Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-13-01769/USCOURTS-ca7-13-01769-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 13-1769

MARSHALL KING,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

ROBERT MCCARTY, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Central District of Illinois.

No. 11-cv-1126—Joe Billy McDade, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED APRIL 18, 2014 — DECIDED MARCH 27, 2015

____________________

Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and HAMILTON, Circuit 

Judges.

PER CURIAM. Marshall King, the plaintiff in this civil 

rights lawsuit, complains that he was forced to wear a seethrough jumpsuit that exposed his genitals and buttocks 

while he was transported from a county jail to state prison. 

He contends that this amounted to an unjustified and humiliating strip-search that violated his rights under the Fourth 

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and Eighth Amendments to the federal Constitution. The 

district court reviewed King’s complaint as required by the 

Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. The 

court determined that King had not stated a viable claim 

under the Eighth Amendment for cruel and unusual punishment but allowed him to proceed on his Fourth Amendment theory of an unreasonable search. The district court 

later granted summary judgment for the defendants on the 

Fourth Amendment claim on the ground that King had 

failed to comply with the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s requirement that he exhaust the jail’s available administrative 

remedies before suing. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). King has 

appealed.

We reverse and remand for further proceedings. King’s 

transfer to the state prison facility made it impossible for 

him to comply with the jail’s specified grievance procedures, 

so there were no available remedies to exhaust. We also reverse the court’s dismissal of King’s Eighth Amendment 

claim. He has alleged a plausible Eighth Amendment claim 

that the use of the unusual jumpsuit had no legitimate correctional purpose but was instead used to humiliate and inflict psychological pain. See Calhoun v. DeTella, 319 F.3d 936, 

939 (7th Cir. 2003) (reversing dismissal of Eighth Amendment claim based on strip-search). We also conclude, however, that, as a convicted prisoner, King is not entitled to 

proceed on remand with his theory that requiring him to 

wear the jumpsuit subjected him to an unreasonable search 

in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

King was convicted of violating Illinois’s armed habitual 

criminal statute. See 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/24-1.7. After senCase: 13-1769 Document: 41 Filed: 03/27/2015 Pages: 26
No. 13-1769 3

tencing, he was transferred from the Livingston County Jail 

to an intake facility run by the Illinois Department of Corrections. Pursuant to jail policy, King was strip-searched before 

departure and told to change into a jumpsuit. The parties 

dispute the exact characteristics of this garment. King describes it as “a see-through jumpsuit that visually expose[d] 

his genitals and buttocks,” and he says the guards refused to 

give him undergarments to cover himself. Defendants (the 

county sheriff and two guards at the jail) deny that the 

jumpsuit was transparent but concede it was “less than 

opaque.” And while insisting the jumpsuit was not seethrough, they defend the policy on the ground that seethrough garments are crucial to ensure security and safety 

during transfer. The jumpsuit’s actual appearance remains a 

mystery at this point because the defendants have so far resisted King’s discovery requests.

Whatever the outfit’s opacity, King says that he complained about it to the guards. According to his account, 

they responded by laughing at him and telling him to be 

grateful he was not being transferred in winter. After changing into the jumpsuit, King was shackled together with other 

prisoners and driven to the state intake facility. Upon arrival, 

he and the other transferees waited for several hours in the 

presence of male and female guards before being processed 

and strip-searched again. King noticed that inmates from 

other jails were not similarly clad. He says his hours-long 

exposure in front of male and female guards and other male 

inmates caused him pain and humiliation and had no valid 

justification, especially in light of the fact that he had been 

strip-searched already and remained shackled and under 

surveillance throughout the transfer.

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II. Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies

We begin our analysis with the district court’s grant of 

summary judgment for the defendants based on King’s failure to exhaust as required by 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). That provision bars lawsuits challenging prison conditions unless the 

prisoner has first exhausted “such administrative remedies 

as are available.” See generally Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 

524–25 (2002) (explaining details and purpose of exhaustion 

rule). The exhaustion requirement is strict. A prisoner must 

comply with the specific procedures and deadlines established by the prison’s policy. Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 93 

(2006). The prisoner must do so even if he expects the process will ultimately be futile, Booth v. Churner, 532 U.S. 731, 

741 (2001); Perez v. Wisconsin Dep’t of Corrections, 182 F.3d 

532, 536 (7th Cir. 1999).

At the same time, the statute requires exhaustion only of 

remedies that are “available.” Prison authorities cannot immunize themselves from suit by establishing procedures that 

in practice are not available because they are impossible to 

comply with or simply do not exist. See Lewis v. Washington, 

300 F.3d 829, 833 (7th Cir. 2002) (“we refuse to interpret the 

PLRA so narrowly as to permit prison officials to exploit the 

exhaustion requirement through indefinite delay”) (internal 

formatting omitted); Johnson v. Litscher, 260 F.3d 826, 829 (7th 

Cir. 2001) (“For the exhaustion requirement to apply, there 

must be some administrative remedy to exhaust.”). Failure 

to exhaust is an affirmative defense that a defendant has the 

burden of proving. Westefer v. Snyder, 422 F.3d 570, 577 (7th 

Cir. 2005); Massey v. Helman, 196 F.3d 727, 735 (7th Cir. 1999).

