APPEALS COURT OVERTURNS PARENTS' RANDOM DRUG TESTS

The court ruled that just because the couple's daughter was on
probation, they were not subject to drug testing.

BY REBECCA BOONE - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Edition Date: 11/15/08

The Idaho Court of Appeals says a northern Idaho couple had their
constitutional protection from unlawful searches violated when a
magistrate ordered them to submit to drug tests as part of their
daughter's probation.

The parents were not named in the ruling to protect the identity of
their juvenile daughter.

In the unanimous ruling handed down Thursday, the appellate court
found that 1st District Magistrate Robert Burton's ruling served a
laudable purpose in requiring the parents to be tested for marijuana.
But the appeals court said it was still a violation of the parents'
right against unlawful searches.

The case began when the girl was charged with two counts of petit
theft and was placed on probation for a year by Burton. A term of the
probation was that the girl's parents, referred to in the ruling as
John and Jane Doe II, were required to submit to random drug and
alcohol testing.

Six months later, the girl was accused of violating her probation in
several ways, and the parents were accused of testing positive for
marijuana. None of the girl's violations involved drugs, according to
the court.

Burton continued the girl's probation and again required that her
parents undergo random urinalysis drug tests.

The parents appealed that order, but 1st District Judge John Luster
upheld Burton's ruling. They appealed again to the Idaho Court of
Appeals, where they prevailed.

Simply because the parents live with a probationer - their daughter -
does not mean that they are subject to the same reduced expectation
of privacy as the person on probation, the appellate court ruled.

Still, Judge Karen Lansing wrote for the appellate court, it is
"reasonable to conclude that a juvenile's rehabilitation will be
facilitated by ensuring that the parents themselves are not
unlawfully using controlled substances in the home where the juvenile
probationer is living.

"Moreover in this case the drug testing is not justified merely by a
hypothetical risk of drug use, but by the parents' admissions that
they had used and intended to continue to use marijuana in the home."

Since the daughter did not commit drug crimes, the court noted, the
relationship to her rehabilitation and the drug testing of the
parents was not as strong as it might have been if the daughter were
abusing drugs.