Savana Redding and her mother, April, are plaintiffs in the case Safford Unified School District v. Redding, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court today. The Court ruled that school officials violated Savana’s constitutional rights when they strip searched her based on a classmate’s uncorroborated accusation that she previously possessed ibuprofen. Savana was 13-years-old at the time of the incident.

People of all ages expect to have the right to privacy in their homes, belongings, and most importantly, their persons. But for far too long, students have been losing these rights the moment they step foot onto public school property — a lesson I learned firsthand when I was strip-searched by school officials just because another student who was in trouble pointed the finger at me. I do not believe that school officials should be allowed to strip-search kids in school, ever. And though the U.S. Supreme Court did not go quite so far, it did rule that my constitutional rights were violated when I was strip-searched based on nothing more than a classmate’s uncorroborated accusation that I had given her ibuprofen. I’m happy for the decision and hope it helps make sure that no other kids will have to experience what I went through.

Savana Redding

Strip searches are a traumatic intrusion of privacy. Forcing children to remove their clothes for bodily inspection is not a tool that school officials should have at their disposal. Yet, until today, the law was apparently unclear, potentially allowing for the most invasive of searches based on the least of suspicions. Everyday parents caution their children about the importance of not talking to strangers, looking both ways before crossing the street, and following directions at school. But I imagine they never think to warn them that a school official, acting on a hunch, may force them to take their clothes off in the name of safety. And now, thankfully, they won’t have to.

Our fundamental rights are only as strong as the next generation believes them to be, and I am humbled to have had a part in preserving and promoting the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights.

The Supreme Court today ruled that school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old Arizona girl when they strip searched her based on a classmate’s uncorroborated accusation that she previously possessed ibuprofen. The ACLU’s Drug Law Reform Project represented April Redding, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, whose daughter, Savana Redding, was strip searched by Safford Middle School officials six years ago.

Adam Wolf, an attorney with the ACLU who argued the case before the Court, said today:

We are pleased that the Supreme Court recognized that school officials had no reason to strip search Savana Redding and that the decision to do so was unconstitutional. Today’s ruling affirms that schools are not constitutional dead zones. While we are disappointed with the Court’s conclusion that the law was not clear before today and therefore school officials were not found liable, at least other students will not have to go through what Savana experienced.

We’ll have more soon. In the meantime, please send a message thanking Savana and April for standing up for all students’ rights.

Yesterday, Attorney General Holder appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a semiannual check-up (a.k.a. congressional oversight). Attorney General Holder was questioned about a many issues of interest to the ACLU. However, there was one question and answer that left me feeling cautiously hopeful.

In response to a fairly lengthy question from Senator Durbin (D-Ill.), Attorney General Holder said it was his hope that Congress would move with "dispatch" to eliminate the notorious and racially discriminatory crack sentencing disparity this year.

The Obama Department of Justice has previously testified in support of eliminating the crack sentencing disparity, but hopefully the comments of Attorney General Holder today will finally light the necessary fire under the tail feathers of certain Members of Congress. Early indications are promising. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy (D-Vt.) immediately responded by saying that it was his hope to see Congress act this year to end the more than two-decade "crack" in our justice system.

Additionally, it is very likely that we will soon see Congress begin the process of moving legislation that would finally correct this injustice. ACLU members and activists should act now to contact their representatives to let them know that this is an issue that demands their attention. Two decades are too long to wait. Our prisons are too crowded. We are spending too much money on an effective, unfair policy. It is time for Congress to move with the necessary "dispatch" to right this wrong!

A series of common sense, waste-cutting proposals would address two of California’s biggest problems: our overburdened, dysfunctional corrections system, and the ever increasing multibillion dollar deficit. Implementing these proposals would save the state $7.5 billion in five years and improve public safety, so what are we waiting for?

Over the last 20 years, California’s corrections budget has increased by 450 percent. What are we spending all of that money on?

