# Clarence Thomas: Facts Do Not Overrule Suspicions **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 25, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979 "2009-06-25T20:21:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/1 "2009-06-25T20:21:24Z")
Today’s Supreme Court news: > [@](#): > > [Supreme Court Rules School Strip Search Illegal](http://www.youthtoday.org/publication/article.cfm?article_id=2997) > > The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 today that the strip search of a 13-year-old Arizona girl suspected of having prescription-strength pain relievers was a violation of her Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches. > > In the mixed decision, in which eight of the justices agreed that the search was illegal but differed on liability of school personnel, Justice David Souter wrote for the majority that “Here, the content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion.”… All well and good. So, who was the lone dissenter, and on what grounds…? > [@](#): > > Justice Clarence Thomas, though agreeing that the school officials are protected by qualified immunity, wrote that the search did not violate Redding’s constitutional rights, and seemed to lecture the court on what he saw as it making unreasonable demands on the school personnel. > > “The reasonable suspicion that Redding possessed the pills for distribution purposes did not dissipate simply because the search of her backpack turned up nothing. It was eminently reasonable to conclude that the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would look,” Thomas wrote. Er… what? A suspicion does not dissipate merely because investigation turns up no supporting evidence for it? The logical response when one fails to find what one expects is to conclude that a coverup is afoot and to dig deeper? How is this different from the “logic” of 9-11 Truthers, UFO cultists, and other conspiracy crackpots? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/2 "2009-06-25T20:23:51Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > The logical response when one fails to find what one expects is to conclude that a coverup is afoot and to dig deeper? How is this different from the “logic” of 9-11 Truthers, UFO cultists, and other conspiracy crackpots? Hey, it worked for Ken Starr. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/3 "2009-06-25T20:25:16Z")
I’m sure he agrees that the fact that Obama could so readily produce a birth certificate only shows the depth of the fraud being perpetrated on the American people. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/4 "2009-06-25T20:31:06Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Hey, it worked for Ken Starr. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/5 "2009-06-25T20:40:16Z")
Makes sense to me: You have a suspicion that someone is hiding Object A. If so, it can be in location X, Y, or Z. The fact that you’ve shown it isn’t in location X doesn’t really do anything to diminish the suspicion that the Object is being hidden. In fact, if the suspicion is reasonable then it increases the likelihood that it is one of the unsearched locations. When I lose my TV remote control in my living room, I don’t stop looking just because it wasn’t under the couch saying “oh well, I’ve found no evidence it is in the living room.” Seems kind of like the Monty Hall problem. Learning that nothing was behind Door A does not change the odds that the object behind Door A or B. Of course, that is all irrelevant to the question of whether schools officials should be allowed to perform strip searches regardless of the level of valid suspicion. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/6 "2009-06-25T20:53:19Z")
She probably exhibited the characteristics of the Advil abuser ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/7 "2009-06-25T20:53:51Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Makes sense to me: > > You have a suspicion that someone is hiding Object A. If so, it can be in location X, Y, or Z. The fact that you’ve shown it isn’t in location X doesn’t really do anything to diminish the suspicion that the Object is being hidden. In fact, if the suspicion is reasonable then it increases the likelihood that it is one of the unsearched locations. That sounds an awful like like Guilty until Proven Innocent. > [@](#): > > When I lose my TV remote control in my living room, I don’t stop looking just because it wasn’t under the couch saying “oh well, I’ve found no evidence it is in the living room.” Yeah, but you know there is a remote control and you know that the living room was the last place you saw it. Your “reasonable assumption” doesn’t come even close to resembling the case discussed. This analogy is terrible. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/8 "2009-06-25T20:57:42Z")
I was about to pit Justice Thomas myself, over the exact same issue–hell, inspired by the exact same news article–to which **Steve MB** alludes. He’s a tool. I am not merely embarrassed to be of the same ethnicity as he; not merely embarrased to be of the same gender as he. I’m embarrassed to be of the same _species_. So filled with self-loathing is he that he will take any opportunity to kowtow to what he perceives to be the interests of authority, power, & convention. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/9 "2009-06-25T21:01:34Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Er… what? A suspicion does not dissipate merely because investigation turns up no supporting evidence for it? The logical response when one fails to find what one expects is to conclude that a coverup is afoot and to dig deeper? How is this different from the “logic” of 9-11 Truthers, UFO cultists, and other conspiracy crackpots? Your kind of a dim fellow, aren’t you? ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/10 "2009-06-25T21:01:42Z")
Yes, and we are, in the language of Thomas used talking about a situation where there is a **reasonable** suspicion that the searched for item exists. Any search at all is, to some degree, a form of “guilty until proven innocent.” Whether we agree or not that this particular incident of suspicion was reasonable or not it would appear that Thomas does view it as a reasonable suspicion. Starting from that assumption, I think his logic in the quoted part is reasonably sound. It is a valid point that if you are reasonably confident a searched for item exists in one spot within a set of locations then the fact that you’ve shown it doesn’t exist in one of those locations shouldn’t necessarily change the level of suspicion. Especially since, if it is known that the search is allowed to search Locations X and Y but not Location Z then if someone is hiding something this makes Location Z the most obvious choice. To say otherwise seems to me to say that at the border they shouldn’t look for drugs taped to the undercarriage because no drugs are seen in the back seat. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/11 "2009-06-25T21:04:11Z")
