Here follows a summary of today’s two landmark decisions from the United States Supreme Court: Safford Unified School District v. April Redding, 08-479 An 8-1 ruling found that Savana Redding’s 4th Amendment rights violated when, as a 13 year old 8th grade student, school officials strip searched her based on another student’s assertion she possessed prescription-strength ibuprofen. No pills were found in Redding’s backpack or undergarments. Justice David Souter, author of the majority opinion, stated: “What was missing from the suspected facts….was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable.” The lone dissenter, Justice Clarence Thomas, found the search legal and said the court previously had given school officials “considerable leeway” under the Fourth Amendment in school settings. “It was eminently reasonable to conclude the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would look,” Thomas said. “Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments, nor will she be the Read More …

Regarded as the most famous second banana in show business history, Ed McMahon died early Tuesday morning at UCLA Medical Center after a long bout with bone cancer. Arguably his most famous assignment lasting 30 years was that of announcer and sidekick of Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The last few years of his life were filled with tragedy, ranging from his first son’s death from cancer in 1995 to him breaking his neck in 2007 (which all but obliterated his prolific television work). McMahon was 86.