Two welcome new court rulings, one in Michigan and one in Pennsylvania, show juveniles aren't always second class citizens.

In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court struck down "suspicionless" school drug testing, saying the goal of stopping drug use does not justify them.

The theory apparently is that, even in the absence of any suspicion of drug or alcohol abuse, it is appropriate to single these students out and say, in effect: 'Choose one: your Pennsylvania constitutional right to privacy or the chess club,' " Justice Ronald D. Castille wrote in a 32-page opinion.

"What lesson does a program targeting the personal privacy of some but not all students and lacking both individualized suspicion or any reasoned basis for a suspicionless search teach our young?" Castille wrote.

In Michigan, the court ruled police cannot ask juveniles to submit to breath tests without a search warrant. The First Amendment trumps any state interest in preventing underage drinking.

The right to be left alone in public places ranks high on the hierarchy of entitlements that citizens in a free society have come to expect, at least in the context of citizen-police encounters," wrote [Judge] Lawson, who presides over the Eastern District's court located in Bay City.

Lawson said the city's ordinance is designed to gather evidence of crime, and concludes that "the ordinance's blanket authorization of warrantless searches is repugnant to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution."

[links via How Appealing]