9th Circuit Strip-Search School Case Says No Immunity for School Officials

9th Circuit Rules for Student in Strip-Search for Ibuprofen and Finds No Immunity for School Officials [9th Circuit Court of Appeals, 7/11/08]: In Redding v. Safford Unified School District #1 the 9th Circuit Court, in a stunning 6-5 decision, said: “On the basis of an uncorroborated tip from the culpable eighth grader, public middle school officials searched futilely for prescription-strength ibuprofen by strip-searching thirteen year-old honor student Savana Redding. We conclude that the school officials violated Savana’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The strip search of Savana was neither “justified at its inception,” nor, as a grossly intrusive search of a middle school girl to locate pills with the potency of two over-the-counter Advil capsules, “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances” giving rise to its initiation. Because these constitutional principles were clearly established at the time that middle school officials directed and conducted the search, the school official in charge is not entitled to qualified immunity from suit for the unconstitutional strip search of Savana.”
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Read the account in “The Recorder” [7/14/08], go to:
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