Supreme Court Rules 8-1 Child Strip Search Illegal, Thomas Dissents

In its second eight-to-one decision this week, the Supreme Court rules "a school’s strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal."

The lone dissent: Clarence Thomas.

Savana Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills — the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."

On Monday: Clarence Thomas—the court's lone black justice—was the sole vote in another 8-1 decision that supported a key provision in the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. Thomas argued the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary "because the explicit racial segregation of the Jim Crow era is gone.

Comments

[mjolnir202]

Clarence Thomas disents. In this case! Unbelievable! Only the authorities have any rights under Justice Thomas' reading of the constitution it seems. Seriously, is he one of the most horrible people in America? That was a rhetorical question.

[Mad Professah]

Certifiably insane.

Nearly 18 years after he joined the Court, Thomas is still (and has never been) in the mainstream of judicial thought.

[alicia banks]

oooooooo i hate this man

shame!

[JG, III]

I’m not sure how he got his degree. But, he must have been abused as a child.

[Honut SInti]

Thomas must have a well deep and absolute distaste for everyone. His actions on the bench just boggle the mind.

[Luther]

How does the public get this man a mental health evaluation?? He's not playing with a full deck and I keep asking myself just what did they do to him as a kid, treat him like Celie or what he really had to have had some abuse to be this filled with rage and hate.