Bella Mullen

5/14/15
P.3/4
IRAC: Safford Unified School District vs. April Redding
This is an at school search and seizure case. In 2003 several students from a Safford
Unified School District school were found with prescription pills. Marissa Glines, Savanas
friend, has a private planner with contraband items in it. Marissa states that Savana gave
them to her. Months before this Savana was found to be part of a rowdy group of students.
After the contraband items are found in her planner Savana Redding is called into the office.
Savana denies ownership of the items. Savana consents to a search of her bag by school
officials and no pills are found. After Savana is instructed to go to the nurse who asks her to
take off her jacket, socks and shoes. She then goes through a very invasive strip search.
Because nothing was found she was then asked to remove the rest of her clothes, pants
and a T-shirt without pockets, leaving her almost completely naked. She was told to shift her
bra to the side and shake it and pull the elastic up on her underpants, exposing private
areas. Still, no pills were found. Savana's mom sued the school district for violating her
daughter's fourth amendment rights. The legal question the court must answer is did the
school official's search of Savana Reddings person violate her 4th Amendment rights?
The courts decision is to find out whether or not the school officials violated Savana
Reddings 4th Amendment rights. The Fourth Amendment outlines The right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated. This basic right is morphed in a school setting under En
Loco Parentis. This allows teachers and school officials to act as students legal guardians
at school as if they were their parents. There are some limitations when determining
reasonableness of any at school search involves a twofold inquiry: first, one must consider
"whether the . . . action was justified at its inception," second, one must determine whether
the search as actually conducted "was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances
which justified the interference in the first place." In another at school search and seizure
case, New Jersey v. T.L.O (1985) outlines these rules clearly. In this case a student was
caught smoking in a bathroom and the school searched her bag. Because this was also in a
school setting the two cases are similar.
In the Safford Unified School District vs. April Redding case Savana is judged and searched
based on assumptions of her past actions and the word of other students. After the school
searched Marissa Glines, who was found with actual pills on her person, they take her word
that Savana gave them to her and did not search her anymore. The school staff understood
that Marissa and Savana were part of a group of troublemaker students and they based
their assumptions off of this. The court established that Wilsons suspicion was enough to
justify a search of Savanas backpack and outer clothing (3). In this case the content of the
suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion (4). This violates the first rule for
determining a reason for the search. Wilson could have asked Marissa and Savana further
questions to fully understand the situation at hand. An overly invasive strip search was not
justified with the knowledge Wilson had. Wilson also violates the second rule establishing
the limitation placed on the searcher and the reasonability of the search. Wilson must have
been aware of the nature and limited threat of the specific drugs he was searching for...

Wilson had no reason to suspect large amounts of drugs were being passed around (4).
Wilson should have fully assessed the situation and recognized the limitations on him.
Wilson did several searches and asked multiple questions and found nothing. In relative
scope this search was not Justified and violated Savana Reddings Fourth Amendment
rights.
The court came together to decide weather Savana Reddings 4th Amendment rights were
violated by the strip search conducted by officials of the Safford Unified School District.
Wilson did not have enough reasons to invasively strip search Savana Redding. He needed
more probable cause to go directly to pinning this on Savana. He also did not apply the
limitations that obviously should have applied to his search. The school official's search of
Savana Reddings person violated her 4th Amendment rights.