thank you honor if the court opposing counsel i represent savannah redding who is the plaintiff appellant in this matter on october eighteenth two thousand and three  was thirteen years old and an eighth grader safford middle school she had been an honor student for two years she had no prior disciplinary record because another eighth grader was caught with was required to strip to her underwear and expose her breast and pubic area to two adult school officials this was done without any parental notice without any further investigation of the accuracy of the eighth graders accusation it was done for the purported need to find the source of medicine there was no more dangerous than what any student could have obtained law is detailed in the briefs and i won't recount it here in detail other than to summarize it is this reasonable suspicion is required what is reasonable varies with the context and requires a balancing of need students are invaded no more than necessary to achieve preservation of order at the school the cornfield case cornfield versus consolidated high elaborated in stated that as the intrusive this was not your analysis tasking of a sports team as was the case in several of the cases cited it was not a locker it was not a purse it was not a pocket it was not her clothes this was effectively a n search of an adolescent what the courts have recognized as the most awkward and vulnerable age let's go back to what the school officials knew or didn't know my amp person is  apparently be abusing alcohol all under age and some indication that she had supplied the alcohol is not correct your honor there was that accusation new start with a yes or no let me ask you yes your honor there was that allegation so they part because i think you've given it's only a piece of the picture and the school and authorities had more to go on and acted based on more than you've given us so we need to flesh out the picture understand they have the information from jordan they have the information that your client has left maris reasonable suspicion that maybe your client's got it all she's not supposed to have i left out the piece about they had the these the information from jordan that pills were going to were being distributed and that at lunch time that day several students were planning to take these pills this means jordan who had previously been brought to school by his mother for having passed out after taking pills distributed at school i think we need to break that down your honor break it down just but look part of my problem with the approach you've taken so far as you break it down piece by piece you lose the whole collection of facts the school authorities were reacting to and that's actually what i was attempting to get to maybe a little slower than i needed to let me let me give it a try and where i was leading with this was this your honor is that we believe under the case law that the the reasonable most of the suspicion in the need has to be tied to the search that was undertaken in the invasiveness of the search so if we start from the first step that this was the most invasive search possible how do we link that back to that well it really wasn't the most invasive search possible sort of a body put on a literal strip search they could on a body cavity search they could have done it was somebody who wasn't the school nurse i mean there are lots of lots of ways they could have made this more invasive under the circumstances and given that your client was wearing clothes they didn't have any pockets that she was going to secreted something there were a lot of other places to look so well ok wasn't the most invasive search possible we would submit that it was certainly a very invasive search if not the most invasive search possible given that and given her age and the context which the poorest say that we have to look at when judging recently most of the suspicion and getting to your p of out the reasonableness of that suspicion and that whole family of facts that the the other side has cited as a basis for that suspicion how many of those you are tied to the search that was done very few in fact if you break it down and read it carefully on the affidavits the only evidence that specifically times the suspicion that the invasiveness of the search is the accusation that my client had pills that's the only thing that gets  that justifies a search high for underwear now i'd add at least a couple more the first being the link between your client and morrison because morris who is the accuser reza turns out to be not just another student it turns out to be her good friend  close so morris's ratting on her good friend gives some credibility to mercer's accusation well and then you throw in jordan who had turned out to have produced no evidence that was corroborated before he's the one that's reporting is going to be something going down that day and he's the one that put some respect in your client together at the party back in august where he alleges perhaps falsely but he alleges that up the hall was served at your client's home by your client's parents but again your honor details of the prior activity and the details of who had provided drugs wasn't mentioned at all so they got it not at all he gave apparently a very detailed description of what had been going on and the only thing the only thing that he justified the search that was done the only thing can be moroseness word and you compare it to the case law that is upheld searches and look at the investigation that was done after an accusation and those cases it's night and day if they  my best answer to that is it's probably within your scratch and it is really a legal issue of law there are not fact issues relating to that question in the record before us nonetheless it was never reached evaluating addressed by the district court and therefore in my view would be appropriate for we can hear from the school district this time stronger thank you this case is about protecting  discipline on the school campus and so when we judge those facts the court very clearly says we're going to combat it that important interests that important governmental interest of keeping these kids safe and the way we're going to going to accommodate that is we're going to relax the standard on on it's true that there had been something circulated before that allegedly caused your in the past out but it's also true that the school officials knew before they conducted this search that they weren't dealing with anything other than i've been profane and some over the counter  cold remedy so how intrusive can you truly be if you know what you're dealing with is