Clarence Thomas does it again; casts lone vote for 'illegal' strip searches

In an 8-1 decision, Justice Thomas dissented from the 8 other justices who held that a school in Arizona violated a teenager's rights when it strip searched her to see if she was carrying prescription strength Ibuprofen, a legal product.

The case involved Savana Redding, who was 13 years old when school officials at Safford Middle School forced her to remove her clothing and "shake out her underwear," according to the Associated Press. The search followed a tip from another student.

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana 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," Justice David Souter wrote for the majority today. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."

In his dissent, Justice Thomas found that officials have "considerable leeway" under the Fourth Amendment in school and classroom settings and called the majority's opinion "regrettable." The case is Safford Unified School District v. Redding (PDF link).

Thomas complained that the majority decision "grants judges sweeping authority to second-guess the measures that these officials take to maintain discipline in their schools and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge."

Justice Thomas positioned himself to the right of the Court's most conservative members, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and John Roberts, when he argued that the Court had "undercut student safety and undermined the authority" of school administrators and local officials. "Even more troubling," Thomas wrote, "it has done so in a case in which the underlying response by school administrators was reasonable and justified." he continued. "I cannot join this regrettable decision."

Earlier this week, Thomas dissented from the 8 other justices in a case upholding the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In his dissent in that case, Thomas seemed to argue that the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary because the explicit racial segregation of the Jim Crow era is gone.