Washington Supreme Court Rules Against Suspicionless Student Drug Testing
In an unanimous decision released March 13, 2008, the Supreme Court of the State of Washington ruled that suspicionless random drug testing as a requirement to participate in extracurricular school sponsored athletic activities is unconstitutional. The court’s majority ruling explains:
We are aware there are strong arguments, policies, and opinions marshaled on both sides of this debate, but we are concerned only with the policy’s constitutionality. And while we are loath to disturb the decisions of a local school board, we will not hesitate to intervene when constitutional protections are implicated.No matter the drawbacks or merits of the school district’s random drug testing, we cannot let the policy stand if it offends our constitution. Students “do not ’shed their constitutional rights’ at the schoolhouse door.”
The question before us is narrow: Whether Wahkiakum School District’s blanket policy requiring student athletes to submit to random drug testing is constitutional. The United States Supreme Court has held such activity does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the federal constitution. But we have never decided whether a suspicionless, random drug search of student athletes violates article I, section 7 of our state constitution. Therefore, we must decide whether our state constitution follows the federal standard or provides more protection to students in the state of Washington.
The decision continues, explaining the reasoning of the justices:
Though we have not considered drug testing in public schools, we have a long history of striking down exploratory searches not based on at least reasonable suspicion….In Mesiani, this court held a random roadblock sobriety checkpoint program initiated by Seattle police was “highly intrusive” search and violated “the right to not be disturbed in one’s private affairs guaranteed by article I, section 7.” In Kuehn, this court held a search of student luggage required by school officials as a condition of participation in a school-sponsored trip to Canada violated both the Fourth Amendment and article I, section 7. We opined, “[i]n the absence of individualized suspicion of wrongdoing, the search is a general search. ‘[W]e never authorize general, exploratory searches,’” (alteration in original) and such searches are “anathema to the Fourth Amendment and Const. art. 1, § 7 protections.”
In conclusion, Justice Richard B. Sanders wrote:
We cannot countenance random searches of public school student athletes with our article I, section 7 jurisprudence. As stated earlier, we require a warrant except for rare occasions, which we jealously and narrowly guard. We decline to adopt a doctrine similar to the federal special needs exception in the context of randomly drug testing student athletes. In sum, no argument has been presented that would bring the random drug testing within any reasonable interpretation of the constitutionally required “authority of law.”
The concurrences for the case are available here, here, and here.
Vermont Supreme Court Affirms Privacy Rights
The Vermont Supreme court has affirmed the right of citizens to be free from intrusive government aerial surveillance, and overturned the conviction of a marijuana cultivator. The ruling establishes that Vermonters enjoy a right to privacy that “that ascends into the airspace above their homes and property”. Associate Justice Marilyn Skoglund wrote in her majority opinion:
With technological advances in surveillance techniques, the privacy-protection question is no longer whether police have physically invaded a constitutionally protected area. Rather, the inquiry is whether the surveillance invaded a constitutionally protected legitimate expectation of privacy.
In writing a partial dissent, Associate Justice John Dooley wrote:
The essential question is when aerial surveillance will be considered a search. We do not serve the public interest if the answer to that seemingly simple question can be determined only in hindsight, after evaluating myriad factors.
It seems that a reasonable expectation of privacy is in the same realm of “myriad factors” that police deal with everyday when considering suspicious activity and alleged crimes. The Burlington Free Press published an editorial applauding the decision, calling it a common sense ruling and including the following apt comparison:
If someone were to climb on a ladder to peer over a fence into our yard, we would consider that an invasion of our privacy. Looking down into the yard from a helicopter hovering 100 feet above would be taking the act of peeking over the fence to the nth degree.
source:Burlington Free Press
