Supreme Court Grants Strip Searches for Any and All

04/03/12

On Monday, April 02, 2012, a sharply divided (5-4) bench of the U.S. Supreme Court held that officers had the right to strip-search people before admitting them to jails, regardless of the nature of the charged offense and regardless of the absence of any reason to suspect hidden contraband or other items.


The ruling, arising from a certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for The Third Circuit, came up for hearing on October 12, 2011, and was subsequently decided this Monday.

The case in short is that the petitioner was arrested because the records of a fine he had paid was improperly entered/updated on the statewide computer database which still showed a warrant issued for the petitioner’s arrest for failing to appear at the hearing for the fine.

The petitioner was detained and transferred between two correctional facilities until it was ultimately determined that the fine had actually been paid.

At both the jails the petitioner was made to undergo strip searches including lifting his genitals, squatting and coughing, and allowing the inspection of his body openings.

After being released, the petitioner filed an action in the Federal District Court against the government entities that ran the jails alleging that his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated. The petitioner argued that persons arrested for minor offenses cannot be subjected to invasive searches unless there is reason to suspect concealment of weapons, drugs, or other contraband.

The court of first instance summarily ruled that the petitioner was right and his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. The federal district court ruled that “strip-searching” nonindictable offenders without reasonable suspicion violates the Fourth Amendment. The government appealed, the Third Circuit reversed the judgment. The petitioner approached the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Third Circuit holding that search procedures at the county jails struck a reasonable balance between inmate privacy and the needs of the institutions and thus the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments do not require adoption of the framework and rules proposed by the petitioner.

The learned Justice Anthony M. Kennedy observed “Every detainee who will be admitted to the general population (inside a prison) may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed.”

Even though the American Bar Association filed a supporting brief drawing attention to the fact that such procedures are also banned by international human rights treaties, the Supreme Court remained firm on allowing strip-searches.

The Supreme Court held that the prohibition on unreasonable searches contained in the Fourth Amendment did not apply to the strip searches conducted by prison officials before admitting a detainee to the prison population.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the four dissenting judges wrote that the ruling was “a serious affront to human dignity and to individual privacy.”

Justice Breyer also wrote that there were instances of submitting people to “the humiliation of a visual strip-search” for such offenses as failing to use a turn signal, riding a bicycle without an audible bell, and driving with a noisy muffler.

Justice Breyer also drew attention to a case where a nun was strip-searched for trespassing during an antiwar demonstration.

However, Justice Kennedy, drawing from his vast personal experiences summed up the general demographics of U.S. citizens by writing that in this country, “people detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals.”

The case is Florence v. County of Burlington, No. 10-945.