Supreme Court Says You Can Be Strip Searched When Admitted To Jails For Any Offense
from the what-4th-amendment dept
The Supreme Court continues to chip away at whatever is left of the 4th Amendment. A ruling on Monday (with a close 5 to 4 vote) decided that jails can strip search those enrolled for pretty much any offense. However, the reasoning behind this was very suspect. In this case, it was a man who was mistakenly arrested (there was an erroneous warrant out for a fine which he had already paid).The majority opinion, by Justice Kennedy, basically argues (1) that jails are really dangerous, so we have to search everyone and (2) that some bad people might be arrested for other things, and a strip search might find them out. Neither argument makes much sense when you think about it. As Amy Davidson writes at the New Yorker link above, if jails are so dangerous, why are we sending so many people there? Shouldn't we be working on that part? And as for the other part:
He mentions that one of the 9/11 hijackers got a speeding ticket, though not how strip-searching him might have stopped the attacks, or how many millions of speeders you need to sort through to find a terrorist. Never mind, Kennedy writes: “People detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals.”And thus, let's strip search everyone!
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Filed Under: 4th amendment, jail, scotus, strip search
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How out of touch is the Supreme Court?
So you can be strip searched in jail, even though violent crime has continued to decline. Further, you have the DoJ putting in more prisons and chipping away at our rights because the Supreme Court believes more in their ideology than in the rights of the people. The 4th Amendment was very aptly increased with teh Katz decision. Yet it seems that the Supreme Court has decided the people don't deserve much of anything in regards to a right to privacy.
How is anyone supposed to take these decisions seriously? I'm sure that very few of the justices realize what their actions are doing. It's making the US surge in a possibly violent takeover. It's the last box that's gearing up to be used.
I'm growing quite concerned with everything in the US right now... The austerity plan of Paul Ryan, the fact that the rich have gotten richer, SCOTUS is running roughshod over freedom, and the US has given in to tyranny in the name of "protecting" people that it's imposing its will by force on equates to a very sharp reaction in the near future.
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The world is a dangerous place
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Re: How out of touch is the Supreme Court?
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Um...
So no law needed to define this as it has been going on for a long time.
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Re: The world is a dangerous place
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Re: How out of touch is the Supreme Court?
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supreme-court-says-you-can-be-strip-searched-when-admitted-to-jails-any-offense
Get your pumps....we're off to the border!!!
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-Bush vs Gore. Making any ruling handing the election to either candidate is just asking for trouble. In the past the court was at least smart enough to defer to congress when some states wanted to take back their approval of the Equal Rights Amendment.
-Allow strip searching for any reason, in a case where the person suing over it was wrongly arrested for a really minor thing. You think the outrage would be half as bad if the guy was say convicted of murder?
-Overturn a century of established law to let billionaires and foreign corporations spend unlimited amounts of money to influence US elections. Way to make people love you, allow interest groups to spend way more money corrupting and buying off our politicians, and allow 3rd party groups to annoy us around election time with 5 times the number of negative ads we used to see.
-Effectively banning all class action lawsuits by saying clauses in contracts banning it is perfectly legal. This allows companies to screw consumers out of say 50 bucks they thought they wouldn't have to pay, because who's going to sue over 50 bucks? That's what class action lawsuits are for. Sure the people don't get much money in those suits, but that's because it's usually about a small amount of money a large group of people all lost.
-It's looking like the court will likely repeal Obama's entire healthcare law, because in their own words, "it's just too much work to expect us to go through the entire law and figure out what's constitutional and what's not". Do you REALLY think a conservative majority would do the same thing if republicans passed Obamacare instead? (and keep in mind, Obamacare is nearly identical to the republican healthcare plan of the 1990's, including the individual mandate, met to make people take responsibility for themselves instead of shifting costs on the tax payer, because the government pays hospital bills for the uninsured, since hospitals can't refuse to treat them)
-Siding with the white firefighters suing over racial discrimination, without outlining clear rules for employers. Now businesses have to worry about their white or minority group employees suing them based on who they promote.
In the past the supreme court would at least be smart enough to outline clear rules when they made big rulings (like the 4/5's ruling on attempts at racial discrimination by requiring a high school degree to get a job, when most blacks in the area had none and most whites did), and would compromise with each other to get 7-2 and 8-1 and 9-0 decisions more often, and with rulings that were more likely to stand the test of time and not change when the judges on the court changed.
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Re: 'Cause
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Guaranteed Abuse
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Re: Re: The world is a dangerous place
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Or they find a receipt and a ticket, so what? Helping a cousin move or flying a commuter flight pre 9/11 wasn't illegal.
