Chandler v. Miller

Although responding to a real, rather than perceived threat--that of illicit drug use--the state of Georgia appeared to the Court as misguided in its attempt to force political nominees to prove their worthiness as candidates by submitting to drug testing. This case demonstrated how personal rights, protected by the Fourth Amendment, could not be infringed upon or overwhelmed even if a state was acting in response to what it perceived to be a justifiable threat. Because drug testing without suspicion qualified as a warrantless search (a fact uncontested among the lower courts as well), the U.S. Supreme Court maintained that the state had no compelling interest or "special needs" which could justify compelling candidates for political office to submit to drug testing. To do so constituted an invasion of reasonable expectations of privacy guaranteed under the Constitution when there existed little or no real threat that such strata of American society were especially prone to drug abuse. Neither was it appropriate to subject individuals to protocol that exceeded the ordinary needs of law enforcement. The public interest did not, under such circumstances, outweigh individual expectations of privacy. In reversing the decisions of the lower courts, the U.S. Supreme Court further defined the limitations which states were compelled to observe when establishing drug testing mechanisms but outlined the constraints under which states could extend their Tenth Amendment right to set and administer electoral balloting within their jurisdiction.