Constitutional Law
Squeezing Student by Throat Constitutional
Posted Nov 7, 2007, 10:32 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A Georgia teacher who grabbed a 14-year-old boy by the throat and squeezed his neck as he tried to leave her classroom did not violate the youth’s civil rights, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the teacher’s action, which left bruises, was inappropriate but did not constitute "unconstitutionally excessive" corporal punishment, according to the Fulton County Daily Report.
"The justification for some corporal punishment was considerable given that the student repeatedly disobeyed the teacher's command to be seated and given that the student first touched the teacher by forcing her hand from the doorframe," the court said in its Oct. 25 opinion (PDF).
Atlanta attorney William P. Claxton, who represented the mother of the student, Jonathon Peterson, called the ruling a license to strangle misbehaving children.
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