Knisley v. Pike County Joint Vocational School District
2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 9860, 604 F.3d 977 (2010)
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Rule of Law:
A strip search of students by school officials is unreasonable in scope, violating the Fourth Amendment, when it is conducted without individualized suspicion to find missing monetary items. Where this principle is already established by controlling circuit precedent, officials who conduct such a search are not entitled to qualified immunity.
Facts:
- Two students in a high school nursing class at Vern Riffe Career Technology Center reported that cash, a credit card, and two gift cards were missing from their purses.
- In response, school officials detained all fifteen or sixteen students in the classroom.
- Officials conducted an initial search of each student's purse, books, shoes, socks, and pockets, as well as each student's locker.
- During this process, a student told officials that an unidentified student was hiding the missing items in her bra.
- Based on this non-specific tip, a female instructor, Toni Fout, was directed to take each female student into a restroom individually.
- In the restroom, Fout required each student to unhook and shake out her bra from underneath her top and to pull her pants down to her mid-thighs, knees, or ankles.
Procedural Posture:
- Eleven students sued the Pike County Joint Vocational School District and several school officials in federal district court.
- The defendant school officials filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing they were entitled to qualified immunity.
- The district court (court of first instance) denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment.
- The defendants (appellants) filed an interlocutory appeal of the denial to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
- In an initial unpublished decision (Knisley I), the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of qualified immunity.
- The defendants appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which vacated the Sixth Circuit's judgment and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Safford Unified School District # 1 v. Redding.
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Issue:
Are school officials entitled to qualified immunity for conducting a strip search of an entire class of students to find missing monetary items when there is no individualized suspicion that any particular student committed the theft?
Opinions:
Majority - Boyce F. Martin, Jr.
No. School officials who conduct a strip search of an entire class of students for missing monetary items without individualized suspicion are not entitled to qualified immunity. The court determined the search violated the students' Fourth Amendment rights because it was unreasonable in scope. Applying the test from New Jersey v. T.L.O. and Beard v. Whitmore Lake School District, the court assumed the search was justified at its inception but found its scope unreasonable by weighing three factors: the students' high expectation of privacy in their unclothed bodies, the highly intrusive nature of the search, and the slight severity of the school's need (searching for money rather than dangerous contraband). The lack of individualized suspicion significantly weakened the school's interest, as searching an entire class based on a vague tip is unlikely to be successful. The court then held that this constitutional right was 'clearly established' in the Sixth Circuit by its 2005 decision in Beard, which involved materially similar facts and provided 'fair warning' to the officials that their conduct was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court's remand in light of Safford v. Redding did not alter the outcome, because unlike in Redding where the right was not clearly established in the Ninth Circuit, the law in the Sixth Circuit was already clear due to Beard.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces that the 'clearly established' prong of qualified immunity is circuit-specific, meaning officials can be liable in one circuit for conduct that might be protected in another. It solidifies the precedent within the Sixth Circuit that the Fourth Amendment places significant limits on strip searches of students, requiring a justification stronger than locating missing money, especially when individualized suspicion is absent. The ruling distinguishes between searches for dangerous items like drugs or weapons, which provide a weighty governmental interest, and searches for monetary items, which do not justify highly intrusive measures against a group of students. Future cases in the Sixth Circuit will rely on this holding to deny immunity to officials conducting similar suspicionless group strip searches.
