Originally posted by: Brainonska511
Originally posted by: allisolm
I'm confused. What did she win? The article says the San Francisco court had alreasdy ruled against the school and said the search was illegal. So what was she appealing to the Supreme Court about? I'm missing something.
It was probably the school that appealed it to the SC after it lost in the Appeals court.
Multiple causes of action, counter claims, etc. Most cases to the SC are not Yes/No Check this Box type cases.
Scotusblog:
The decision below is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded in an opinion by Justice Souter, with the Court dividing 8-1 on the Fourth Amendment question and 7-2 on the qualified immunity question. Justice Stevens filed a partial dissent joined by Justice Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg filed an opinion concurring and dissenting in part. Justice Thomas filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. The Court held that the strip search did violate the Constitution but it wasn?t clear that the violation was established at the time of this incident. And a partridge in a pear tree.
wiki:
A District Court judge ruled for the school district and for school officials, finding that the tip from another student provided a sufficient justification for the search of Savana. Requiring her to strip, the District Court found, was sufficiently related to officials? suspicion, and was not ?excessively intrusive.? That ruling was upheld by a Ninth Circuit Court panel, but the en banc Ninth Circuit reversed, ruling for Savana on divided votes.
The Ninth Circuit focused on the fact that this was a strip search, and ruled that it would take greater justification for that type of search because it was more intrusive. Based on what school officials knew at the time, a strip search was not appropriate, and, moreover, its scope was too great given that evidence, the majority concluded. Rejecting the school officials' claims that they were entitled to qualified immunity for the strip-search, the Circuit Court said they should have known ? from at least the Supreme Court's decision on school searches of students' belongings in New Jersey v. T.L.O. in 1985 ? that such an intrusive search would not be constitutionally valid.
Petition for Certiorari
The school district, principal Wilson and others associated with the Safford schools, citing studies that ?show a troubling rise in the abuse of prescription? and over-the-counter drugs among teenagers, asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. The petition presented two questions: what is the scope of the Fourth Amendment as applied to the search of a student for distributing a prescription drug at school, and whether the Ninth Circuit wrongly deviated from principles of legal immunity for school officials searching for drugs on campus
