Safford+vs.+Redding

**Here's a good place to begin:** The Safford case.

 * To download the** [|Oral Arguments]

**Here's a good article explaining the case:**
Retrieved October 27, 2009, from http://freedomarizona.org/2009/04/21/supreme-court-hears-safford-school-strip-search-case/Supreme Court Hears Safford School Strip-Search Case

A 13-year-old girl says she will never be able to forget the humiliation of school administrators searching her underwear for prescription-strength ibuprofen pills. Now the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether the search went too far. The Safford Unified School District is appealing a federal appeals court decision that allows Savana Redding to sue the Safford Middle School officials who searched her based on the accusation of a fellow student. School officials argue that the search was reasonable and justified because pills had been found on campus and another student had linked them to Redding. But Redding’s lawyers say chool officials violated the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches. Redding is now a 19-year-old college freshman living in her hometown of Safford in rural eastern Arizona. The Supreme Court will also issue opinions Tuesday. A 1985 Supreme Court decision that dealt with searching a student’s purse has found that school officials need only reasonable suspicions, not probable cause. But the court also warned against a search that is “excessively intrusive.” A schoolmate had accused Redding, then an eighth-grade student, of giving her pills. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Vice Principal Kerry Wilson took Redding to his office to search her backpack. When nothing was found, Redding was taken to a nurse’s office where she says she was ordered to take off her shirt and pants. Redding said they then told her to move her bra to the side and to stretch her underwear waistband, exposing her breasts and pelvic area. No pills were found. Redding says school officials did not have reasonable grounds to believe she was hiding pills in her underwear, and says the pills did not pose a public health threat serious enough to justify a strip search. School officials say they did not violate Redding’s rights and say courts should defer to school officials’ judgment in situations involving potential drug abuse on school grounds. A federal magistrate had dismissed the lawsuit Redding and her mother April brought, and a federal appeals panel agreed that the search didn’t violate her rights. But last July, a full panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the search was “an invasion of constitutional rights.” The court also said Wilson could be found personally liable. If the court finds the search was unconstitutional, it will have to decide whether school officials can be held financially liable by determining whether it should have been clear to them in October 2003 that the search was illegal. The case is Safford Unified School District v. April Redding, 08-479. Retrieved October 27, 2009, from http://freedomarizona.org/2009/04/21/supreme-court-hears-safford-school-strip-search-case/ see also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHlM3mrC0PY to download oral arguments: http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2008/2008_08_479 Facts of the Case (from OYEZ site above): Savana Redding, an eighth grader at Safford Middle School, was strip-searched by school officials on the basis of a tip by another student that Ms. Redding might have ibuprofen on her person in violation of school policy. Ms. Redding subsequently filed suit against the school district and the school officials responsible for the search in the District Court for the District of Arizona. She alleged her Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure was violated. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissed the case. On the initial appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. However, on rehearing before the entire court, the court of appeals held that Ms. Redding's Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure was violated. It reasoned that the strip search was not justified nor was the scope of intrusion reasonably related to the circumstances. Question: 1) Does the Fourth Amendment prohibit school officials from strip searching students suspected of possessing drugs in violation of school policy? 2) Are school officials individually liable for damages in a lawsuit filed under 42 U.S.C Section 1983? Conclusion: Sometimes, fact dependent. No. The Supreme Court held that Savanna's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when school officials searched her underwear for non-prescription painkillers. With David H. Souter writing for the majority and joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, and Justices Antonin G. Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, and Samuel A. Alito, and in part by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court reiterated that, based on a reasonable suspicion, search measures used by school officials to root out contraband must be "reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction." Here, school officials did not have sufficient suspicion to warrant extending the search of Savanna to her underwear. The Court also held that the implicated school administrators were not personally liable because "clearly established law [did] not show that the search violated the Fourth Amendment." It reasoned that lower court decisions were disparate enough to have warranted doubt about the scope of a student's Fourth Amendment right. Justice Stevens wrote separately, concurring in part and dissenting in part, and was joined by Justice Ginsburg. He agreed that the strip search was unconstitutional, but disagreed that the school administrators retained immunity. He stated that "[i]t does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude." Justice Ginsburg also wrote a separate concurring opinion, largely agreeing with Justice Stevens point of dissent. Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in the judgment in part and dissented in part. He agreed with the majority that the school administrators were qualifiedly immune to prosecution. However, he argued that the judiciary should not meddle with decisions school administrators make that are in the interest of keeping their schools safe.