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Re: Guaranteed Abuse
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Re: Guaranteed Abuse
You can already see the disdain the police have for the citizens they are supposed to protect in how they treated OWS. Just imagine all the OWS people who will be strip searched with the intent of physical abuse under the color of authority. It's not to say that all of them will suffer this, but the fact that anyone would suffer it for minor infractions such as civil disobedience, is total BS. Those people aren't even being put in the general population!
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Re:
Pay no mind what other voices say
They don't care about you, like I do, (like I do)
Safe from pain, and truth, and choice, and other poison devils,
See, they don't give a fuck about you, like I do.
Just stay with me,
safe and ignorant, go,
back to sleep, go
back to sleep
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isn't this limited to going to a real prison.
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Anyone going into the jail system is potentially a source for contraband. If you specifically say "you won't search X or Y offenders" and then put them in a cell with more serious offends, you are risking mayhem.
It's not hard to imagine gang members working hard to get stopped for a traffic offence, getting tossed in jail, and sneaking in weapons to use against other gang members in the jail at the time.
If you are going to lock people up, you need to know they aren't armed and they aren't carrying drugs or contraband. Simple deal.
The judges got this one 100% right. (well, 5 of them did).
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Re: How out of touch is the Supreme Court?
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Response to: crade on Apr 3rd, 2012 @ 9:18am
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Yet that didn't stop the attacks. BUT, it justifies the mobile TSA. Good job, justices (you don't deserve a capital letter), for taking away more rights in the land of the we-used-to-be-free-but-now-we're-slaves-to-the-gov.
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Re: Guaranteed Abuse
Apparently the US doesn't even need another country to invade them first before it comes to this.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/03/supremes_allow_unsupported_strip_searches/
It's at the end of the article.
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This judgment seems to say that if we don't allow strip searches, it would be more difficult for police to do there job, so it must be constitutional.
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I wouldn't put up with this crap.
So I would put it this way to the guards doing the search:
"Bring me a warrant to search me or bring me my lawyer and keep your hands off me. If you touch me without that warrant I will consider it assault and attempted murder and I will invoke my right to self defense. At which point I will use any and all methods at my disposal to defend and protect myself. I respect that you are trying to just do your job, but that job does not include violating my rights. The rights which I am allowed to defend. Be professional and don't violate my rights and everything will remain peaceful and fine."
Basically I would make it clear that I don't intend to harm nor wish to harm the person charged with searching me. But if they do attempt to do so without legal cause I will protect myself and my rights with all due respect. If this means that I break some contradictory laws in the process so be it. I don't like those that abuse their power and I hate bullies with a passion that burns very brightly.
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Re:
In these cases, I would argue that such an invasive search is improper because the search itself is worse than the maximum punishment that would be handed out even if they were found guilty.
You say, "It's not hard to imagine gang members working hard to get stopped for a traffic offence, getting tossed in jail, and sneaking in weapons to use against other gang members in the jail at the time." To that, I would point out that they do have metal detectors. And they can also do a PARTIAL strip search and look for gang tatoos - the defense in the case conceded that stripping down to underwear was not unreasonable. And, really, they shouldn't be putting the dangerous criminals next to the traffic offense people in the first place.
I would also like to point out that "Laws in at least 10 States prohibit suspicionless strip searches." Also, "At the same time at least seven Courts of Appeals have considered the question and have required reasonable suspicion that an arrestee is concealing weapons or contraband before a strip search of one arrested for a minor offense can take place." And the Federal Bureau of Prisons and US Marshalls also have policies against it. In other words, the policy of NOT strip searching everyone admitted to prison was already in place, and hadn't created total chaos.
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Re: Response to: crade on Apr 3rd, 2012 @ 9:18am
Why yes, that WOULD be unsafe. So:
1) Metal detectors.
2) Jails and prisons are not the same place.
3) Even within a jail OR prison you should not have a serial killer go anywhere near anyone else, and you should not have someone who is just waiting for the next available judge go anywhere near the general population.
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Searches
Having spent many years taking people to jails and working in and around them, it's no joke when someone suddenly produces a weapon from somewhere on their person and you don't have one. Jails and prisons are the one place where law enforcement officers don't have weapons of their own to defend themselves.
Just because you're arrested for a minor traffic warrant doesn't mean you're a complete angel but for speeding. The police have a duty to make the jails as safe as possible for everyone and if that means you get searched when you go in, so be it.
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
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> about those airport body scanners negligible...
Only if you plan on going to jail.
