Opinion ID: 12443
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Majority's Mistaken Reliance On Pre-Skinner Special

Text: 95 Needs Dicta In Inapposite Non-Drug Test Cases 96 The Supreme Court did not actually establish and apply the special needs category permitting suspicionless urinalysis drug-testing of certain types of employees until 1989 in Skinner and Von Raab. Previously, the Supreme Court Justices had spoken of special needs in dicta and in a separate opinion in a few cases that did not involve drug testing or a personal privacy invasion as serious as the compelled collection and analysis of a person's urine. Moreover, the Supreme Court in those cases upheld the search or seizure as having been based upon a reasonable individualized suspicion. 97 In New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985), the Court found that a teacher's report that a high school student had been smoking on school premises contrary to rules amounted to a reasonable suspicion that the student's purse contained cigarettes. In O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 107 S.Ct. 1492, 94 L.Ed.2d 714 (1987), the Court found that charges of specific improprieties gave an employer the individualized suspicion of employment related sexual and other misconduct of Dr. Ortega to justify a search of his desk on government premises. In Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987), the Court found that the tip received by a police officer that a probationer was storing guns in his apartment provided reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. 98 The majority opinion's attempt to characterize these cases as representing the establishment of expansible special needs categories prior to and unlimited by Skinner, Von Raab and Vernonia, is untenable. The majority's reasoning is not only inconsistent with the Skinner trilogy, it is based entirely on dicta and it completely disregards the incongruous subject matter and holdings of those decisions as well as other statements contradictory to its thesis in the opinions. See Griffin, 483 U.S. at 876, 107 S.Ct. at 3169; O'Connor, 480 U.S. at 726, 107 S.Ct. at 1502; T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342 & n. 8, 105 S.Ct. at 743 & n. 8.