LOCKNEY -- The school board here met Thursday to discuss a recent ruling by a federal judge who said its drug testing policy is unconstitutional; however, the board made no decision on whether to appeal the decision. After the meeting, which lasted more than two hours and was closed to the public, Supt. Raymond Lusk referred all questions to the district's attorney, Don Henslee of Austin. Henslee said a decision about an appeal may be announced Monday. He would not discuss why the board is waiting to make a decision. [continues 133 words]
Come Along For The Ride As A Pair Of D-FW Filmmakers Mine The Rich Soil Of West Texas And Come Up With A PBS Documentary LOCKNEY – From the air, the West Texas landscape reveals itself as a flat, treeless grid. Each patch of land is a cotton field, now mostly picked for the season. Swirls in the dirt represent the traces left behind by an underground irrigation system.The ground may be dusty, but an aquifer helps make this region the world's largest cotton producer outside Egypt. [continues 3501 words]
A U.S. District Court judge in Lubbock ruled that a school district's policy of compulsory drug testing is unconstitutional. Judge Sam Cummings handed down the ruling against the district of Lockney, which started screening all middle- and high school students for drugs last year. "We were pretty confident in our case. I'm not surprised that we won," said Larry Tannahill, the Lockney resident who sued the district in March. He had argued that the testing violated the right of his son, Brady, to be free from unreasonable search and seizure as set out in the 4th and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution. [end]
A mandatory drug testing policy violates the rights of a seventh-grade boy who challenged the policy last year, a federal judge ruled today. The judge, Sam R. Cummings of Federal District Court, said that he understood the motives of the Lockney Independent School District but that its mandatory, "suspicionless drug testing" violated the Fourth Amendment. The boy, Brady Tannahill, then 12, was the only holdout when the policy was put into effect. [end]
LOCKNEY - U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings ruled Thursday in favor of a parent who sued the Lockney Independent School District claiming its mandatory drug-testing policy was unconstitutional. Larry Tannahill refused to allow his son to be tested when the school first began drug screening students and faculty in February 2000. With help from the American Civil Liberties Union, Tannahill sued the school district claiming that its policy violated his son's rights under the Fourth and 14th Amendments, which protect against unreasonable searches and seizures. [continues 549 words]
LUBBOCK, Tex., March 1 (AP) -- A mandatory drug testing policy violates the rights of a seventh-grade boy who challenged the policy last year, a federal judge ruled today. The judge, Sam R. Cummings of Federal District Court, said that he understood the motives of the Lockney Independent School District but that its mandatory, "suspicionless drug testing" violated the Fourth Amendment. The boy, Brady Tannahill, was the only holdout when the district implemented its drug testing policy in February 2000. Brady, then 12, was suspended from extracurricular activities for 21 days and given substance abuse counseling. [continues 56 words]
Billy Wafer, one of the defendants in the now notorious Tulia cocaine bust of 1999, is a free man. Wafer had been accused, along with three dozen other black defendants, of selling cocaine to undercover agent Tom Coleman (see "Color of Justice," by Nate Blakeslee, June 23) in the tiny Panhandle ranching town of Tulia, near Lubbock. Because Wafer was already on probation at the time, his first stop was a revocation hearing held last February, where he could have gotten twenty years. [continues 361 words]
LOCKNEY - The dueling sides in the lawsuit against the Lockney schools' drug-testing policy responded to each other's motion for summary judgment last week, lawyers said. No new revelations came to light as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Lockney Independent School District wait on a ruling that could keep the case from going to trial. The responses allowed each side to dispute the other's so-called "finding of facts," lawyers said. Both sides presented their arguments for having the case settled in a bench ruling by Judge Sam R. Cummings in U.S. District Court, Northern District, in Lubbock. [continues 306 words]
From staff reports Tulia had more than its share of major stories last year, including the crash of an F-16, a controversial undercover drug sting and a lawsuit over school drug testing. Although those stories made lots of headlines, one of the biggest stories of the year was the crash of the Lifestar helicopter in March. Other big stories in the region included numerous murders and charges of misconduct among regional sheriffs and their jails. An aircraft crash occurred Aug. 28 near Tulia, when a Fort Worth pilot died after his F-16C crashed during a flyover of his in-laws' house, about four miles north of town. [continues 2432 words]
Random drug testing is an essential element in preparing students for what lies ahead in future employment, some area school officials say. But one federal judge in Amarillo deemed the Tulia district's program, which tests all seventh through twelfth graders involved in extracurricular activities, unconstitutional under Amendment IV. The amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. Four districts in this area have random drug testing programs in place, although all are not exactly alike. They include Bridge City, Deweyville, Evadale and Little Cypress-Mauriceville school districts. [continues 774 words]