King stayed at the state intake facility for approximately 

one week before he was moved to the state prison. For the 

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No. 13-1769 5

first time since his transfer, he then had access to writing materials. He says that he wrote to the Livingston County Jail to 

complain about the jumpsuit and to request the proper form 

to pursue the grievance process. He received no response. 

After trying to pursue administrative remedies with the state 

Department of Corrections, whose officials told King they 

had no authority over the county jail’s decisions about clothing, King filed this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeking damages and any other appropriate relief. See Calhoun v. DeTella, 

319 F.3d 936, 941–43 (7th Cir. 2003) (explaining availability of 

nominal and punitive damages in prisoner suits alleging 

constitutional harm without physical injury); see also Smith 

v. Peters, 631 F.3d 418, 421 (7th Cir. 2011) (collecting similar 

cases from other circuits).

Because King was transferred between facilities, each 

with its own grievance procedure, a preliminary question is 

which process he was required to pursue. The administrative 

remedies a prisoner must exhaust are established and defined by state law. Pozo v. McCaughtry, 286 F.3d 1022, 1023 

(7th Cir. 2002). Illinois has no rule directly addressed to 

transferees in King’s position, but the grievance procedure

established by the state board of corrections says that it 

“shall not be utilized for complaints regarding decisions that 

are outside the authority of the Department.” Ill. Admin. 

Code. § 504.810. The county jail’s jumpsuit policy seems to 

fall outside the state agency’s authority, meaning that King 

had to take his complaint to the county jail and not the state 

prison. 

In the absence of state law provisions to the contrary, 

prisoners such as King must direct their grievances to the 

entity allegedly responsible for the conditions they wish to 

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challenge. See Ortiz v. Forbes, No. 11 C 4145, 2012 WL 

5389708, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 30, 2012) (in case alleging constitutional violation in jail before transfer to state prison, “the 

analytical starting point is the transferor jail’s regulations”); 

Cunningham v. Grozik, No. 01 C 6657, 2002 WL 1777278, at *5 

(N.D. Ill. Aug. 1, 2002) (rejecting as “frivolous” defendants’ 

argument that prisoner moved from county jail to state prison had to exhaust state prison’s grievance procedure for 

claim regarding inadequate medical care in jail before transfer). This rule is consistent with the regulation quoted above, 

and it should promote efficiency and allow the relevant authorities a chance to remedy their own errors before being

haled into court—the two purposes the Supreme Court has 

identified behind the exhaustion requirement. See Woodford, 

548 U.S. at 89. We therefore agree with the parties and the 

district court that § 1997e(a) required King to exhaust available remedies established by the county jail.

The Livingston County Jail details its grievance procedure in a handbook given to all detainees upon arrival. A detainee must first attempt to resolve a dispute informally before filing an official complaint. If the informal attempt fails, 

a detainee is supposed to be able to obtain an official grievance form from certain guards at the jail. The official form 

must be submitted within five days of the incident that 

prompted the complaint. The superintendent of the jail then 

designates a “grievance officer” to investigate the reported 

incident. The detainee can appeal the resulting decision to 

the superintendent.

The defendants contend that King did nothing to pursue 

the jail’s administrative remedy. Their only evidence is an 

affidavit from the former superintendent of the jail stating 

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No. 13-1769 7

that the jail never received a request from King about the 

grievance procedure. If it had, the superintendent says, the 

request would have been sent to a grievance officer.

King has responded with a number of affidavits and 

sworn pleadings stating that: (1) he tried to resolve his complaint informally by complaining to the guards on the day of 

his transfer; (2) he lacked access to writing materials with 

which to request the grievance form until more than a week 

after his transfer; and (3) he wrote to the jail as soon as he 

could, explaining his complaint and requesting the proper 

paperwork, but never received a response.

Summary judgment is appropriate only where the moving parties can show there is no genuine dispute of material 

fact and that they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law. 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). We view the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the non-moving party and draw all reasonable 

inferences in that party’s favor. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 

477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986); McGee v. Adams, 721 F.3d 474, 480 

(7th Cir. 2013). The undisputed material facts do not show 

that the defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of 

law on the defense of failure to exhaust administrative remedies. 

First, the defendants have offered no evidence suggesting 

that King failed to exhaust the policy’s informal-resolution 

requirement. They deny King’s sworn account that he explained his problem with the jumpsuit to the guards at the 

time of his transfer. But the defendants failed even to cite 

any support in the record for their version of the story, as required by Rule 56(c)(1), let alone meet the summary judgment burden of showing that the material facts are undisputed in their favor. See Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 

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144, 157 (1970) (reversing summary judgment where moving 

party’s submission was not adequate). Nor did they present 

any evidence showing how a transferee could informally resolve a complaint about conditions at the jail while confined 

in a different facility.