It's amazing. I've managed to make it 45 years without every even coming close to be arrested for anything. And it's not even that hard. It's not like you have to really work at it.
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> with a traffic violation up with a violent
> offender?
Ever been to the Twin Towers in LA? You get arrested, you get put in a big holding cell with 25-30 other arrestees. They don't segregate by type of offense. They segregate you by when you were arrested and when you have your initial appearance, so they can just grab everyone in the room and transport them over to court at the same time.
And since you don't get to keep your street clothes anyway-- they give you a bright orange jumpsuit to wear-- this whole strip search thing is a whole lotts fuss over nothing, anyway.
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewmcfbrown/100042054/corruption-in-the-prison-serv ice-are-there-really-seven-bent-officers-in-every-prison/
The price of drugs in prison is 1000x the price on the street. So if you stick an ounce of heroin: ($3000)
http://forum.opiophile.org/archive/index.php/t-28510.html?s=8371fc2ed14263f315073ed5e24c047c)
up your ass and smuggle it into the jail, it then is worth $3 million. Presumably, as it is diluted and broken down to retail amounts, the value is even greater.
As drug activity is a major cause of further violence in prisons, I think that the courts have reached a reasonable decision. I'd imagine that such a search would be on par with a prostate exam. Certainly not pleasant, but not fatal. The technician places a hand on your shoulder and extends a finger into your rectum. Nothing to worry about unless of course you feel both of his hands on your shoulders.
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Re: Um...
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All those privatized prisons have lobbyists too, you know.
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Re: Searches
It seems like fixing that might be a better approach than treating everyone with a parking violation like they're hardened criminals.
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Re: Searches
The problem with this rhetoric is that the body of United States federal law is currently so complex that it's impossible for the average citizen to know if they're breaking the law at any given moment and in my opinion due to this complexity it's probable that thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of US citizens violate obscure local, state, and federal laws every day, many of them obsolete but have been left in the code of law by negligent lawmakers.
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Welcome
(Please apply to any situation you would like)
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Re: Re: Um...
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Re: isn't this limited to going to a real prison.
What about the guards? Shouldn't they have their anus checked?
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Re: Searches
I hope you're mistakenly picked up and you get a full body cavity search.
Liberal= A Conservative whose been arrested.
Conservative= A Liberal whose been mugged.
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"If you are going to lock people up, you need to know they aren't armed and they aren't carrying drugs or contraband. Simple deal.
Yeah because I was hanging out with my friends with contraband up my ass, and then would do said contraband after it had been there. Yeah right
"It's not hard to imagine gang members working hard to get stopped for a traffic offence, getting tossed in jail, and sneaking in weapons to use against other gang members in the jail at the time."
You would be put into a local holding cell until you see a judge for bail. Also depending on what you had done and if it was a jail-able offense. You would not be put in GP in a real PRISON. Logic FAIL.
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9-11
Shoe Bomber
FBI setups:
http://www.techdirt.com/search.php?cx=partner-pub-4050006937094082%3Acx0qff-dnm1&cof=FO RID%3A9&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=terrorist+plot
Its called false flag terror. Brought to you by your local alCIAda, and FBI.
Nothing new here.
Look for the news video of the Oklahoma City Bombing of the bomb squad going into the building to remove "a third bomb"
Look for the video news clips of the explosives in a van stopped on or near the George Washington Bridge on 9-11.(Bet you never knew about those)
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bombs+on+the+george+washington+bridge&oq= bombs+on+the&aq=1&aqi=g3&aql=&gs_l=youtube-psuggest.1.1.0l3.23597495l23600719l0l2360 2506l12l12l0l1l1l0l144l1114l4j7l11l0.
At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." - Abraham Lincoln
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." - Abraham Lincoln
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Re: Re: Searches
It's all part of what sucks about being mistakenly arrested. You might as well say that the cops should't be allowed to put handcuffs on people or take them to jail in the first place, because someone might be mistakenly arrested and that deprives them of their right to liberty.
Mistakes happen, and when they do, there are legal remedies for the victims of the mistakes, but that doesn't mean the police shouldn't be able to do something as basic as search people who are booked into a jail because someone, somewhere might be the victim of a mistake.
> I hope you're mistakenly picked up and you get
> a full body cavity search.
Hope away, but that's about as likely as me being struck by lightning while holding a winning lottery ticket.
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> overturned? Preferably some process that doesn't
> involve the government doing it
So let me get this straight-- you want us to come up with a non-governmental method of overturning a decision of the highest court in the United States?
Put the blunt down and sober up.
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> of overturning any decisions made by any part
> of the federal government
Any entity that has power over government administration becomes, by definition, part of the government.
