US Supreme Court Approve Strip-Searches for Any Offense

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/justices-approve-strip-searches-for-any-offense.html?_r=2

By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court’s conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs but also public health and information about gang affiliations.



About 13 million people are admitted each year to the nation’s jails, Justice Kennedy wrote.

Under Monday’s ruling, he wrote, "every detainee who will be admitted to the general population may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed."

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the four dissenters, said strip-searches were “a serious affront to human dignity and to individual privacy” and should be used only when there was good reason to do so.

The decision endorses a more recent trend, from appeals courts in Atlanta, San Francisco and Philadelphia, in allowing searches no matter how minor the charge. Some potential examples cited by dissenting judges in the lower courts and by Justice Breyer on Monday included violating a leash law, driving without a license and failing to pay child support.

The Supreme Court case arose from the arrest of Albert W. Florence in New Jersey in 2005. Mr. Florence was in the passenger seat of his BMW when a state trooper pulled his wife, April, over for speeding. A records search revealed an outstanding warrant based on an unpaid fine. (The information was wrong; the fine had been paid.)

Mr. Florence was held for a week in jails in two counties, and he was strip-searched twice. There is some dispute about the details but general agreement that he was made to stand naked in front of a guard who required him to move intimate parts of his body. The guards did not touch him.

“Turn around,” Mr. Florence, in an interview last year, recalled being told by jail officials. “Squat and cough. Spread your cheeks.”

“I consider myself a man’s man,” said Mr. Florence, a finance executive for a car dealership. “Six-three. Big guy. It was humiliating. It made me feel less than a man.”

The federal courts of appeal were divided over whether blanket policies requiring jailhouse strip-searches of people arrested for minor offenses violate the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches. At least seven had ruled that such searches were proper only if there was a reasonable suspicion that the arrested person had weapons or contraband.

Justice Kennedy said the most relevant precedent was Bell v. Wolfish, which was decided by a 5-to-4 vote in 1979. It allowed strip-searches of people held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York after “contact visits” with outsiders.

As in the Bell case, Justice Kennedy wrote, “the undoubted security imperatives involved in jail supervision override the assertion that some detainees must be exempt from the more invasive search procedures at issue absent reasonable suspicion of a concealed weapon or other contraband.”

The majority and dissenting opinions drew differing conclusions from the available statistics and anecdotes about the amount of contraband introduced into jails and how much strip-searches add to pat-downs and metal detectors.

“It is not surprising that correctional officials have sought to perform thorough searches at intake for disease, gang affiliation and contraband,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “Jails are often crowded, unsanitary and dangerous places.”

“There is a substantial interest,” he added, “in preventing any new inmate, either of his own will or as a result of coercion, from putting all who live or work at these institutions at even greater risk when he is admitted to the general population.”

In separate concurrences, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. emphasized the limits of the majority opinion. Chief Justice Roberts, quoting from an earlier decision, said that exceptions to Monday’s ruling were still possible “to ensure that we ‘not embarrass the future.’ ”

Justice Alito wrote that different rules may apply for people arrested but not held with the general population or whose detentions had “not been reviewed by a judicial officer.”

In his dissent in the case, Florence v. County of Burlington, No. 10-945, Justice Breyer wrote that the Fourth Amendment should be understood to prohibit strip-searches of people arrested for minor offenses not involving drugs or violence unless officials had a reasonable suspicion that the people to be searched were carrying contraband.

Your title is misleading. I think the result hinges more on people in jail.

If i get caught smoking a joint its an offense. But Im not in jail so they cant strip search me.

wow another great decision lol

Sumting wong, dum fuk?

Whatd you expect. The plaintiff is a black guy. Pulled over in his BMW. Probably had a hoodie in the back seat.

Another horrible Supreme Court decision. I think those assholes should be strip searched every time they go to session. For their safety and health, of course.

You are innocent until proven guilty, so why the fuck does the government get to strip search innocent people? Fucking insane.

the safety of the correctional officers takes precedent over the hurt feelings of someone in jail...

You are innocent until proven guilty. The rights of innocent citizens are suppose to take precedent.

This is just another pro police state move by the high court. Why do we even pretend these people are basing their decisions on the US Constitution?

this has nothing to do with innocence or guilt, it's about maintaining a safe environment for jail personnel and others being held in custody

That's a tired old trick, using "safety" as the reason to erode away our rights. This has everything to do with innocence or guilt. You should not be subject to the same things that convicted criminals are subject to just because you were arrested. Maybe we should just lock everyone up that is arrested in solitary confinement until their trial, nothing safer than that.

Aren't u one of those people who freak out over tea X-ray machines?

I guess you don't fly on commercial airlines anymore. If you were presumed innocent, you wouldn't be searched. It's done for safety, this is no different.

The same reason the State of Oregon is allowed to look at my employees piss.

Can you imagine having that job, strip searching those funky asses going into jail. Not enough money..

Where would you start?

For the exit, by that I mean door.

that guy could hide a shotgun in the crack of his ass

What would make it worse is him looking at you like that while you were searching him.

I'm not for that violation of our rights either. As I said this is just one more in a long line of decisions and policies that are growing the American Police State. I don't envy my children's children, I believe they are going to have to go to war to make the US free once again or just suffer under the thumb of the dictators in charge.

riding airlines is optional as is going to sporting events where you're patted down too, it's damn shame, but the only way to provide a safer environment for those flying or attending a game...it's never going back to the ole days...9/11 changed all that for good

So thats why you go on vacation. More contacts with cute young TSA agents, eh PEDOPHILE !

What about the new storeage facility being built in Utah?

“It will basically monitor every phone call, text message, email, parking ticket, public records, employment, taxes, power usage, utility records, bank accounts not only in this country, but worldwide. It will even record our web searches.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-12/...ecurity-homeland-security-utah?_s=PM:POLITICS

What rights? Those are gone forever.

It's damn sickening. And you can see the sheep like mentality that people adopt to defend the people who are eroding away the rights of us all, just read zimmie's posts in this thread.

It is a damn shame that the fools, like yourself, out number the rational people in the USA and allowed the government to use the 9/11 excuse to start building a police state.

LESS OF BIG GOVERNMENT !!! HA HA ! Some liars the Republicans are !

Forget wether its right or wrong. 13 million people a year go into jail?? I mean holy Christ that is awful. You cannot possibly think the USA is the best country in the world if so many people are going to jail.