Second, nothing in the record shows beyond reasonable 

dispute that the grievance form, which King had to file within five days of his transfer to satisfy the jail’s policy, remained available to him. The parties disagree about whether 

King ever wrote asking for the form—a dispute of fact that 

could not be resolved against him on summary judgment—

but we think that question is ultimately beside the point. 

Even if King had been able to write on the same day he was 

transferred, it is not plausible that he could have asked for 

the form, received a response, and mailed back the completed paperwork before the five-day deadline had passed. The 

jail has imposed a timetable that makes it practically impossible for transferred prisoners to pursue their grievances 

about the transfer process. The form was not available to 

King, so he was not required to submit it before suing. See 

Dale v. Lappin, 376 F.3d 652, 656 (7th Cir. 2004) (because 

guards refused to provide specific form required to file 

grievance, defendants could not show failure to exhaust).

The defendants cannot avoid this conclusion by relying 

on the superintendent’s statement that any letter from a 

transferred prisoner would have been given to a grievance 

officer. The district court interpreted that statement to mean 

the jail would have considered King’s grievance on the merits even if he did not use the proper form or submit his complaint on time. The court concluded on that basis that the 

remedy remained available.

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No. 13-1769 9

The first problem with this conclusion is that it does not 

follow from what the superintendent actually said. Her affidavit said only that any letter from King would have been 

given to a grievance officer. Such a letter would still have 

failed to conform to the procedural requirements of the jail’s 

policy and could have been thrown out on that basis. In effect, the district court reversed the summary judgment 

standard by viewing the superintendent’s statement in the 

light least favorable to the non-moving party.

But even if the affidavit had actually said that a late 

grievance from King would have been considered on the 

merits, there is a still more fundamental problem with the 

defendants’ argument. The jail detailed its grievance policy 

in the detainee handbook. To the extent the policy was available to King, he was required to follow its specific procedures. Woodford, 548 U.S. at 93. Now that a prisoner has sued 

them, though, the defendants cannot defeat the suit by retroactively amending the policy with a new rule or policy 

that says, in effect, “we would have been reasonable.” Nothing in the record suggests, but more important, nothing in 

the jail’s stated policy shows beyond reasonable dispute, that 

the jail would have or could have accepted a late submission 

or otherwise relaxed its stated rules. See Dale, 376 F.3d at 656 

(vacating summary judgment; defendants could not argue 

that they would have accepted prisoner grievance even if not 

filed on the specific form required by administrative policy).

Prisoners are required to exhaust grievance procedures 

they have been told about, but not procedures they have not 

been told about. See Pavey v. Conley, 663 F.3d 899, 906 (7th 

Cir. 2011); Curtis v. Timberlake, 436 F.3d 709, 712 (7th Cir. 

2005); Carroll v. Yates, 362 F.3d 984, 985 (7th Cir. 2004). They 

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are not required to divine the availability of other procedures. If authorities could change their grievance rules once 

litigation began or simply keep prisoners in the dark about 

the real rules, they could always defeat prisoner suits by announcing impossible procedural hurdles beforehand and 

then, when they are sued, explaining that they would have 

waived the requirements for the plaintiff. See Kaba v. Stepp, 

458 F.3d 678, 686 (7th Cir. 2006) (reversing summary judgment for defendants; where prison officials argued they 

would have permitted late grievance after transfer, it was 

unknown both whether late grievance would be considered 

and whether prisoner had way to know a late grievance might be 

considered); Dale, 376 F.3d at 656 (vacating summary judgment for defendants; prisoner offered evidence that prison 

officials refused his request for required grievance form; officials argued on appeal that prisoner was not required to 

use specified form but pointed to no regulation that would 

excuse failure to use required form). The Prison Litigation 

Reform Act was not meant to impose the rule of “heads we 

win, tails you lose” on prisoner suits. See Kaba, 458 F.3d at 

684 (“Prison officials may not take unfair advantage of the 

exhaustion requirement”), quoting Dole v. Chandler, 438 F.3d 

804, 809 (7th Cir. 2006).

In short, the defendants did not show that they were entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. In fact, the 

record at this point demonstrates the contrary. The jail’s administrative remedy was simply not available to transferred 

prisoners challenging their treatment during the transfer. 

The exhaustion requirement in 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) is not a 

barrier to King’s claims.

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No. 13-1769 11

III. The Eighth Amendment Claim

The district court screened King’s complaint for cognizable claims as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. 

28 U.S.C. § 1915A. The court concluded that King could proceed on his claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that being forced to 

wear a transparent jumpsuit during his transfer violated the 

Fourth Amendment. But the court dismissed King’s parallel 

claim under the Eighth Amendment, relying on our decision 

in Johnson v. Phelan, 69 F.3d 144 (7th Cir. 1995). Johnson held 

that female guards’ routine monitoring of naked male inmates in a jail’s showers, toilets, and cells did not involve the 

sort of unnecessary infliction of pain or discomfort that is 

required to state a claim for cruel and unusual punishment. 

