Thursday, June 18, 2009

REASONING OF THE COURT

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit eventually ruled that the search violated Savana's Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and that Vice Principal Kerry Wilson could be found personally liable for ordering the search.

"The public school officials who strip searched Savana acted contrary to all reason and common sense," wrote Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, who reached back to a previous court decision for the quote that has come to define the case: "It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a thirteen-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2009-04-21-supreme-court-strip-search_N.htm

On the other hand, it apparently stumped other constitutional scholars. The first judge who heard the Reddings' case agreed with the school system that the search was justified because of accusations that school officials had heard about Savana. He threw out the suit.

A divided three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld that decision.

And while eight judges on the circuit eventually ruled that the search was unconstitutional, several of the judges said Wilson could not have been expected to navigate the shifting legal standards for when such searches are allowed.

"Searches are often fruitless, and students' motives are often benign, but teachers, unlike courts, do not act with the benefit of hindsight," wrote Judge Michael Daly Hawkins.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2009-04-21-supreme-court-strip-search_N.htm

The end result was the right one Reddin won the case and now she is attending college and it only took 6 or 7 years to figure out that a strip search on a 13 year old girl without the knowledge of her parents was wrong.

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