http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/22search.html?hpw
Just had to share that excerpt from yesterday’s oral argument in the student strip search case.
Probably tacks, chewed gum, or other less nice things? :eek:
Ants!
The “people” in question was Breyer himself. The item was a rolled-up tubesock or possibly a cucumber. It’s always that nerds that feel the need to overcompensate.
But only a Supreme Court Justice could take judicial notice of something that way.
“All rise…”
Based on what I’m reading, I hope somebody dropped something in Souter’s underwear. 
No, Dumbass; you put the potato in the FRONT of your underwear!
All natural ice cream?
I don’t want to cross over to Great Debates territory, which last had a thread discussing the case of Savana Redding, a 12-year-old girl (at the time) who was strip searched at school, by school officials (not the police), for illegally carrying prescription strength Ibuprofen, based on the snitching of another 12-year-old girl. This case was picked up by the Supreme Court (the same one which declined to hear a case about the constitutionality of Federal wiretaps without a warrant). I’ll leave that statement of fact as-is as well, to keep it in MPSIMS.
What I want to highlight instead is the outstanding surrealism, the absurdity, of the fact that we now have on public record, now and forever, that the Supreme Court has heard the following statements pronounced from the bench, as I read in the NY Times:
Supreme Court Justice Breyer: “In my experience, when I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old… people did sometimes stick things in my underwear.”
Supreme Court Justice Scalia: “You’ve searched everywhere else… By God, the drugs must be in her underpants.”
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roberts: “The issue here covers the brassiere as well, which doesn’t seem as outlandish as the underpants”.
To be fair and balanced to the Chief Justice, though, he later tempered with the statement: “[are you] saying if you have reasonable suspicion that it’s in the underwear, you shouldn’t even bother searching the pack or the pockets? You should go straight to the underwear? That can’t be right.”
I’m still rubbing my eyes.
Between the Breyer quote you listed and the other one near the top of the article (it’s logical to stick things in your underwear)… I really feel he shouldn’t have been able to cast a vote on this case. Jeez.
As I understand it, Scalia was being sarcastic when he said that, but even so…
As best I can tell, our government sees two main threats right now: kids stripping, and kids refusing to strip.
Is Scalia ever not being sarcastic?
Gives a whole new meaning to “frigid.”
itching powder? powdered koolaid? ants?
Sarcasm or not, it’s just plain surreal to have the 9 of the wisest and most learned people in the nation debating, on the record in proceedings transcribed for all history, about (let’s just come out and say it) where to draw the line at rooting around in a teenage girl’s underwear.
I mean, all that’s missing is for Justice “I didn’t sexually harass Anita Baker” Thomas to chime in with some kind of “three second rule”.
I’ve merged two threads about the weird oral arguments in this case.
Let it be noted for the record that the drugs were not in her underpants after all – nor anywhere else on her person. Because it turns out that another 12-year-old-girl is not a very reliable source of evidence for these things, despite Scalia’s certainty.
A friend of mine who was in the audience at oral arguments reports that the word “crotching” was used. She didn’t tell me the context.
But still.
That is the funniest thing I’ve read all week. What I love most is how the article attempts to keep an elevated tone while discussing “crotching”.