The district court also concluded that because the jumpsuits 

were part of the jail’s usual transfer policy, it was implausible 

that they were meant for harassment rather than for a legitimate penological purpose.

Claims such as King’s require that we consider the larger 

tension between the privacy and dignity of prisoners and the 

pressing institutional needs for security and safety. Courts 

give wardens substantial deference in pursuing the latter 

ends, but that deference is not complete. The Supreme Court 

made this point in Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. —, 131 S. Ct. 1910, 

1928–29 (2011), when it emphasized that courts “may not allow constitutional violations to continue simply because a 

remedy would involve intrusion into the realm of prison 

administration.” Although prisoners are deprived of many 

rights during their incarceration, they “retain the essence of 

human dignity inherent in all persons.” Id. at 1928.

King should be allowed to pursue his Eighth Amendment claim beyond the pleadings. Johnson does not foreclose 

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at the pleading stage King’s allegation that being unnecessarily paraded in a see-through jumpsuit was cruel and unusual punishment. Nor should the district court have decided 

on the pleadings that the jumpsuit was justified simply because the jail imposed it on all transferred detainees. 

A strip-search in jail or prison can be cruel and unusual 

punishment. See Mays v. Springborn, 575 F.3d 643, 649 (7th 

Cir. 2009); Peckham v. Wisconsin Dep't of Corrections, 141 F.3d 

694, 697 (7th Cir. 1998). A prisoner states a claim under the 

Eighth Amendment when he plausibly alleges that the stripsearch in question was motivated by a desire to harass or 

humiliate rather than by a legitimate justification, such as the 

need for order and security in prisons. See Calhoun v. DeTella, 

319 F.3d 936, 939 (7th Cir. 2003); Meriwether v. Faulkner, 821 

F.2d 408, 418 (7th Cir. 1987); see also Hudson v. Palmer, 468 

U.S. 517, 530 (1984) (Eighth Amendment protects against 

“calculated harassment unrelated to prison needs”). Even 

where prison authorities are able to identify a valid correctional justification for the search, it may still violate the 

Eighth Amendment if “conducted in a harassing manner intended to humiliate and cause psychological pain.” Mays, 

575 F.3d at 649 (reversing summary judgment for defendants). In short, where there is no legitimate reason for the 

challenged strip-search or the manner in which it was conducted, the search may “involve the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain” in violation of the Eighth Amendment. 

Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 346 (1981), quoting Gregg v. 

Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 173 (1976).

These decisions under the Eighth Amendment do not 

conflict with the Supreme Court’s more recent decision in 

Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, 566 U.S. —, 132 S. Ct. 

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No. 13-1769 13

1510 (2012), which held that a county jail did not violate detainees’ Fourth Amendment rights by applying its policy of 

strip- and body cavity searches for all detainees entering the 

jail’s general population. See id. at 1523 (Roberts, C.J., concurring); id. at 1524 (Alito, J., concurring). The majority opinion retained a standard of reasonableness—“correctional officials must be permitted to devise reasonable search policies 

to detect and deter the possession of contraband”—while 

recognizing that courts should ordinarily defer to correctional officials’ judgments about the reasonableness of such a 

policy. Id. at 1517. Florence did not address, however, issues 

presented by correctional officers “engaging in intentional 

humiliation and other abusive practices.” Id. at 1523 (plurality).

King has stated a viable claim that he was subjected to 

cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth 

Amendment. He complains that he was degraded and humiliated by being transported in a see-through jumpsuit that 

left him exposed in front of other inmates as well as guards 

of both sexes. Such compelled and prolonged nudity seems 

to be, for present purposes, analogous to a lengthy stripsearch. King asserts that there was no legitimate reason for 

this policy, a point he supports with specific factual allegations. Detainees arriving at the intake facility from other jails 

were not wearing similar garments, which at least tends to 

suggest that such clothing is not necessary for safe and secure penal transfers. Moreover, King was strip-searched before and after his transfer, and he remained shackled and 

under surveillance throughout. These facts tend to suggest 

there was no security reason for keeping transferees in a 

state of semi-nudity. Moreover, King’s allegation that he was 

mocked when he objected to the jumpsuit is enough at this 

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stage to raise at least the possibility that the policy was driven by a desire to humiliate or harass. See, e.g., Calhoun, 319 

F.3d at 939 (reversing dismissal where prisoner alleged he 

was subjected to strip searches conducted in deliberately 

harassing and humiliating way).

Our decision in Johnson v. Phelan is not to the contrary. 

That case involved female guards monitoring male prisoners 

in their bathrooms, showers, and cells, where the inmates 

were sometimes by necessity in varying states of undress. 