Not to mention, you'd have to undertake a wholesale revision of the Constitution to even implement such a thing.
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If the ability to hold a popular vote to overturn a governmental action makes the populace a part of the government, then that's fine. I just think writing your congressman is pathetic, inefficient and generally ineffectual.
"Not to mention, you'd have to undertake a wholesale revision of the Constitution to even implement such a thing."
I think this could be achieved with an amendment, but if that's what it takes, then I want a wholesale revision of the Constitution. Pure representative democracy has run its course.
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Treason?
Obviously, THEY don't want to see it that way. But I can't help but think that deliberately or in complete ignorance chipping away at the Constitution should be punishable by death.
I would prefer public firing squad to dissuade others.
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Re: Treason?
Ummm, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the Constitution, not disgruntled citizens who style themselves as Constitutional scholars. Who would you have try them? Who would they appeal to, themselves?
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I have no problem with a complete strip search of people admitted to PRISON. Prisons are where you go when you've been convicted of something serious and you're going to be there a long time. Jails are supposed to be for people who aren't going to be there for an extended stay - people who have not yet been to trial, or people serving 3 months for a misdemeanor, for example.
And the extra-special searches may even be appropriate for someone accused of a violent crime, or even a drug offense if you're worried about drugs. But do you really, really think that a guy pulled over for a traffic offense who did not show up for a hearing to pay a fine (which he had already paid, but the police didn't know that at the time so it's kind of irrelevant) is going to have hidden something in a body cavity just in case he was pulled over and jailed?
Given that the court has ruled that you can be jailed for ANY violation of the law even if conviction would not result in jail time, given this ruling, given that it is illegal to drive with a burnt out tail light, and given that tail lights can burn out without warning... doesn't this mean that any time you drive your car, you are pretty much saying it's OK for the cops to perform a cavity search on you? If this is not what you are saying, where exactly should the line be?
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Re: Treason?
People throw around "treason" too often.
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When the Supreme Court actually made intelligent decisions that were in the best interest of the people, I would have said no. But now, they seem to be one of the biggest threats to the American people, willing to nullify whole categories of people's rights.
Expecting the government to reign them in is like expecting lawyers to convince their employers not to sue people. The government LIKES the fact that the SCOTUS is constantly chipping away at people's rights. They're cheering them on.
It used to be that the SCOTUS was the last defense against bad laws, but now they've clearly sold out the American people, along with our corrupt government.
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I'd be interested to see you document a single instance where someone was jailed for driving with a burned out tail light and no other charges. I'll be waiting.
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Re: I wouldn't put up with this crap.
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Strip searches are pointless for a few reasons.
You're not going to be strip searched till after you go through booking. This can take a day or longer depending on the area.
East St. Louis IL I was in the holding area for 5 days before I was booked. That was 5 days of sleeping on concrete with no cover or mattresses and detoxing from massive amounts of pain killers.
Mt. Vernon IL 2 Days. With my trusty Bob Barker mattresses.
Marion IL 1 1/2 Days. With my trusty Bob Barker mattresses.
Champaign IL 2 Days. With my trusty Bob Barker mattresses.
Chicago IL 8 Days. No mattresses.
If they missed a knife on me I had 5 days to kill every single person in the holding cell with me.
Lesson learned? Don't fuck up in Chicago or East St. Louis.
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> action makes the populace a part of the government, then that's
> fine.
So you want our fundamental freedoms subject to a majority vote?
If that's the case, say goodbye to Roe v. Wade. And gay marriage? Good luck with that.
The Constitution is set up to prevent just that sort of thing-- to protect the rights of the minority from a tyranny of the majority.
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Was the driver black in a southern town?
Were the other charges trumped up like "resisting arrest" for asking a question about why the officer has your arm twisted up behind your back? Or maybe you were damaging property after the cop shoved your head through a window at a OWS protest.
I mean NY is demanding biometric data from people accused of things, not even charged. And the spiffy Judges are pretending it is required before you can be given bail, or setting the bail higher if you refuse to have NY start and maintain secret records on you.
But yeah I'm sure your right, its not like we have over zealous people in uniforms who would abuse their positions.
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Strip Search
If everyone is naked, no one could hide things on their person.
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Re: Strip Search
Well, they could, but as Agent 86 pointed out, it would be painful. :)
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> thirds to three quarters majority to overturn.
There was a time when 2/3rds or 3/4s would have voted to overturn Brown v. Board of Education.
Most of the progress in civil rights law that we take for granted today would have been blocked by the system you propose.
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