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MC, thanks for the link. We were talking about this at length last night in my Right to Privacy class, so I wanted to see what people's opinions were on the subject. (I'm getting to be a nerd on these issues, so please excuse the length of the post)
It's an interesting case for the Court to take, and part of me wonders if there reason for taking it was because the 9th Circuit went so far above and beyond the Court precedent.
As I understand it, after T.L.O (another case involving a search of a student at a public school), there's a two-fold test that the court has to go through. First, is the search reasonable at its inception, and second, whether it was permissible in its scope. T.L.O was in the context of a non-law enforcement search, though, and it seems like the 9th Circuit's opinion is erasing the distinction between law enforcement and non-law enforcement searches by seeking a "probable cause" requirement. That, and there's the whole qualified immunity issue, where the Circuit said that the law on searches is "clearly established," kind of funny in light of the fact that the Circuit's decision was 6-5.
In my reading of the case and the news articles, I'd guess that the search would fail under the T.L.O. standard; even if it was justified at its inception, the scope of the search seems "impermissible" to say the least. Seriously, a strip search, to that extent, for ibuprofen? All based on the accusations of one student?
That said, I agree that I think this will be reversed, because the 9th Circuit went WAY too far in its analysis.
/ end dorkiness
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