The plaintiff objected to being exposed in front of guards of 

the opposite sex. We affirmed dismissal of the complaint, 

holding that the policy of cross-sex monitoring was not 

meant to cause pain or humiliation but instead served several valid institutional goals. One was to avoid Title VII or 

equal protection problems by removing a basis on which the 

jail would have to distinguish between its male and female 

employees. The plaintiff in Johnson did not claim he was 

forced to disrobe for no reason, only that he and other prisoners were monitored by female guards in the shower or toilet, when they would already be naked.

King challenges a much different policy of compelled, 

continuing, and public undress without any obvious justification for the treatment. Like the plaintiff in Johnson, King 

objects to the presence of female guards, but that is not the 

basis of his complaint. He has described instead a broader 

constitutional problem, one that does not depend solely on 

the sex of the guards. (For this reason, the Title VII and equal 

protection concerns in Johnson for women employed as 

guards do not seem relevant to King’s claims.) The unusual 

practice alleged here, if supported by the facts, looks more 

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like an unjustified effort to humiliate prisoners than did the 

routine supervision of prisoners in Johnson.

Johnson also undermines the district court’s reasoning 

that because the jumpsuits were part of the jail’s standard 

transfer policy, they could not have been intended to harass 

or humiliate. The monitoring in Johnson was done pursuant 

to regular policy, but we did not and could not resolve the 

plaintiff’s claim on that basis. See 69 F.3d at 145; cf. Whitman 

v. Nesic, 368 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir. 2004) (prison’s drugtesting program did not violate Eighth Amendment because 

its specific procedures were required to ensure accurate testing). A jail cannot shield a cruel and unusual punishment 

from legal challenge simply by imposing it on everyone 

equally. That would serve only to magnify the constitutional 

problem.

IV. The Fourth Amendment Claim

In reviewing King’s complaint, the district court concluded that he stated a potentially viable claim for violation of 

his Fourth Amendment rights, which requires that searches 

be conducted in a reasonable manner. On this point, we disagree with the district court. In the end, it was correct to 

dismiss King’s Fourth Amendment claim, but it should have 

been on the merits rather than for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. On remand, the district court should not 

allow King to pursue a Fourth Amendment theory for relief.

As noted, King argues that he was subjected to an unusual and unreasonable form of prolonged strip-search. See 

Johnson, 69 F.3d at 145 (“Observation is a form of search, and 

the initial question therefore is whether monitoring is ‘unreasonable’ under the fourth amendment.”). At the time of 

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the alleged search, however, King was a convicted offender 

in custody for purposes of punishment. The Supreme Court 

has never applied the Fourth Amendment to such a claim 

based on the treatment of a convicted prisoner in prison.

In Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517 (1984), the Supreme 

Court adopted a bright-line rule and held that a prison inmate had simply no reasonable expectation of privacy in his 

prison cell that would protect him under the Fourth 

Amendment from unreasonable searches and seizures of his 

property. The Hudson opinion also said, more broadly, that a 

“right of privacy in traditional Fourth Amendment terms is 

fundamentally incompatible with the close and continual 

surveillance of inmates and their cells required to ensure institutional security and internal order.” Id. at 527–28.

After Hudson, the lower federal courts have considered 

whether its holding extends from searches of prisoners’ 

property to searches of their bodies. A key difference between the Fourth and Eighth Amendments is relevant. For 

reasons we explained above, King’s claim under the Eighth 

Amendment survives at least at the pleading stage, but that 

claim will require him to prove that the defendants acted 

without a legitimate correctional purpose and for the purpose of humiliating him and/or subjecting him to gratuitous 

psychological injury. See, e.g., Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 

319 (1986) (for conduct that “does not purport to be punishment at all,” it is “obduracy and wantonness, not inadvertence or error in good faith” that characterizes actions prohibited by the Eighth Amendment). In other words, the defendants’ subjective purposes and states of mind are part of the 

relevant considerations (even if they might be the subject of 

objective, circumstantial evidence).

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The Fourth Amendment imposes, by contrast, an objective standard of reasonableness, so King argues he can prevail under the Fourth Amendment without necessarily having to prove the defendants acted with bad intent. Even under the Fourth Amendment’s objective standard, courts give 

considerable deference to judgments of prison officials about 

matters of institutional safety and security, but the deference 

is not complete. See, e.g., Conyers v. Abitz, 416 F.3d 580, 584 

(7th Cir. 2005), citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 547–48 

(1979).

In Johnson, we considered the difference between the 

Fourth and Eighth Amendments in the context of the jail policies that exposed naked male prisoners to view by female 

guards. Johnson lost under the Fourth Amendment because 

we held that he had no protected privacy interest. He lost 

under the Eighth Amendment because there were legitimate 

correctional purposes for subjecting male prisoners to view 

of female guards: more efficient use of staff and greater employment opportunities for women. 69 F.3d at 147–48; see 

also Sparks v. Stutler, 71 F.3d 259, 260–61 (7th Cir. 1995) (distinguishing between Fourth and Eighth Amendment claims 

based on involuntary catherization of prisoner to extract 

urine for drug test; reversing Fourth Amendment judgment 

for plaintiff based on defense of qualified immunity).