LUBBOCK - Both sides of a lawsuit involving drug tests of students in Lockney have asked U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings of Lubbock to rule on the case without a jury. Larry Tannahill, in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the Lockney Independent School District for implementing a mandatory drug-testing policy in February for students in grades 7-12. Tannahill's son, now a seventh-grader, is the only student who was not allowed by his parents to be tested. [continues 187 words]
Both sides of a lawsuit involving drug testing students in Lockney have asked U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings of Lubbock to rule on the case without a jury. Larry Tannahill, in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the Lockney Independent School District for implementing a mandatory drug testing policy in February for students in grades 7-12. Tannahill's son, now a seventh-grader, is the only student who was not allowed by his parents to be tested. [continues 183 words]
Ruling Against Tulia Schools May Not Hold Sway Over Lockney An Amarillo judge's opinion that drug testing of students in Tulia is unconstitutional may have no influence on the ruling of a similar case in Lockney. The drug testing policy in Tulia, which is about 70 miles north of Lubbock, requires students in grades 7-12 who want to participate in extracurricular activities to submit to a random drug screening. The policy in Lockney requires students in grades 7-12 be tested, regardless of their participation in extracurricular activities. [continues 712 words]
A lot of Texas Panhandle people are tired of the national attention we've garnered recently with efforts to rid our communities of illegal drugs. I think we all should be pleased with what we've accomplished. I'm not among the crowd that believes our constitutional rights should be compromised to win the so-called war on drugs. I'm not convinced our nation's prisons need to be expanded so we can lock up airheads who smoke marijuana in their houses. And I'm not a blind supporter of law enforcement that sometimes uses questionable means to justify the ends in drug cases. [continues 418 words]
TULIA - The drug-testing lawsuit against Tulia Independent School District will move to the next judicial level, and the case's repercussions could impact another Panhandle school district lawsuit. The Tulia school board voted Tuesday to appeal a court decision declaring the district's drug-testing policy in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The school board unanimously voted for the appeal during a special meeting at 7:15 a.m. U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson on Thursday ruled in favor of Hollister Gardner and his cousin Molly Gardner, who filed a lawsuit in January 1997 to protest the Tulia ISD's "mandatory, suspicionless" drug-testing policy. [continues 457 words]
TULIA - The Tulia school district intends to appeal a decision by an Amarillo judge who ruled that the district's student drug-testing policy is unconstitutional. Six of the school board's seven members attended an early morning meeting Tuesday and voted unanimously to appeal the decision by U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said Supt. Mike Vinyard. Hollister Gardner was a student at Tulia High School when he sued the school district for implementing a random drug-testing policy in January 1997. The tests apply to students in grades 7-12 who wish to participate in extracurricular activities. [continues 482 words]
Panhandle District Considers Appeal After Policy Ruled Illegal AMARILLO Four years ago, Mike Vinyard believed random student drug tests would act as a deterrent against illicit drug use and would offer youngsters a weapon against peer pressure. Now the Tulia school superintendent says he believes he can prove his contention with statistics that show the number of positive drug tests has dropped since the school's program of random testing of students involved in extracurricular activities began in January 1997. But last week, a United States district court judge in Amarillo concluded that the Panhandle school district's testing policy was unconstitutional. [continues 621 words]
In our opinion, U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson erred when she ruled Friday that "the mandatory random, suspicionless drug-testing program for all students participating in extracurricular activities at Tulia Independent School District is violative of the Fourth Amendment." When Tulia's school trustees meet this morning, we hope they will vote to appeal the case. Other circuit court decisions on similar issues have been decided in favor of allowing mandatory and random drug testing, increasing the likelihood that Judge Robinson's decision could be overturned. This case needs to be appealed. [continues 148 words]
A three-year battle over whether the Tulia school district can randomly drug test its students was decided Friday in an Amarillo court. U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson ruled in favor of a former student who claimed the random testing violated the Fourth Amendment protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. Hollister Gardner was a student at Tulia High School when he went up against the school board that implemented its random drug-testing policy in January 1997. The policy affected students in grades 7-12 who wished to participate in extracurricular activities. [continues 423 words]
'Dr. Laura' premiere dodges controversy Carrying more baggage than a Ritz-Carlton bellhop, Dr. Laura Schlessinger sallied forth with her controversial TV talk show Monday. Its only discernible bright spot was her Halloween-ready orange jacket. The 53-year-old physiologist otherwise presided over a rather pedantic, sometimes hectoring discussion of teens, drugs and tough love. Not exactly riveting or groundbreaking, but basically a safe port in the storm she's created with her steadfast conviction that homosexuality is a "deviant sexual orientation" in need of curing. [continues 509 words]
