Law, order, and the rights of criminal defendants 133a pipe, rolling papers, plastic bags, and enough cash to suggest that the girl was selling
marijuana. Yet, in other cases, the Court ruled that there are limits to searches by
school officials and that students have the right to privacy. For example, in 2003 school
administrators in Safford, Arizona, responding to a tip that a student was in possession
of prescription-strength ibuprofen pills, subjected 13-year-old Savana Redding to a
strip search. After searching her backpack and outer clothing and finding nothing, the
police told Savana “to pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out the
elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area to some degree.”
The Court ruled that this search violated her Fourth Amendment rights because “the
content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion.”^115
Police searches inherently involve a clash between public safety and an individual’s
private freedom from government intrusions. These issues came to the fore with the
passage of the Patriot Act of 2001 after the terrorist attacks of September 11. (The
official name of this law is the USA PATRIOT Act, which is an acronym for the “Uniting
and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism Act.”) Several of the most controversial parts of the act strengthen
police surveillance powers; make it easier to conduct “sneak and peek” searches (the
police enter a home with a warrant, look for evidence, and do not inform the suspect
that they searched his or her home until months later); broaden Internet surveillance;
increase the government’s access to individuals’ library, banking, and medical records;
and permit roving wiretaps for suspected terrorists.
Most police searches conducted without warrants occur because suspects consent
to being searched. Officers are not required to tell a suspect that he or she may say no or
request a warrant. Here are examples of other instances in which the Court will allow a
warrantless search:- Conducting a search at the time of a legal arrest that “is confined to the immediate
vicinity of the arrest.” - Collecting evidence that was not included in the search warrant but is out in the
open and in plain view. - Using a police roadblock to search for information about a crime, to check for illegal
immigrants or contraband at borders, or to conduct sobriety checks (but not for
random drug searches or license checks), as long as the roadblock stops all drivers. - Searching containers in cars if the officer has probable cause to suspect criminal
activity. - Searching passengers and the passenger area of a car if the driver has been stopped
for a traffic offense (because people in automobiles do not have the same Fourth
Amendment protections as people do in their homes). - Searching an area where the officer thinks there is either a crime in progress or an
“armed and dangerous” suspect. - Searching school lockers, with probable cause.
- Searching for weapons and/or to prevent the destruction of evidence.^116
Strip searches after an arrest and before the suspect is put in jail were upheld in
2012 by the Supreme Court even when there was no suspicion of illegal substances.
The dissenting justices argued that “the humiliation of a visual strip-search” after
being “arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal and riding a
bicycle without an audible bell” should not be allowed under the Fourth Amendment.^117
In 2013, the Court ruled that a DNA swab of an arrested suspect is simply for
identification and therefore is no more intrusive than a photograph or fingerprint. The
late Justice Scalia, a strong defender of privacy rights, wrote in his dissent: “I doubt that
the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to openFull_05_APT_64431_ch04_102-147.indd 133 16/11/18 1:31 PM