There are many precedents that support my client's decision to resist the search and seizure of his urine by the school district. The most prominent of these is
Tinker et al. v. Des Moines Independent Community School District et al.
As Justice Fortas put it when he delivered the majority opinion,
It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate
.
Tinker et al. v. Des Moines Independent Community School District et al. helped to establish that students have similar constitutional rights at school as they do in other settings. This reasoning is also applicable to Fourth Amendment rights; id est to not be subject to unreasonable searches or seizures.
Another important precedent is Doe v. Renfrow . In this case, a lower court ruled that a strip search of Diane Doe, a Junior High School Student, was unconstitutional. A drug test involving the collection of urine is just as invasive of my client's privacy and Fourth Amendment rights as this strip search was to Ms. Doe.
Something else that is notable about the case Doe v. Renfrow is that while the Supreme Court did not actually hear this case, Justice Brennan did weigh in on it:
Moreover, even if the Fourth Amendment permits school authorities, acting in loco parentis, to conduct exploratory inspections if they have ' reasonable cause to believe' contraband will be found, that standard could not apply where, as here, the school officials planned and conducted the search with the full participation of local police officials. Once school authorities enlist the aid of police officers to help maintain control over the school's drug problem, they step outside the bounds of any quasi-parental relationship, and their conduct must be judged according to the traditional probable-cause standard.
Justice Brennan stated that if measures involving search and seizure are more extreme than actions that most parents would take with their own children, then the defense that school officials are acting in loco parentis is invalid. While many parents search through their children's belongings for drug paraphernalia, few, if any, would go so far as to actually send their children's urine to a lab to be tested for illegal substances.
My client's refusal to submit to a search and seizure of his urine is supported by many legal precedents.
Copyright Nef 2006