Even in prison, case law indicates that the Fourth 

Amendment protects, to some degree, prisoners’ bodily integrity against unreasonable intrusions into their bodies. See 

Sparks, 71 F.3d at 260–61 (insertion of catheter into prisoner’s 

bladder was subject to Fourth Amendment, but defendant 

physician was entitled to qualified immunity); Peckham v. 

Wisconsin Dep’t of Corrections, 141 F.3d 694, 699 (7th Cir. 1998) 

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(Easterbrook, J., concurring in judgment) (Fourth Amendment protects prisoners from unreasonable bodily intrusions 

but not inspections of appearance of their bodies); see also 

Sanchez v. Pereira-Castillo, 590 F.3d 31, 44–48 (1st Cir. 2009) 

(vacating dismissal of prisoner’s Fourth Amendment claim 

based on abdominal surgery used to search for evidence).

We said broadly in Johnson v. Phelan that Hudson held that 

prisoners retain no right of privacy under the Fourth 

Amendment. 69 F.3d at 146. We have also said in other cases, 

however, that the Fourth Amendment continues to protect 

some degree of privacy for convicted prisoners, at least 

when it comes to bodily searches, even if that protection is 

significantly lessened by punitive purposes of prison and the 

very real threats to safety and security of prisoners, correctional staff, and visitors. See Peckham, 141 F.3d at 697 (stating 

in dictum regarding strip-searches that prisoners retain 

some protection “under the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures”). And in Canedy v. Boardman, 16 F.3d 183 (7th Cir. 1994), we reversed dismissal of a 

prisoner’s claim that his rights were violated by routine observation and even strip-searches by opposite-sex guards, 

though in the similar Johnson case, we interpreted the Canedy

discussion of “privacy” as an invocation of the Eighth 

Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments 

and cautioned against reading Canedy too broadly. 69 F.3d at 

147–48.

King has not alleged any intrusion into his body like 

those at issue in Sparks and Sanchez, so even if we assume 

such treatment of a convicted prisoner is subject to the 

Fourth Amendment, he has failed to state a viable claim. We 

draw support for the line we draw from the Supreme Court’s 

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decision in Florence, where the issue was whether routine 

visual strip-searches of pretrial detainees, without individualized suspicion that a detainee was concealing contraband, 

were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The Court 

allowed such searches but made clear that its opinion did 

not address searches in which detainees would be touched 

as part of the searches. See 132 S. Ct. at 1515, 1523. King, who 

was at the time of his transfer no longer a pretrial detainee 

but a convicted prisoner, alleges only a form of prolonged 

visual search in which he was not touched.

The Supreme Court has adhered to the importance of the 

subjective element of Eighth Amendment claims by convicted prisoners like King, and the Court has never extended 

Fourth Amendment protection to a prisoner’s claim like 

King’s. In light of those facts, we do not believe we should 

expand the scope of Fourth Amendment protection to stripsearches of convicted prisoners to create an EighthAmendment-light standard in which the subjective purposes 

of prison officials would not be relevant. We conclude that 

King has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be 

granted under the Fourth Amendment. 

The decisions of the district court dismissing King’s 

Eighth Amendment claim and granting summary judgment 

for the defendants on the defense of failure to exhaust administrative remedies are REVERSED and the case is 

REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion.

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20 No. 13-1769

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. I concur in the judgment reversing and 

remanding this case to the district court, and I join Parts I, II, 

and III of the court’s opinion, which hold that defendants are 

not entitled to summary judgment on the defense of failure 

to exhaust administrative remedies and that King has alleged a viable claim for cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. The court’s opinion provides 

helpful clarification of the PLRA’s requirement to exhaust 

administrative remedies, particularly where circumstances 

make it impossible for a prisoner to comply with express requirements of a jail’s grievance procedure. I respectfully disagree, however, with Part IV, which rejects King’s Fourth 

Amendment claim on the pleadings and instructs the district 

court not to consider it on remand.

I do not believe the boundary for the protections provided by the Fourth Amendment to a convicted prisoner is the 

surface of the prisoner’s skin, as my colleagues suggest 

(though they leave open the possibility that no Fourth 

Amendment protection at all is available to a convicted prisoner). In fact the majority’s Fourth Amendment reasoning 

goes further than the Supreme Court itself and other circuits 

have gone. The Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement officials to act in a reasonable manner when they subject people to searches of their person or property. It is well 

established that observation of a nude detainee is a search 

for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., Florence v. 

Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington, 566 U.S. —

132 S. Ct. 1510 (2012); Johnson, 69 F.3d at 145 (“Observation is 

a form of search, and the initial question therefore is whether 

monitoring [of naked male prisoners by female guards] is 

‘unreasonable’ under the fourth amendment.”). 

