjected to a search of her belongings, and later her clothing, which she had to reveal body parts. The result of these searches was negative and no drugs were found in Redding’s possession.

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Eight of nine justices agreed that the school district violated Redding’s fourth amendment rights. Justice Thomas was the only justice who dissented the majority opinion. He believed that Savana Redding was “secretly hiding the pills in a place she thought no one would look.” Was this enough reason to suspect a new place to look after searching the book bag? I think not. I believe that the search should’ve ended after the search of her belongings. It was mentioned in this case that schools are subjected to lower levels of privacy for students, so this makes the strip search reasonable in some situations. However, Justice Thomas’ attempt to rationalize Redding’s potential actions of further hiding the pills was uncalled for. He furthered his beliefs and stated that Redding wouldn’t be the “first person to conceal pills in her undergarments. Nor will she be the last.” That may be true, but it seems like a stretch for a middle scholar’s behavior. I believe that the Redding’s search should’ve ended after the search of her belongings because of her age. Her mother should’ve been notified and allowed to consent to the strip search of her daughter. Maybe this all could’ve been avoided. What do you think?

Staton Whaley says:

October 18, 2016 at 4:43 pm

Destiny, I agree with your proposal that the court decided this correctly, that Justice Thomas was out of place, and that this overall could have been avoided fairly easily. In addition, I would like to add that in Justice Thomas’ dissent, he mentions that it is not the place of the Court to decide school policy, and because there was a student dealing prescription strength, illegal, although relatively not harmful, drugs, there was reasonable suspicion to go as far as needed to uncover the contraband. This proposition is unwarranted, as you said. It should be the place of the Court to decide the legality of the search, and the Court rules on that, and not school policy. While the standing school policy is there should be no drugs of any kind on campus without parental consent with the nurse, there needs to be some reasonable suspicion to conduct a search, and the Court has recognized it is substantially lower than that of a police search. But the evidence was lacking, only provided by a girl the same age potentially facing the same amount of trouble, and a boy who identified Redding’s friend, the girl previously mentioned, as the dealer, and only stated earlier that he had been to Redding’s house where there was alcohol being served. The school official used these connections to piece together that she was the one distributing pills, and ultimately used this information to go as far as strip searching a thirteen year old girl in the presence of two adults. I don’t think that a middle schooler hiding something in their underwear is necessarily out of the question, but to go that far as an adult, to expose a child even to enforce a school policy, much more substantiated and overall incriminating evidence would be needed. I agree with you, and the Court, and disagree with Justice Thomas in this decision.

Justin Barlow says:

October 19, 2016 at 4:59 pm

I also agree with the proposal that the Court’s decision was appropriate, however I do not believe that Justice Thomas was out of place in his assertions. When children attend a public school, they do sacrifice certain rights that they would normally have on their own personal property, because school is mandatory. It would be unconstitutional to require students to put themselves in a dangerous institution, and, as such, it must be possible for the school to conduct searches if they believe they will help ensure the safety of the students.I do agree that perhaps in this situation the search could be avoidable, as the evidence that was presented to the school was not enough to warrant a search. I do, however, believe that under other circumstances, perhaps where there is more evidence, even an invasive search could be appropriate. I agree that the legal guardian of the student should have been notified about the search, and argue that this should have received more attention in the case, as the student was under the legal age to give any consent to a search. It was also unclear to me from my reading of the case what the qualifications were of the person who conducted the search. If the person who conducted the search was only a school nurse, rather than a certified doctor, than perhaps this is a more serious violation as the exam may have been more intrusive than necessary due to a lack of experience. Overall, I do agree with most of the essential ideas you put forth, but do think that Justice Thomas’s assertion that the girl may have been hiding the pills in private areas was valid, and do think that under certain circumstances a cavity search could be warranted. Even though the school lacked enough evidence to conduct this search, there are times when physical evidence is present and can be used to constitute a necessary search.