Education Law

Stafford v. Redding: Thoughts & Resources

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted cert. in the case of Stafford v. Redding. This is the Savana Redding strip search case that came out of Arizona a couple of years ago and I have been following along with here at the blog. Readers know I took a personal interest in this case as not only did I disagree with the opinion, but Savana also took the time to comment on the blog, which I thought was nice. Anyway, I am presenting to a class tonight related to search and seizure issues, so I thought this would be a good time to update this case with some thoughts and resources. 

Here is my original opinion on this case and it has not changed over since I first posted on it:

I personally feel this is clearly outside the bounds of the Constitution and even further outside the bounds of common sense.

Thoughts: I am sort of disappointed the Supreme Court took this case. The en banc Ninth Circuit got it right ... this was an unjustified strip search. Here's the bottom line - the search was for ibuprofen. End of story in my opinion ... no strip search can possibly be reasonable in scope for that purpose. Moreover, though, the facts simply don't lend themselves to this strip search. There was little, if any, solid evidence that Redding possessed this ibuprofen in the first place. The only evidence the principal was acting on was a tip from another student. It is questionable whether this search was justified at its inception anyway. Probably, like some of the judges in the en banc opinion, I would conclude that some search was justified based off the evidence supplied by the other student. But, at some point that justification I think went out the window. I don't think you can just continue pushing the search indefinitely based on a weak justification. Perhaps it is better to consider each new search of an item, a new search. In this case, for instance, the search left the principal's office and moved to the school nurse's office. Can we not consider that a new search for purposes of reasonable suspicion? I'll be interested in how the Court treats that issue as it split the en banc court quite a bit. Either way, the Supreme Court can provide some much needed guidance (last significant case was 1985) on student searches.       

Resources: 

Ninth Circuit Opinion (en banc).

Ninth Circuit Opinion (3 judge panel). 

Mark Walsh on the grant of cert.  

Adjunct Law Prof Blog on the first 9th Circuit opinion. 

MSNBC video on the case. 

Search and seizure law generally from the Center for Public Education. 

Previous Posts of Mine on this Case: 

Wins en banc appeal.

Goes to en banc appeal.

Continues to get attention (with video embed).

Original Post (with comment from Savana Redding).

Full post as published by Edjurist on February 17, 2009 (boomark / email).