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No. 13-1769 21

To be sure, those who are detained in connection with 

proven or suspected criminal activity have sharply diminished expectations of privacy—none when it comes to their 

property and only very limited rights when it comes to their 

bodies. Moreover, courts give deference to the judgment of 

jail or prison staff in determining what searches are reasonable. See Florence, 132 S. Ct. at 1517; Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 

520, 547–48 (1979).

But I do not believe that convicted prisoners have utterly 

no Fourth Amendment rights, at least when it comes to 

rights of bodily integrity. Consider, for example, the intrusions into an inmate’s body in Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753 

(1985), which barred surgery on a pretrial detainee to recover evidence, and in Sparks v. Stutler, 71 F.3d 259, 260–61 (7th 

Cir. 1995), where the convicted prisoner was subjected to involuntary catheterization of his bladder. King’s allegations 

describe an unusual form of prolonged search that he alleges 

was unreasonable.

The Supreme Court has not held that prisoners have no

Fourth Amendment right to bodily privacy. In Bell v. Wolfish, 

441 U.S. 520, 558 (1979), the Court assumed but did not decide that the Fourth Amendment protected convicted inmates against unreasonable strip-searches, including visual 

inspection of bodily cavities. And as Chief Justice Burger 

wrote: “Inmates in jails, prisons, or mental institutions retain 

certain fundamental rights of privacy; they are not like animals in a zoo to be filmed and photographed at will by the 

public or by media reporters, however ‘educational’ the process may be for others.” Houchins v. KQED, Inc., 438 U.S. 1, 5 

n.2 (1978) (plurality opinion of Burger, C.J.) (news media did 

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22 No. 13-1769

not have constitutional right of access to secure portions of 

jail for purpose of gathering news).

The Supreme Court later held in Hudson v. Palmer that the 

Fourth Amendment does not apply to searches of prison 

cells because prisoners have no legitimate expectation of 

privacy in their property or surroundings. The Hudson opinion said in its broadest statement that a “right of privacy in 

traditional Fourth Amendment terms is fundamentally incompatible with the close and continual surveillance of inmates and their cells required to ensure institutional security 

and internal order.” 468 U.S. at 527–28.

Despite that broad language, the holding of Hudson was 

expressly limited to searches of prisoners’ cells and belongings, not their bodies. See id. at 536 (“We hold that the 

Fourth Amendment has no applicability to a prison cell.”). 

The narrow scope of the decision was reflected in Justice 

O’Connor’s concurrence, which reiterated that the Court was 

addressing inmates’ “privacy and possessory interests in 

personal effects” and “searches and seizures of the contents 

of an inmate’s cell.” Id. at 536–40. We recognized that limit in 

Sparks, which presented a Fourth Amendment claim based 

on involuntary catherization of a prisoner to obtain a urine 

sample for drug testing. See 71 F.3d at 261 (“Hudson did not 

require the Court to decide what interests prisoners retain in 

their bodies, as opposed to their surroundings. ... Certainly 

Hudson does not establish that the interior of one’s body is as 

open to invasion as the interior of one’s cell.”).

Hudson was a case about prisoners’ privacy interest in 

their property and surroundings, and its reference to the 

surveillance of inmates means simply that: observing prisoners in their cells. So while Hudson helped guide our deciCase: 13-1769 Document: 41 Filed: 03/27/2015 Pages: 26
No. 13-1769 23

sion in Johnson, where inmates were routinely monitored 

while in their cells and showers, it did not foreclose Fourth 

Amendment challenges to more intrusive and/or less justifiable bodily searches like the one King has alleged. See, e.g., 

Sanchez v. Pereira-Castillo, 590 F.3d 31, 44–48 (1st Cir. 2009) 

(reversing dismissal of convicted prisoner’s Fourth Amendment claim for unreasonable search in the form of exploratory surgery to search for contraband, even though search had 

legitimate correctional goal). 

Our court has on occasion used broad language that denies prisoners essentially any legitimate expectation of privacy, even with respect to their own bodies. See Johnson, 69 

F.3d at 146 (reading Hudson v. Palmer as holding that prisoners do not retain any right of privacy under the Fourth 

Amendment); Green v. Berge, 354 F.3d 675, 679 (7th Cir. 2004) 

(Easterbrook, J., concurring) (prisoners’ privacy interests 

“are extinguished by judgments placing them in custody”). 

But Johnson is the outlier on this issue.

In other cases, both before and after Johnson, we have 

recognized that the Fourth Amendment continues to protect 

some very limited degree of privacy in prisons, at least when 

it comes to strip-searches, even if that protection is significantly lessened by the very real dangers of incarceration. See 

Peckham, 141 F.3d at 697 (prisoners retain some protection 

“under the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable 

searches and seizures”); Canedy v. Boardman, 16 F.3d 183, 185 

(7th Cir. 1994) (“those who are convicted of criminal offenses 

do not surrender all of their constitutional rights”). That’s 

why we have allowed prisoners to proceed on Fourth 

Amendment challenges to bodily searches instead of dismissing their claims. See May v. Trancoso, 412 F. App’x 899, 

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24 No. 13-1769

904 (7th Cir. 2011) (non-precedential order) (affirming summary judgment for defendants; prisoner drug test was not 

unreasonable); Forbes v. Trigg, 976 F.2d 308, 312 (7th Cir. 