• We pay over $380 million every year to lock up over 1,600 young people in youth prisons, even though local programs have proven cheaper and more effective at rehabilitating
• We waste billions of dollars each year to lock up thousands of nonviolent drug offenders even though community-based treatment is cheaper and actually gets people off drugs
• We throw away hundreds of millions of dollars each year on the largest, most dysfunctional death penalty system in the country even though permanent imprisonment is cheaper and just as effective

Here are three simple proposals to trim the waste and improve our corrections system.

• Close the Division of Juvenile Justice Facilities—Save $1 Billion in Five Years (Proposed by Books Not Bars Initiative of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice)

  California taxpayers currently pay an outrageous $234,000 to incarcerate each youth in Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF), or $380 million total each year. Transferring all 1,624 young people to programs administered by county probation departments and closing the decrepit DJF would allow the state to provide $115,000 per youth to county programs and still save $200 million each year. The counties have enough room to house the young people, and still maintain a surplus of beds.

  Additional savings would come from avoiding expensive renovations needed to the dismal juvenile prisons and by the selling state land they currently sit on.

  Act now: Call for an end to the Division of Juvenile Justice!

• Keep the Response to Petty Drug Possession Local—Save $5.5 Billion in Five Years
  (Proposed by Drug Policy Alliance)

  The biggest bulk of cash — $5.5 billion — can be saved by localizing the response to low-level drug offenses. This proposal would reduce the burden thousands of simple drug possession offenders now place on the state’s public safety infrastructure, and free up resources for effective rehabilitation.

  We can save an astounding $5.5 billion in five years if we take three simple steps:

  • Stop housing 12,000 people in prison for simple drug possession to save $2.5 billion.
  • Stop sending people to prison for drug possession with intent to sell to save an additional $2.5 billion.
  • End parole for people convicted of drug possession who have already served their time in state prison to save $675 million in 5 years.

  Removing these nonviolent drug offenders from our state corrections system will allow us to keep critical funding for the state’s addiction treatment programs which prevent reoffending and ultimately strengthen public safety.

  Act now: Demand an end to wasteful drug war spending!

• Convert Death Sentences to Permanent Imprisonment—Save $1 Billion in Five Years
  (Proposed by the ACLU Affiliates of California)

  It currently costs California $137 million annually to administer the death penalty. The alternative — permanent imprisonment for all 680 inmates on death row— would cost the state $11 million a year. By converting all current death sentences to sentences of life without possibility of parole, the state will save approximately $125 million each year, or $600 million in five years.

  Additionally, temporarily suspending new death sentences for five years will eliminate the need to construct a new death row facility, saving about $400 million.

  Any attempt to "speed up" or "fix" the death penalty will only cost millions more, so the only way to both save money and protect public safety is to suspend the death penalty and convert all death sentences to permanent imprisonment.

  Act now: Sign the petition calling on Gov. Schwarzenegger to convert all death sentences to save $1 billion in five years.

These proposals are not only aimed at cutting wasteful spending; they are designed to improve public safety, bolster youth and drug rehabilitation programs that do work, and advance the long-needed adjustments to the California corrections system. The bottom line is California can save $7.5 billion in five years and improve public safety.

— By Zachary Norris, Books Not Bars Director at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights; Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, Drug Policy Alliance Deputy State Director, Southern California; and Natasha Minsker, ACLU of Northern California Death Penalty Policy Director

Last year, Jag Davies of the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project wrote a very informative blog post about some of the problems with the law enforcement’s informant system. Jag’s post and several others make it crystal clear that the informant system is broken.

On April 28, 2009, the Philadelphia Inquirer broke a story that further demonstrates just how broken the informant system is. According to the Inquirer, Philadelphia police officers were faking informant evidence to obtain search warrants, resulting in the arrest and incarceration of innocent people. The article focuses most of its attention on one officer named Jeffrey Cujdik. Officer Cujdik received 186 search warrants in the last three years. Of the 186 warrants, 95 percent of them were based solely on the information provided by confidential informants, 43 percent of which came from an informant named Ventura Martinez.

Martinez recently came forward and alleged that Cujdik had repeatedly fabricated evidence to obtain warrants, which triggered a large multiagency investigation.

