Earlier this year, the Worth County (GA) Sheriff's Department enraged an entire nation by subjecting the entire student body of a local high school to invasive pat downs. The reason for these searches? Sheriff Jeff Hobby believed drugs would be found on campus...It's not your authority. The authority belongs to the government, it only acts through you. When you misuse that authority, you're misusing what isn't rightly yours in the first place.
The sheriff brought in drug-sniffing dogs and had his deputies frisk every single attending student. The sheriff claimed the searches were legal. And not just legal, but "necessary." The end result of the multiple invasions of personal privacy? Zero drugs, zero arrests...
According to school policies, students may be searched if there's reasonable suspicion the student is in possession of an illegal item. The same rules apply to law enforcement, but they were ignored here. Sheriff Hobby claimed he could search any student he wanted to (in this case, all of them) simply because he was accompanied by a school administrator.
Hobby was wrong and is now facing some serious legal problems. First off, Hobby has been sued by several of the students frisked by his officers...
This lawsuit is a problem for Sheriff Hobby, especially as it will be much more difficult for the sheriff and his deputies to avail themselves of immunity. Indictments have that sort of effect on immunity claims. [via Greg Doucette] ...
Somewhat ironically, the indicted sheriff's attorney is bemoaning the same grand jury system law enforcement loves when it's indicting civilians.
This sheriff...chose poorly. And I hope it costs him--perhaps as much as his freedom, but certainly his job.
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Invasive searches of students at Worth County High School in Sylvester are being investigated by the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights.
The Southern Center said Tuesday that hundreds of students at the South Georgia high school were subjected to a search conducted without a warrant. Some of the searches were “highly intrusive” and involved officers touching students’ genitals and breasts.
The Southern Center is raising questions about the legality of the search.
“The Sheriff’s search of Worth County High School students went far beyond what the law permits,” said SCHR attorney Crystal Redd. “The Sheriff had no authority to subject the entire student population to physical searches of their persons, and certainly none to search students in such an aggressive and inappropriate manner...”
Assuming is this accurate, this sheriff just blew his career. And likely morel. From reading the article, the deputies did not have reasonable suspicion for pat downs, or anything more intrusive. Again, I will withhold judgement, the AJC is not exactly a 1A source, but this looks ugly.
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