1992) (affirming summary judgment for defendants in case 

challenging requirement that prisoner produce urine for 

drug test, but noting that “inmates retain protected privacy 

rights in their bodies”). While I do not find persuasive the 

Johnson majority’s effort to distinguish Canedy (by saying it 

must have been limited to the Eighth Amendment), a single 

panel obviously cannot resolve this tension in our circuit’s 

case law.1

All of the other courts of appeals except the Federal Circuit (which would rarely if ever have occasion to consider 

the question) have said that prisoners retain some diminished 

degree of protection against unreasonable bodily searches 

and/or have allowed such challenges to go forward. As best I 

can tell, no other circuit applies the categorical rule that my 

colleagues apply, finding no Fourth Amendment protection 

against strip-searches or nudity. See, e.g., Sanchez v. PereiraCastillo, 590 F.3d 31, 44–48 (1st Cir. 2009) (vacating dismissal 

of prisoner’s Fourth Amendment claim based on abdominal 

surgery to obtain evidence); Nicholas v. Goord, 430 F.3d 652, 

658 (2d Cir. 2005) (“prisoners retain a right to bodily privacy,” but DNA testing did not violate Fourth Amendment); 

Russell v. City of Philadelphia, 428 F. App’x 174, 178 (3d Cir. 

1 In Johnson, which is very difficult to reconcile with Canedy on this 

point, a petition for rehearing en banc was denied by a vote of five to 

four, with two judges not participating. See 69 F.3d at 144 n*. Peckham

did not draw a petition for rehearing en banc, perhaps because the judges who disagreed on the general legal issue agreed on the judgment affirming summary judgment for the defendants. See 141 F.3d at 697.

 

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No. 13-1769 25

2011) (prisoner stated claim challenging strip-search under 

Fourth Amendment but failed to exhaust administrative 

remedies); Bushee v. Angelone, 7 F. App’x 182, 184 (4th Cir. 

2001) (vacating dismissal of prisoner’s challenge to reasonableness of strip-search); Hutchins v. McDaniels, 512 F.3d 193, 

196 (5th Cir. 2007) (reversing dismissal of prisoner’s Fourth 

Amendment claim based on strip-search); Stoudemire v. Michigan Dep’t of Corrections, 705 F.3d 560, 575 (6th Cir. 2013) (affirming denial of qualified immunity against prisoner’s 

Fourth Amendment claim challenging strip-search); SeltzerBey v. Delo, 66 F.3d 961, 963 (8th Cir. 1995) (reversing summary judgment and remanding prisoner’s Fourth Amendment claim challenging strip-search); Nunez v. Duncan, 591 

F.3d 1217, 1226–28 (9th Cir. 2010) (affirming summary judgment for defendants on merits of prisoner’s Fourth Amendment claim; he presented no evidence that strip-search was 

unreasonable); Farmer v. Perrill, 288 F.3d 1254, 1260 (10th Cir.

2002) (affirming denial of qualified immunity against prisoner’s challenge to strip-search); Moton v. Walker, 545 F. 

App’x 856, 860 (11th Cir. 2013) (affirming grant of qualified 

immunity while noting that prisoners “retain a constitutional right to bodily privacy”); Kaemmerling v. Lappin, 553 F.3d 

669, 686 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (affirming dismissal of prisoner’s 

challenge to DNA testing because past case established its 

reasonableness).

With only the pleadings before us on this claim, I believe 

it is a mistake to attempt now to draw precise boundaries 

under the Fourth Amendment. In Florence the Supreme 

Court took care to limit its decision and to leave room for 

future modification and exceptions. 132 S. Ct. at 1522–23; see 

also id. at 1523 (Roberts, C.J., concurring) (“The Court is 

nonetheless wise to leave open the possibility of exceptions, 

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to ensure that we not ‘embarrass the future.’”); id. at 1524–25 

(Alito, J., concurring) (praising limits on Court’s opinion). 

We should exercise similar caution here. At this preliminary 

stage of this case, we should recognize that the Fourth 

Amendment’s focus on objective reasonableness may preserve some outer limit on the actions of even well-meaning 

prison administrators where such bodily searches are involved, while it also requires courts to give substantial—but 

not complete—deference to the warden’s judgment. The uncertain scope of the law might well allow individual defendants to rely on qualified immunity to avoid damages liability, of course, but Armstrong has also asserted a practice or 

policy claim against the sheriff in his official capacity under 

Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). We 

should allow further factual development on this claim in 

the district court on remand.

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