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On The Front Lines

Victory: Federal Court Agrees that North Carolina School Officials Should be Held Accountable for Strip-Searching 10-Year-Old Boy for Lost $20 Bill

September 10, 2013

CLINTON, N.C. —A federal court has agreed to hold school officials accountable for stripping a 10-year-old boy down to his underwear in an aggressive strip-search that included rimming the edge of his underwear, allegedly in an attempt to find another student’s missing $20 bill (which was later found on the cafeteria floor). The Rutherford Institute had challenged the school’s attempt to have the lawsuit against it dismissed, insisting that there is no justification for the school’s decision to so egregiously violate the fifth-grader’s Fourth Amendment rights or for the alleged failure to train school employees in how to appropriately deal with such matters.

In issuing a recommendation and a report in Cox v. Sampson County Board of Education, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Webb agreed with arguments made by Rutherford Institute attorneys that there is no justification for the school’s decision to so egregiously violate the privacy of a fifth grader because student strip searches are allowed only in the interest of school safety. Magistrate Webb also upheld claims against the defendants for battery and invasion of privacy.

“Such outrageous conduct by school officials not only dehumanizes students but it also deprives them of the fundamental right of privacy under our Constitution,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. “These types of searches clearly illustrate the danger inherent in giving school administrators carte blanche authority to violate the civil liberties and privacy rights of students. Do we really want young people to be taught that they have no true rights and that government authorities have total power and can violate their rights as they see fit?”

On Friday, June 12, 2012, J.C., a fifth-grader attending Union Elementary School in Clinton, N.C., was in the school cafeteria eating lunch when a female classmate dropped money onto the floor. J.C. went under the table, retrieved the coins and returned them to the girl. Upon approaching J.C.’s table, Assistant Principal Teresa Holmes was informed that someone had dropped $20 on the floor, that the money was missing, and that J.C. had gone under the table in search of the missing money. Despite J.C.’s insistence that he did not have the money, Holmes ordered him to go to her office and with a school custodian present, interrogated the 10-year-old again. Again, J.C. denied having the money, going so far as to pull out his pockets to show that he had no money. Insisting that she had no choice but to search J.C. and was within her legal right to do so, the assistant principal then allegedly ordered J.C. to remove his shoes, socks, pants and shirt. With J.C. stripped to his underwear, Holmes ran her finger around the waistband of his undershorts. No money was found. However, while J.C. was being searched, another teacher arrived to report that the $20 had been found on the cafeteria floor.

In filing suit against the school for violating J.C.’s Fourth Amendment rights, Rutherford Institute attorneys pointed to a 2009 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Safford Unif. Sch. Dist. # 1 v. Redding which held that school officials do not have the authority to strip search a student absent evidence that the student possesses contraband that poses a danger. Affiliate attorney Deborah N. Meyer of Meyer Law Offices, P.A., is assisting The Rutherford Institute in its representation of the Cox family.

This reminds me of a situation I found myself in a few years back. Myself and a handful of my co-workers were working an extra duty detail for a family owned muti-million dollar business. One of the owners came to me and demanded that a female co-worker strip search an employee. I asked her why and she stated that the they were firing the employee because she had stolen $100. She wanted us to get her $100 before the employee left the premise. I kindly told her that we could not do that because it was inconsistent with our agency policy, not to mention that the 9th circuit U.S. Court of Appeal recently had ruled against the LAPD in a strip search case. (Basically the courts have ruled that the level of intrusiveness of a search must match the severity of the crime.)

She go mad and stated that we were employed by her and we had to do what she said. I politely told her that by engaging our services, she agreed that we would provide security, but since we work under color of law we only due what the law allows us to do. Long story short she backed down, but was nonetheless very upset that we didn't retrieve her $100.

I stopped working that detail shortly after. They didn't like it when patrons sagged their pants. So they wanted us to police saggy pants. We were told to tell the patrons to pull there pants up. If the refused to comply they wanted us to escort them off the premise without the refund of a hefty entry fee. Since we have no law prohibiting saggy pants in our jurisdiction I chose not to get myself in a situation where I could be forced violate someone's civil rights and have deal with the consequences if they got smart and contacted my employer or god forbid, an attorney.

hey, $20 bucks buys a lot of Meth...