Supreme Court approves humiliating strip-searches for even minor offenses

Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling on a 5-to-4 vote, the New York Times tells us 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.”

Wooee, all you frisk-freaks, it’s not just for drugs or smuggled weapons. Every detainee may get the up-close, undressed visual inspection. We’re talking about 13 million people admitted yearly to America’s jails. At-ic-ca, At-ic-ca!

International human rights treaties also ban the procedures, states a supporting brief from the American Bar Association, trying to spoil all the fun. Federal courts had been split on the question, but most say nay unless based on the “reasonable suspicion contraband is present.” But Daron Hall, President of the American Correctional Association and Sheriff of Davidson County, Tenn., said “The association welcomed flexibility offered by the decision. The ACA currently says nay to blanket strip-search policy.

The Court’s majority and dissenting opinions agreed search procedures would allow “close visual inspection by a guard while naked” (the prisoner not guard) and were not more intrusive than being ga-ga’d while showering but didn’t involve “bodily contact.” Where is Larry Flint when you need him? Justice Breyer, writing for the four dissenters said the Fourth Amendment should bar strip-searches (no fun) because they were “a serious affront to human dignity and individual privacy.”

Ah, well, I guess so.

Breyer also wanted to bar strip-searches as per the Fourth Amendment of people arrested for minor offenses that didn’t involve drugs or violence, unlessss officials did have “reasonable suspicions” that the arrestees were carrying contraband. Jesus, make up your mind.

The decision backed a trend from appeals courts in Atlanta, San Francisco and Philadelphia allowing strip-searches for everyone admitted to general jail populations. But seven other courts invoked the “reasonable suspicion of contraband” language.

Lower courts say you can be strip-searched for violating a leash law, driving without a license, failing to pay child support or picking your nose (just kidding there). Justice Breyer was pissed for people getting strip searched for driving with noisy mufflers, not using a turn signal, or riding a bike without an audible bell. Gee, these guys think of everything. So if you’re into it, you’ll have a field day.

Even a nun was searched for trespassing during an antiwar demonstration. “Forgive me father for I have sinned.” She tried to tell the truth. Ah, but Judge Kennedy, he’s a sharp one: “People detained for minor defenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals.” Tim McVeigh of Oklahoma patsy fame was first arrested for driving without a license plate. And one of the 9/11 purported terrorists was stopped and ticketed for speeding two days before hijacking Flight 93. He was probably stoned on all that coke they were doing in Florida, or boozing with the lap dancers. Seventy-two virgins my butt! Though this is truly kinky stuff.

Albert W. Florence from New Jersey was in the passenger’s seat of his BMW in 2005 when a state trooper pulled his wife, April, over for speeding. A search of the records “revealed” an outstanding warrant for Mr. Florence’s arrest based on an unpaid fine. Are they kidding? (BTW, the info was wrong; the fine had been paid.) But the fun starts here . . .

Mr. Florence was jailed for a week in Burlington and Essex Counties and strip-searched in each. And he was made to stand butt naked before a guard who “required” him to move “intimate parts of his body.” The guards did not touch him. “Turn around,” Florence described in an interview last year, jail officials said, “Squat and cough. Spread your cheeks.” How about a pole dance?

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

At the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, there are strip-searches even after “contact visits” with outsiders. You having fun yet? Want to get yourself arrested to do some of this fun stuff? Read on . . .

Justice Kennedy wanted to relax the more invasive searches without reasonable suspicion of a concealed weapon or other contraband. Is this what these guys do for a living, seriously folks? Breyer wrote that “there’s little empirical support that strip-searches detect contraband that would have been found had jail officials used less intrusive means, particularly if strip searches add to pat-downs and metal detectors.

Kennedy, who seems to be the freakiest here, said a “disorderly conduct arrestee in Washington State managed to hide a lighter, tobacco, tattoo needles and other prohibited items in his rectal cavity.” Welcome to 1984. In San Francisco, searches revealed “contraband in hidden body cavities of people arrested for trespassing, public nuisance and shoplifting.”

A study Breyer wrote, of 23,000 jail residents, i.e., in facility in Orange County, N.Y., said “there was at most one instance of contraband detected that would not be otherwise found.” Justices Bader, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan joined Justice Breyer’s dissent. Kennedy added that “strict policies deter people entering jails from even trying to smuggle contraband.”

Justice Roberts, Scalia, and Alito joined all of Kennedy’s majority opinion. Justice Thomas just some of it. Chief Justice Roberts said words to the effect that “exceptions to Monday’s ruling hopefully were still possible to ensure we ‘not’ embarrass the future.” Alito wrote that different rules might apply for people arrested but not held within a general population or whose detentions had “not been reviewed by a judicial officer.”

So readers, whether a multiple strip-search turns your off or on, mind you behave yourself. The CIA reads articles like this one, especially those originating in the New York Times. Okay, time to shout! At-ic-ca, At-ic-ca!

Jerry Mazza is bad boy and freelance writer, and a life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.