The Philadelphia Police Department has taken steps to address this issue, including putting Cujdik on desk duty and examining several department policies. Desk duty and policy changes will only do so much good though. As Deputy Police Commissioner William C. Blackburn said, "even stronger policies could not prevent an officer who intends to circumvent the regulations from doing so." Blackburn went on to suggest that at some point, an undercover operative should be introduced into the operation. This may be an idea worth considering, and there are others.

Read more…

What a week it’s been! On Monday and Tuesday, dozens of dedicated advocates from across the country were here in Washington to meet with Members of Congress about the pressing need to finally (after nearly 23 years) eliminate the infamous 100-to-1 crack sentencing disparity.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice, for the first time, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and stated that it is the administration’s position that Congress should act this year to completely eliminate the disparity.

And now today, both The New York Times and The Boston Globe have great editorials highlighting the testimony from this week’s congressional hearing and urge Congress to step-up to the plate to finally end this glaring injustice in our criminal justice system.

This is about making sure those moving words carved over the entrance to the Supreme Court - Equal Justice Under Law - are good for more than tourist pictures on a summer afternoon.

As The Globe observed today:

In poignant testimony following Breuer’s, Judge Reggie Walton, an African-American who was appointed to the federal judiciary by Ronald Reagan and rose up the ranks under George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, declared that “jails are loaded with people who look like me.” The law created such mistrust that jurors often told him after trials that they could not convict, even if a defendant seemed guilty, because the mandatory sentence was so Draconian.

They end their editorial by stating:

What’s sad is that this did not happen until America had a president who can look into the jails and feel the sting of seeing how loaded they are with people who look just like him.

It is certainly sad that it has taken over two decades to get to this point. However, now that it has arrived, we need to seize the moment and the momentum by FINALLY ending this injustice. Let’s keep the pressure on!

What a momentous day it was here in Washington!

Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs held a hearing on the 100-to-1 crack vs. powder cocaine sentencing disparity. There were many excellent witnesses who powerfully presented the case for reform, including the former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Asa Hutchinson.

Without question, the highlight of the morning’s hearing was the testimony of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer (PDF). Assistant Attorney General Breuer, in very direct language, laid out the administration’s position on this issue. In short, the Obama administration wants Congress to act this year to completely eliminate the crack sentencing disparity.

This is indeed excellent news and to have the backing of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is going to go a long way towards helping us finally end this injustice. However, it won’t happen without the support and dedication of people throughout the country. We are heading into the bottom of the 9th, let’s not stop now. Join the ACLU in calling for Congress to end this unjust sentencing disparity.

"Crack the Disparity," our big red buttons read.  

"This isn’t tough on crime! This is exploiting the low-hanging fruit!" a woman exclaimed as she passed out Good Humor chocolate bars that were wrapped in paper that read:

Stop Senseless "junk food science." The weight of 1 candy bar in crack = 10 years in federal prison. Two-thirds of Federal crack cocaine cases are prosecuted for possession of the weight of the 50-gram candy bar in crack cocaine.

One needs a good sense of humor if you think these laws are just.

With the addition of my third cup of coffee, these rallying cries and props were definitely getting me in the mood to lobby at 8 a.m. this morning.

Although I have interned at three public policy advocacy organizations here in D.C., today was my first time experiencing a lobby day. I was quickly energized by the passion that spread from the folks I squeezed in next to in the Russell Senate building hearing room.

Read more…

(Originally posted on Huffington Post.)

It’s time for Congress to take the unjust, unwarranted laws for crack sentencing off of the books.

Right now, federal law mandates an automatic five-year prison sentence for possession of five grams of crack cocaine and 500 grams of powder cocaine. That’s a 100:1 disparity for possession of the identical drug.

The crack disparity doesn’t make sense.

But tell that to your U.S. representative and two senators. Call, write and visit Congress. Send the message that the punishment given out for crack and cocaine should be the same. The ACLU and our coalition partners will make a concerted push to fix the law today, April 28, 2009.

How is it possible for the federal law to treat different forms of the same drug differently?