It seems that what Thomas was attempting to say was that if you already had a reasonable suspicion that person X had something illegal with him, the fact that you looked in her backpack and did not find the illegal thing does nothing to “dissipate” that suspicion - only a complete search would do that. Seems logical enough to me (the question of course being, why did you have “reasonable suspicion” in the first place?) That being said, strip-searching people for prescription drugs is absurd in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/12 "2009-06-25T21:05:26Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/13 "2009-06-25T21:06:32Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Um, _over-the-counter_ drugs. That makes it even _more_ absurd. I read it as “prescription strength”. ---
**Author:** ![Phatlewt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a698b9/32.png) [@Phatlewt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phatlewt)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/14 "2009-06-25T21:10:23Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Your kind of a dim fellow, aren’t you? I have nothing to add except to note the deliciousness of simple language errors in posts that insult the intelligence of others. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/15 "2009-06-25T21:11:30Z")
Well, dih! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/16 "2009-06-25T21:13:09Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > Yeah, but you know there is a remote control and you know that the living room was the last place you saw it. Your “reasonable assumption” doesn’t come even close to resembling the case discussed. This analogy is terrible. And if the last place you saw the remote was in your significant other’s buttcrack, you make them drop trou. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/17 "2009-06-25T21:14:27Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > It seems that what Thomas was attempting to say was that if you already had a reasonable suspicion that person X had something illegal with him, the fact that you looked in her backpack and did not find the illegal thing does nothing to “dissipate” that suspicion - only a complete search would do that. The absurdity of Thomas’ “reasoning” becomes clear when an additional fact is noted: the strip search _also_ failed to reveal any illicit drugs. By Thomas’ argument, the still-undissipated suspicion would then require a full body-cavity search, followed by X-rays, stomach-pumping, and whatever other expedient might possibly occur to somebody. Obviously, a negative result at the initial level of searching **does** , to some extent, dissipate the origianl suspicion and compels a re-consideration as to whether increased levels of intrusiveness can be justified. My pitting is directed at the mind-numbing illogic of Thomas’ assertion to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/18 "2009-06-25T21:17:00Z")
I’m hoping that this will add a new slang term to American school kids’ vocabulary: “Oh, I stash my drugs up my Clarence Thomas, because you know the teachers can’t search you there,” ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/19 "2009-06-25T21:27:56Z")
If it is “eminently reasonable” to believe the student is hiding the pills up her ass then yes, I suspect Thomas would agree (and I’d still agree his logic is sound on whether suspicion should be reduced by not finding the pills in a backpack or bra). Personally I don’t know if I’d call it eminently reasonable to suspect a high school student of hiding pills in her ass (or other non-mouth body cavity). But I do think it is reasonable to assume that if hiding pills they’d be hidden in a bra or underwear. After all, back in high school I kept my not-allowed knife in the waistband of my underwear and one of my friends kept her baggie of joints in her bra. So far as I know, nobody was storing their contraband anally, vaginally, or urethrally. (Though if we thought school administrators might strip search us I suspect the LSD source might have started doing so.) And again, the fact that kids may be hiding things in these places doesn’t necessarily (and I would say it it doesn’t) justify allowing school officials to search those locations. I’m just addressing the impacts on suspicion that the person is hiding something. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979/20 "2009-06-25T21:32:21Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > The absurdity of Thomas’ “reasoning” becomes clear when an additional fact is noted: the strip search _also_ failed to reveal any illicit drugs. By Thomas’ argument, the still-undissipated suspicion would then require a full body-cavity search, followed by X-rays, stomach-pumping, and whatever other expedient might possibly occur to somebody. > > Obviously, a negative result at the initial level of searching **does** , to some extent, dissipate the origianl suspicion and compels a re-consideration as to whether increased levels of intrusiveness can be justified. My pitting is directed at the mind-numbing illogic of Thomas’ assertion to the contrary. I disagree. The issue surely is the strength of the original suspicion. How can whether or not you find nothing in the backpack change that? It isn’t like you are likely to find a _clue_ in the backpack that the person has, in fact, hidden the drugs in her underwear (I’d say “like a bong”, but really, you don’t need bongs, rolling papers etc. to take Advil). In short, either you had reasonable grounds to strip-search someone or you did not. If you did, finding the backpack empty doesn’t change that fact. Indeed, the fact that you found _nothing at all even after the strip search_ doesn’t change that, otherwise every time the cops unsuccessfully searched someone they would be sued. The issue is “what information did you have going in”? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clarence-thomas-facts-do-not-overrule-suspicions/500979.md?page=2)