Special Needs Exception to the Fourth Amendment and How it Applies to Government Drug Testing of Pregnant Women: The Supreme Court Clarifies Where the Lines are Drawn in Ferguson v. City of Charleston, The
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Authors
Prince, Barbara J.
Issue Date
2002
Volume
35
Issue
Type
Journal Article
Language
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
INTRODUCTION|Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. In Ferguson v. City of Charleston, the government asserted a well-meaning "special need" in protecting the health of women and children to justify a drug testing policy used to gather evidence of drug abuse by pregnant women. The special needs exception to the Fourth Amendment search and seizure requirements allows the government to conduct a search without a warrant or probable cause. The United States Supreme Court has applied this special needs exception to the government's drug testing of individuals. When the Court finds a special need, it determines the reasonableness of the search by balancing the government's interest against the individual's expectation of privacy. However, when employees of a state hospital test a woman's bodily fluids for drugs, and then use those tests to criminally prosecute the woman, the government encroaches on a high expectation of privacy which the government's interest cannot outbalance. In Ferguson, the United States Supreme Court determined that a state hospital drug testing policy developed to deter pregnant patients from drug use must comply with the Fourth Amendment prohibitions...
Description
Citation
35 Creighton L. Rev. 857 (2001-2002)
Publisher
Creighton University School of Law