The Supreme Court Approves Strip-Searches For All

[fgalkin]

And so America continues its transformation into Megacity One

Linky

Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip-Searches for Any Offense

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.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Alyeska]

This combined with police deliberately arresting people on false pretense creates a horrible situation that makes police harassment blatantly legal.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Not to mention the fact that it gives me little to no hope that they WON'T Strike down the health care mandate that is currently before them...

"Judicial activism" indeed...

[Mr Bean]

The health care mandate deserves to die, and I hope it burns in hell.

I have to say I agree with Destructionator but perhaps not for the same reasons.

*Edit
I think this deserves it's own thread. I will be creating one in a little while.

[Sea Skimmer]

I’m actually surprised it was 5-4 and not more votes in favor of allowing it. They really should be strip searching the guards every day when they come into work, since we damn well know many guards smuggle in drugs and cell phones.

[Simon_Jester]

If they'd do that, I'd mind the ruling less.

It gets really tiresome seeing an endless parade of decisions that are so obviously more useful for intimidation and coercion and oppression than they are for security.

[Serafina]

If they'd do that, I'd mind the ruling less.

It gets really tiresome seeing an endless parade of decisions that are so obviously more useful for intimidation and coercion and oppression than they are for security.

Just wait until someone makes the argument that intimidation and coercion obviously serve security.

[Simon_Jester]

That's fairly standard- the exact format varies a bit, but 'deterrent effect' is alive and well as a justification used by lovers of the state's power to be heavy-handed, oppressive, and generally anti-democratic in its security policy.

[Broomstick]

This is just a continuation of the trend that has been building for years, from employers being able to test your piss (and in some cases your blood) for illicit substances to the TSA "pat-downs" prior to boarding airplane to any number of other erosions of privacy and personal bodily control. In any other context, for example, a lot of the TSA "searches" would be considered sexual assault but hey, you're not allowed to be offended anymore at someone exploring your crevices and sexual attributes. So if they TSA can legally do it before a law-abiding citizen boards and airplane why wouldn't the police be able to do it to someone they arrested? There is a certain consistency here, even if it makes me want to vomit.

The problem isn't so much the courts, which are consistently applying the laws, but rather a need to incorporate an actual goddamned right to privacy and bodily integrity into the legal system. Unfortunately, at this point that may require a constitutional amendment which means it's not going to happen.

[Flagg]

It's a security concern. If you're booking someone into jail you need to make sure they have no contraband for everyone's safety. This is much ado about nothing.

[Mr Bean]

It's a security concern. If you're booking someone into jail you need to make sure they have no contraband for everyone's safety. This is much ado about nothing.

The man was arrested for not paying a fine he had already payed and had legal documentation on his person stating as much. In NJ it's illegal to arrest someone due to not paying a fine. He spent six days in jail and was strip searched twice because they moved jails on him. The reason why this was an issue is because...
A. He was arrested despite having documentation stating the warrent was not true and the fine had already been payed
B. He was brought to jail despite the fact it was not a charge which you can be sent to jail for in NJ.
C. He was kept in jail for six days despite the fact the police admitting they knew before Day 1 ended that A and B were both true.

If this were just a case about strip searching people entering a jail it would be much ado about nothing Flagg.

[Flagg]

Yeah, except the whinging in the title is about strip searching not about the guy being arrested for no reason. He shouldn't have been arrested, that's a no-brainer, but the hullabaloo is about the strip searches being done and frankly, it's just the way it is. If you're going to be booked into county for any reason you're going to be strip searched. It's a basic measure of security. If you strip search the guy going in for capital murder you still have to do it for the guy wrongfully arrested because the murderer could have extorted him into concealing contraband.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem isn't so much the courts, which are consistently applying the laws, but rather a need to incorporate an actual goddamned right to privacy and bodily integrity into the legal system. Unfortunately, at this point that may require a constitutional amendment which means it's not going to happen.