In June 1986, the death of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias shocked the nation. Just days after becoming a player for the Boston Celtics, Bias died of a cocaine — assumed incorrectly to be crack — and alcohol overdose. The intense media attention around Bias’s death led to quick congressional action to pass the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. It established the mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug trafficking crimes and created a 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine.

Many assumptions that were the basis of the 1986 law have been proven false. The little legislative history that exists suggests that at the time, Congress believed crack was more addictive than powder cocaine, that it caused crime, that it caused psychosis and death, and that crack’s low cost and ease of manufacture would lead to an epidemic in our inner cities. Researchers now know that the effects of crack cocaine and powder cocaine are the same, regardless of the form.

In fact, the biggest difference between crack cocaine and powder cocaine is skin color. People arrested for crack possession are more likely to be black, despite the fact that most users are white.

Federal law shouldn’t make an artificial distinction between sentencing for crack cocaine and powder cocaine. That’s why we support H.R. 265, the Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2009 which was recently introduced by Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas). This bill will equalize the crack and powder sentencing laws.

This legislative fix puts much needed fairness back into our criminal justice system. The goal of the severe crack penalties was to go after the high-level traffickers. Two decades later, the record shows that this goal has failed. The opposite has happened. The mandatory penalties have filled the prisons with low-level offenders. More than 60 percent of the federal crack defendants are small fish in the drug trade.

At the same time, some recent developments illustrate the broad ideological support for changing the sentencing law. In multiple reports, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency in the federal judicial branch, has recommended that Congress take immediate action to erase the disparity. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Kimbrough v. United States that federal judges can sentence crack cocaine offenders below the federal sentencing guidelines. This decision gives judges more discretion to base a sentence on the evidence.

Both former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama have indicated that they agree with the growing momentum to eliminate the sentencing disparity. During a CNN interview in 2001, Bush remarked that the crack-powder disparity "ought to be addressed by making sure the powder-cocaine and the crack cocaine penalties are the same." Right now on the whitehoue.gov page, the Obama administration lists the complete elimination of the disparity as one of its civil rights priorities.

With all this momentum for change, it’s critical to remember that Congress alone has the power to address the crack sentencing disparity.

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

The fundamental right to privacy of America’s students faced a critical reckoning yesterday before the nation’s highest court. The sun had scarcely risen in my neck of the woods (California), when the U.S. Supreme Court commenced oral argument in the case Safford Unified School District v. Redding, but I was wide awake and eager for news from the frontlines — and not just because the American Civil Liberties Union represents the plaintiffs in the proceedings. The case has the importance to rewrite the standard under which a student maybe strip-searched — and should be of monumental interest to anyone who values the lessons in liberty, or lack thereof, instilled in the Constitution’s future caretakers.

The Court is considering whether school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old Arizona girl when they strip searched her based on a classmate’s uncorroborated accusation that she previously possessed ibuprofen. And while a majority of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reasoned that, "It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights," the Supreme Court has yet to weigh in.

When the facts are presented, it is difficult to imagine how anyone, let alone a constitutional scholar, could consider the search justified. Savana Redding, an eighth grade honor roll student at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, was pulled from class on October 8, 2003, by the school’s vice principal, Kerry Wilson. Earlier that day, Wilson had discovered prescription-strength ibuprofen — 400 milligram pills equivalent to two over-the-counter ibuprofen pills, such as Advil — in the possession of Redding’s classmate. Under questioning and faced with punishment, the classmate claimed that Redding, who had no history of disciplinary problems, had given her the pills.

After escorting Redding to his office, Wilson demanded that she consent to a search of her possessions. Redding agreed, wanting to prove she had nothing to hide. Wilson did not inform Redding of the reason for the search. Joined by a female school administrative assistant, Wilson searched Redding’s backpack and found nothing. Instructed by Wilson, the administrative assistant then took Redding to the school nurse’s office in order to perform a strip search.

In the school nurse’s office, Redding was ordered to strip to her underwear. She was then commanded to pull her bra out and to the side, exposing her breasts, and to pull her underwear out at the crotch, exposing her pelvic area. The strip search failed to uncover any ibuprofen pills.

Read more…