Appeals court rules strip-searches must be backed by probable cause

[n2doc]

The federal ruling may open the door to thousands of lawsuits from people whose rights may have been violated by San Francisco's former policy of strip-searching all detainees.
By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
6:00 PM PDT, August 22, 2008
Strip-searches are so dehumanizing that they violate a person's constitutional rights if conducted without good reason to suspect that an arrested individual is carrying contraband, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The decision came in response to a lawsuit challenging San Francisco city and county policies of routinely strip-searching inmates in an attempt to stem the flow of drugs and weapons into the jails. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the practice employed by city and county authorities violated constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

The panel also ruled that San Francisco County Sheriff Michael Hennessey's claim that the indiscriminate strip-searching was intended to protect other prisoners and jail staff from potential harm does not shield him from lawsuits.

"The intrusiveness of a body-cavity search cannot be overstated," read the decision written by Circuit Judge Sidney R. Thomas in a case filed on behalf of antiwar activist Mary Bull and eight other plaintiffs. "To justify such a dehumanizing and humiliating invasion of privacy, there must be some reasonable relationship between the criteria used to identify the specific individuals eligible for a strip-search and the interest in preventing the introduction of contraband."

Strip-searching has been restricted in recent years in most California jails to prisoners for whom authorities have probable cause to believe are carrying contraband, including in San Francisco, where the blanket policy was loosened in 2004.

But civil rights advocates saw the appeals court ruling in Bull vs. City and County of San Francisco as an important warning against violating an individual's dignity on the pretext of serving a greater good.

more:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-stripsearch23-2008aug23,0,5700577.story

[mth44sc]

1. well now

who the heck thought a court would ever have to waste its time making this ruling...

[frogcycle]

2. most strip-searchs are

some pig deciding to do it "'cause she's probable a looker"