Court says Ohio strip search unconstitutional

CINCINNATI (AP) — A federal appeals panel has ruled staffers at an Ohio vocational school may be sued by high school nursing students who were strip-searched after a reported theft.

The three 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges today stood by an earlier conclusion that the search was unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back after ruling in a similar case last year that while school officials violated an Arizona teen’s rights in a strip search, the officials weren’t financially liable.

The Cincinnati appeals court said officials of the Vern Riffe Career Technology Center in Piketon in southern Ohio should have known their searches in 2006 were unreasonable for reasons including lack of individual suspects.

Eleven students sued, seeking damages.