The Insite - Justice Now: You Be The Judge

J U S T I C E N O W:
You Be the Judge

Here are the results of this poll:

Who was right? In whose favor do you think the court decided - T.L.O. or the school?

#!/usr/bin/perl use CGI; $query = new CGI; ############################################################################## # Survey Version 1.0 # # Copyright 1996 LiveWorld Productions # ############################################################################## # @referers allows forms to be located only on servers which are defined # in this field. This fixes a security hole in the last version which # allowed anyone on any server to use your FormMail script. @referers = ('www.electriceggplant.com','www.theinsite.org','www.heyterra.com','69.9.174.126'); $data_dir = "/home/electric/public_html/theinsite/poll/"; # This is the path to # the directory in which all data files with are located # This directory MUST be set to chmod 777 $data_file = "TIdata01"; # Done ############################################################################# sub print_html { $data_file = shift(@ARGV); $count = 0; @letters = (' ','A','B','C','D','E','F','G','H','I','J','K','L'); print $query->header; if (-e "$data_dir/$data_file") { open(RESULTS,"$data_dir/$data_file"); while () { if ($#questions == -1) { @questions = split(/\t/, $_); } else { $totals[$_]++; $count++; } } close(RESULTS); # determine the max number of votes $max = 0; for ($ans = 1; $ans <= $#questions; $ans++) { if (@totals[$ans] > $max) {$max = @totals[$ans]} } # draw the graph print "\n"; for ($ans = 1; $ans <= $#questions; $ans++) { $height = $totals[$ans] * 100 / $max; if ($height < 1) {$height = 1} print ""; for ($ans = 1; $ans <= $#questions; $ans++) { print "

@letters[$ans]"; } print "\n
\n"; } print "

\n"; # draw the table print "

\n
Response # of votes % of vote\n"; for ($ans = 1; $ans <= $#questions; $ans++) { $votes = @totals[$ans]; if ($votes < 1) {$votes = 0} $percent = int(($votes * 100 / $count) + .5); print "
@letters[$ans] @questions[$ans-1] $votes $percent%\n"; } print "
Total: $count\n 100%

	Response	# of votes	% of vote\n"; for ($ans = 1; $ans <= $#questions; $ans++) { $votes = @totals[$ans]; if ($votes < 1) {$votes = 0} $percent = int(($votes * 100 / $count) + .5); print "
@letters[$ans]	@questions[$ans-1]	$votes	$percent%\n"; } print "
	Total:	$count\n	100%

\n"; } else { print "No Votes Yet"; } } &print_html;

What happened in court?
The Juvenile Court said the school could search T.L.O.'s purse. Why? Because a school official can search a student if...
"...there is a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or there is reason to believe the search is necessary to maintain school discipline or enforce school policies."

Bottom line. Since the vice principle suspected T.L.O. was smoking in the bathroom he could open her purse. Once the purse was open, the rolling papers, etc., gave him a reasonable suspicion that she was selling drugs.
Case closed? No... T.L.O. appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court.
How'd the higher court rule?
New Jersey Supreme Court said the search of T.L.O's purse was not reasonable and therefore her rights had been violated. They said the contents of her purse had nothing to do with the crime she was accused of... smoking cigarettes.
Bottom line. Just because the vice principal didn't believe T.L.O. when she said she didn't smoke cigarettes did not justify the search. No one gave him any information about there being cigarettes in her purse. And even if he had been justified in opening her purse, the evidence he saw of drug use did not justify the extensive "rummaging" through her things that followed. The New Jersey Supreme Court overturned the Juvenile Court's ruling.
Case closed? No... The School appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and in 1985 the case came before the highest court.
What was the final ruling?
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was a legal search.
Case closed? Case closed!

Check out other "You be the Judge" Cases:

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