School's Strip Search of Girl Illegal, High Court Rules
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that an Arizona school’s strip search of a teenager accused of dispensing prescription-strength pills was illegal.
On that, eight justices agreed (PDF). Safford Middle School officials crossed a line when they searched Savana Redding’s underwear. Justice Clarence Thomas was the only dissent.
What was slightly more for the court to decide was whether school officials should be granted immunity from civil suit. The high court, in a 7-2 lineup, said the officials are immune. Dissenting were Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bloomberg reports.
Redding was 13 when her middle school administrators, acting on a tip from another student, ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear, the Associated Press reports.
“What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear,” Justice David Souter wrote for the majority. “We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable.”