something that if not entirely over the counter it's basically tylenol right well your honor what  it is a prescription level pain reliever and anti inflammatory you can take two tylenol to get to the same level of these four hundred milligrams in a time almost two hundred milligrams but i'm not sure if it's the same if it's the same chemical in grading you on that and that's the point is again the reason for the end of the reasonableness standard as opposed while in charge i don't see why don't you know the answer that question of whether it's the same chemical and greed and it's obviously a prescription level and killer but the level of danger is somewhat important in this case and terms of what the level of intrusiveness of the search that would be permitted it is somewhat important and is a factor to consider but we have to back it up and you don't know after that you don't know the answer to know iran or i all i know is that it's a prescription drug that's required by medical prescription in order to take and it is for pain relief and it is for an anti inflammation and that's what the poison control center said but we have to back up that analysis and ask ourselves what did mr wilson the assistant principal know at the time that he's making this call on that one and on the fly he doesn't have the ability in the time other than to have the nurse call poison control and say what kind of medication is this in the record response he gets back is it's a prescription drug you know addition to that it your position that if we didn't have this history her supplying alcohol and all these other instances that this search would have been justified just on the basis of the ibuprofen search would have been justified on the basis of the prescription level drug medication because of the speed and efficiency with which these administrators have to work and that's recognized in williams it says we're going to allow a ministry of discretion in these kinds of decisions because we're not going to put a principle to the task of trying to quantify or make a qualitative decision as to what kind of drug is being used what he does know is a couple of years earlier almost the exact identical situation occur my question was limited if you were just confined to the facts of the students saying i got i got the tylenol from her do you think the level of intrusiveness one of them justified it becomes suspicious at that point and the reason is your honor is because i want to see cooperation of the witnesses statement and that's where i look to the totality of the circumstances in this case is your answer no then i think it's a closer question i guess my answer would be that because the health and safety of the students are still of the issue i still think it would be justified but he would have to be i mean we put be put under greater scrutiny on how many middle schools there are there is i believe there are i don't believe there's two but i don't know this is one of two i believe so how big is the town of stafford fifteen twenty thousand people how far away with the parents don't know your honor is any reason offer why the parents weren't notified yes your honor the parent was not notified because principal our system principal wilson felt like he was dealing with an exemption see that he had to collect the pills before the students can make that student feel more comfortable and might be a policy that the court would consider but your honor that's not the standard wasn't the standard under which the principal was working on that day we do not have to choose the least intrusive means to conduct a search we just have to act reasonable and the fact that there might have been a lesser intrusive means such as having the mother there making her feel more comfortable doesn't change the fact analysis as to the reasonable so the scope of the search could the school nurse of conduct of the body cavity search you know your honor why because that would be too intrusive how do you draw the line i think you have to draw the line based on what the law says which is these guys are going to have to use common sense and that's the best we can give you that's the best guidance we can give you reasonable it's under the circumstances and use common sense i think a body cavity search would go too far strip search of a thirteen year old girl is not the truth your honor it is intrusive but it's reasonably intrusive it's not excessively intrusive it's the same type of search in singleton and also not in hand on this money we have a kid who has potentially grabs on a pocket list clothes she could easily be concealing that drug on her person she could easily take that drug in a panic to try to hide the evidence i exposing the school to the same danger exactly but the difference is the accessibility to the drug it's going to be i presumably difficult for her to retrieve from a body cavity than it is if she's just got secret and her bra or in her underpants also that doesn't necessarily mean calling the parents having them in the room doesn't necessarily mean that you have to take the school nurse out it just major informing the parents we're going to do something that's highly intrusive to a student i just don't understand the the reason why you wouldn't call the parents under those are you saying you had this need that you had this student in confinement you had people present with her all the time you talk about being able to pull this stuff out and take it you have people there all the time there's no reason that you couldn't add a parent to that equation i agree with you there's no reason you can't but the constitutional standard doesn't say you have to it says you do not have to use the least restrictive means you just have to act reasonable under scope the item sought was a small item give me up to the reasonableness of the search however we certainly said in the context of miranda another constitutional rights with juveniles that having a parent there makes a difference judge thomas you are correct on that that it certainly would make them that it would make a difference in making the student certainly more comfortable but that doesn't change the fact analysis as to the reasonableness of the scope of the search under the here i guess i would wrap up with this consider where the logic of the finding of the trial court and the position of the other side takes us a small pillow non narcotic call an accusation by a of the item issue clearly if we allow a search that takes us anywhere this pill may be it opens the door for a body cavity search there's got to be a line drawn somewhere and i guess it's our position your honor that where that