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Court Opinions ›› Chandler v. Miller (1997)
WALKER L. CHANDLER, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ZELL D. MILLER, GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA, ET AL.
No. 96-126 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 520 U.S. 305; 117 S. Ct. 1295; 137 L. Ed. 2d 513; 1997 U.S. LEXIS 2505; 65 U.S.L.W. 4243; 145 A.L.R. Fed. 657; 12 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1233; 97 Cal. Daily Op. Service 2723; 97 Daily Journal DAR 4831; 10 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 393 January 14, 1997, Argued April 15, 1997, Decided PRIOR HISTORY: ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT A Georgia statute requires candidates for designated state offices to certify that they have taken a urinalysis drug test within 30 days prior to qualifying for nomination or election and that the test result was negative. Petitioners, Libertarian Party nominees for state offices subject to the statute's requirements, filed this action in the District Court about one month before the deadline for submission of the certificates. Naming as defendants the Governor and two officials involved in the statute's administration, petitioners asserted, inter alia, that the drug tests violated their rights under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The District Court denied petitioners' motion for a preliminary injunction and later entered final judgment for respondents. Relying on this Court's precedents sustaining drug-testing programs for student athletes, Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 686, 132 L. Ed. 2d 564, 115 S. Ct. 2386, Customs Service employees, Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 659, 103 L. Ed. 2d 685, 109 S. Ct. 1384, and railway employees, Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U.S. 602, 608-613, 103 L. Ed. 2d 639, 109 S. Ct. 1402, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court accepted as settled law that the tests were searches, but reasoned that, as was true of the drug-testing programs at issue in Skinner and Von Raab, the statute served "special needs," interests other than the ordinary needs of law enforcement. Balancing the individual's privacy expectations against the State's interest in the drug-testing program, the court held the statute, as applied to petitioners, not inconsistent with the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Georgia's requirement that candidates for state office pass a drug test does not fit within the closely guarded category of constitutionally permissible suspicionless searches.
Our precedents establish that the proffered special need for drug testing must be substantial -- important enough to override the individual's acknowledged privacy interest, sufficiently vital to suppress the Fourth Amendment's normal requirement of individualized suspicion.
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Respondents' defense of the statute rests primarily on the incompatibility of unlawful drug use with holding high state office. The statute is justified, respondents contend, because the use of illegal drugs draws into question an official's judgment and integrity; jeopardizes the discharge of public functions, including antidrug law enforcement efforts; and undermines public confidence and trust in elected officials. Brief for Respondents 11-18. The statute, according to respondents, serves to deter unlawful drug users from becoming candidates and thus stops them from attaining high state office. [...] Notably lacking in respondents' presentation is any indication of a concrete danger demanding departure from the Fourth Amendment's main rule.
Nothing in the record hints that the hazards respondents broadly describe are real and not simply hypothetical for Georgia's polity. [...]
A demonstrated problem of drug abuse, while not in all cases necessary to the validity of a testing regime, [...] would shore up an assertion of special need for a suspicionless general search program. Proof of unlawful drug use may help to clarify -- and to substantiate -- the precise hazards posed by such use.
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What is left, after close review of Georgia's scheme, is the image the State seeks to project. By requiring candidates for public office to submit to drug testing, Georgia displays its commitment to the struggle against drug abuse. [...] The need revealed, in short, is symbolic, not "special," as that term draws meaning from our case law.
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However well-meant, the candidate drug test Georgia has devised diminishes personal privacy for a symbol's sake. The Fourth Amendment shields society against that state action.
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Few would doubt that the use of illegal drugs and abuse of legal drugs is one of the major problems of our society. Cases before this Court involving drug use extend to numerous occupations... It would take a bolder person than I to say that such widespread drug usage could never extend to candidates for public office such as Governor of Georgia. The Court says that "nothing in the record hints that the hazards respondents broadly describe are real and not simply hypothetical for Georgia's polity." [...] But surely the State need not wait for a drug addict, or one inclined to use drugs illegally, to run for or actually become Governor before it installs a prophylactic mechanism.
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Under normal Fourth Amendment analysis, the individual's expectation of privacy is an important factor in the equation. But here, the Court perversely relies on the fact that a candidate for office gives up so much privacy -- "candidates for public office ... are subject to relentless scrutiny -- by their peers, the public and the press," [...] -- as a reason for sustaining a Fourth Amendment claim. The Court says, in effect, that the kind of drug test for candidates required by the Georgia law is unnecessary, because the scrutiny to which they are already subjected by reason of their candidacy will enable people to detect any drug use on their part.
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Lest readers expect the holding of this case to be extended to any other case, the Court notes that the drug test here is not a part of a medical examination designed to provide certification of a candidate's general health. [...] It is all but inconceivable that a case involving that sort of requirement could be decided differently than the present case; the same sort of urinalysis would be involved. The only possible basis for distinction is to say that the State has a far greater interest in the candidate's "general health" than it does with respect to his propensity to use illegal drugs. But this is the sort of policy judgment that surely must be left to legislatures, rather than being announced from on high by the Federal Judiciary.
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