High Court Skeptical of Strip-Search Case

Savana Redding’s lawyers made their case before the Supreme Court yesterday, condemning the strip-search of a 13-year-old in a hunt for ibuprofen as unreasonable search and seizure. But the justices were skeptical, the LA Times reports, with their questions indicating they were leery of limiting school officials’ powers to look for drugs, which might be more serious than ibuprofen. “How is the school administrator supposed to know?” asked John Roberts.

Redding’s ACLU lawyer said the search was unreasonable no matter the drug, because there was no reason to think the honor student was concealing pills in her underwear. Stephen Breyer wasn’t so sure. “They will stick them in their underwear,” he said, of kids and pills. “And in my experience, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear.” Breyer went on to wonder if strip searches were particularly embarrassing, given that students change clothes for gym class. (More US Supreme Court stories.)