I don't know; I think you might actually stand a chance of passing an amendment like that- people don't like intrusive government authority. And there are bases that could back it within both parties, it's a place where libertarians and progressives agree and there aren't large numbers of people who actively approve of naked-cam airport scanners and gratuitous strip searches and Facebook selling information about you to third parties.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

There's two points that need to be observed:

1. Firstly, two of the justices held open that if separated from the general jail population it may be inappropriate to strip search people arrested for minor offences. (Alito and Roberts, of all people). There will be future litigation over this, which means that strip-searches in those circumstances may well end up banned by a 6 - 3 majority at a later ruling.

2. Secondly, this is an extremely narrow ruling and doesn't explicitly address strip-searching of individuals who have been detained by the police but haven't yet been before a judge to be remanded to custody. At this stage many people are released on bail, making the strip search unnecessary. There will be litigation over this, too, and in this case it's also likely for the Supreme Court to clarify its position and not allow strip searches.

So the issue isn't decided, and only specifically definitively allows them for people arrested for minor crimes--after being brought before a judge and remanded to custody, and when mixed in with a jail population of more serious offenders.

And like Skimmer I was honestly surprised that the Supreme Court wasn't like 8 - 1 in favour of letting you be strip searched in any circumstance. I just didn't expect anything more. So the ambiguity is actually rather pleasant.

[Thanas]

America, the country where you can be searched without a warrant.

[Alyeska]

America, the country where you can be searched without a warrant.

Snarky comment is snarky.

Perhaps you are unaware, but Germany authorizes strip searches of students at high school without a warrant.

http://www.stripes.com/news/u-s-schools ... es-1.44962

In America it is illegal to strip search children in school.

[Sky Captain]

I don't know abour US, but here when entering a concert or sports arena you have to undergo a pat down although obviously you don't have to undress, but if you look for some reason suspicious to security guys they can ask you to put off your jacket and search you quite similary how security do it in US airports. And I can undertand it because if some idiot brings in fireworks or something in overcrowded arena it could potentially cause panic and crowd stampade ending up very ugly.

[Simon_Jester]

Were fireworks-induced stampedes that common in the past?

Or is this yet another case where everyone signs away their freedom from groping in perpetuity because of something one guy did, in one place, once?

[Terralthra]

America, the country where you can be searched without a warrant.

Is this a joke? How would you get to remanded to a prison without a warrant or a judge's imprimatur at some point?

[Mr Bean]

Is this a joke? How would you get to remanded to a prison without a warrant or a judge's imprimatur at some point?

Questioning, you can be brought in purely on a cops say so and end up in the county lockup without charges.

[Terralthra]

Is this a joke? How would you get to remanded to a prison without a warrant or a judge's imprimatur at some point?

Questioning, you can be brought in purely on a cops say so and end up in the county lockup without charges.

You wouldn't be put in to a general prison population under those circumstances, hence, not fall under this ruling.

[Mr Bean]

You wouldn't be put in to a general prison population under those circumstances, hence, not fall under this ruling.

You will on a Friday

[Sky Captain]

Were fireworks-induced stampedes that common in the past?

Or is this yet another case where everyone signs away their freedom from groping in perpetuity because of something one guy did, in one place, once?

Here I can't recall such accidents with lethal consequences, but IIRC there have been some deadly nightclub fires in other countries caused by fireworks.
When I went to Rammstein show few month ago I recall one guy had laser pointer (not the regular weak one but a powerful one that could easily blind you) and knife confiscated. Some form of security search is required because if there wouldn't it would only encourage idiots to bring dangerous items into arenas.

[Block]

You wouldn't be put in to a general prison population under those circumstances, hence, not fall under this ruling.

You will on a Friday

Usually they leave you in county lockup if you're not going to be seen until next week. In most places you'll have maybe one cell mate, not the same thing as general population.

[Block]

Were fireworks-induced stampedes that common in the past?

Or is this yet another case where everyone signs away their freedom from groping in perpetuity because of something one guy did, in one place, once?

They do this at sports events in the US too, but they're looking for knives and guns usually, and that's because people have been known to use them. Philly used to have at least 2 or 3 stabbings a season at Eagles games, I know the Raiders had a couple too.