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Originally Posted by Danzig
i know it's been their first free speech case in years, i just disagree with any further erosion of rights, and to say a child has less rights, or less rights in school--well, i disagree with that.
but then again.....don imus was fired, which some said took away his rights--no, he still has the right to say what he said, they just took his forum away. is that what the school was doing?
i just don't like it when they seem to be willing to erode the rights of minors, in public school, and i think this is one more example of that...i still think tho that had he not said bong hits FOR JESUS, this may not have gone so far.
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In many ways, juveniles do have diminished protection of their constitutional rights. Whether you like it or not, that's the trend the appellate courts have been setting for years.
In my state, Pennsylvania, for example, the rules of criminal procedure are different in adult cases versus juvenile cases. There are, to be sure, procedures followed and rules applied in juvenile court, but the exacting yet more expansive and better defined standards that have developed with the rules of criminal procedure that apply to adult cases simply don't apply in juvenile court. The result is that judges have more power in juvenile court (or, shall we say, wider discretion) and rulings are sometimes made in juvenile cases that would not have been made in adult cases. Also, the rules of evidence and the accompanying standards that have developed for adult cases apply differently, more permissively, to situations involving juveniles, such as for searches conducted in schools. Evidence sometimes is admitted in juvie cases that would not have come in in adult court.
However, I digress. I don't think this case was particularly about the rights of juveniles (Frederick was 18 at the time of the incident), but, as I said in an earlier post, about the balancing of an individual's rights versus the competing interests of the school. I agree with Baba that this is a limited and narrow case, and shouldn't, by itself, be taken as a sign that individual rights are being irreparably eroded. The stuff that goes on with the Patriot Act scares me a lot more than this decision. Nevertheless, I applaud the people on this site who have taken the time to dabate this issue. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.