I too am troubled by the language in the ruling saying school officials could strip search if the threat was great enough. Maybe I’m wrong, but anything threatening enough to warrant a strip search should probably involve the cops as well.

That being the case, my opinion has changed(too bad one can’t edit posts here) and the answer should be that they didn’t have probable cause. In other words, I was wrong.

The decision was still bad, though, as they indicated that the search would’ve been acceptable if the “threat” were great enough. I disliked it less when I misunderstood it.:-(

Did the officials have probable cause to conduct the search(reasonable suspicion)? Yes.

Are you really going to argue that a tip from another student and *no* other evidence that Savana Redding had any ibuprofen on her was probable cause for a strip search with no due process? Clearly, there was not probable cause for a strip search at the point the school officials had searched her backpack and her clothing and found *nothing*. The facts of the case speak to this being an open-and-shut case for the SCOTUS, but the muddling factor is the latitude granted to school officials in maintaining an orderly environment.

If anything, the Bill of Rights should default towards the citizen, not the government. If it doesn’t, what is its purpose?

Let’s examine the questions at issue:

Did the officials have probable cause to conduct the search(reasonable suspicion)? Yes. Were the officials justified in extending the search as far as they did(could more pills have been hidden where they were searching)? Yes. Hence, the search did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

See how easy that is? And it doesn’t stop the family from suing the school regarding the fact that the school shouldn’t have performed the search. As soon as the prescription drugs were discovered(which, I believe, was before the strip search) it was officially a criminal matter and should’ve been turned over to the police.

It seems that the Constitution is just too simple for some people to grasp…

One reading of the Amendment is certainly that judges get to decide in all cases what public school searches are reasonable and what aren’t. This has not traditionally been what the courts have said. Rather, they have said that administrators have a great deal of discretion to decide what is “reasonable” and what isn’t.

Much of constitutional law is like this. For example the Fifth Amendment says that private property can only be taken for “public use” but the courts have given local governments great discretion in deciding what is a “public use.” As long as they say the right words, courts generally “defer” to the expressed judgment of the relevant governing body.

Thomas’ point is that no matter how unreasonable the justices think the search, the school’s administration has articulated a reasonable sounding reason, and the nine should defer to that expressed judgment. Souter, on the other hand, says that while administrators have a lot of discretion, in this case, they’ve gone over the line.

As a matter of common sense, I think you have to agree with Souter. But then I also think that common sense requires the courts to strike down a hell of a lot of eminent domain takings. Instead, they defer. Thomas is hardly off the apple cart.

I think a judge can easily see this as “unreasonable search and seizure” – clearly unconstitutional. That was Souter’s point. And that was where Thomas fell off the apple cart.

The Supreme Court wasn’t asked to decide whether this strip search was a good idea. I think most of us can agree that it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. The Court was asked to decide whether the U.S. Constitution allows it. That is a question on which reasonable people can differ–and Clarence Thomas is no less reasonable than the other 8 Justices.

It is so, so tempting to just assume, “the Constitution is a good thing; therefore it must not allow bad things–and since this is obviously a bad thing, it must be unconstitutional.” But that’s a lousy way of deciding constitutional cases–not least because people disagree about the relative goodness and badness of things.

Justice David Souter rationally argued “there was no indication of any danger to the student from the power or quantity of the drugs, no any reason to suspect [she] was carrying any pills in her underwear.” In the dissent, Thomas mindlessly argued “judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in a school environment.”

However, judges are allowed to use common sense and rational. Maintaining “quiet”? I’ve never really thought highly of Thomas’ perspectives – this is just reason number 75 why he aligns himself with the crazier side of conservatism.