Opinion ID: 473680
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prior Case Law Leading to Hudson v. Palmer

Text: 9 To resolve this issue, it is helpful to review several Supreme Court decisions that preceded Hudson. Price v. Johnston, 334 U.S. 266, 285, 68 S.Ct. 1049, 1060, 92 L.Ed. 1356 (1948), set forth the general principle that lawful imprisonment necessarily entails a restriction or withdrawal of constitutional rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system. Prison officials need wide latitude to subject prisoners to appropriate rules and regulations. Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 321, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 1081, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1972) (per curiam). Institutional security and related administrative problems as well as legitimate objectives of the correctional system require limitations on prisoner rights. Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 826, 94 S.Ct. 2800, 2806, 41 L.Ed.2d 495 (1974). 10 While those provisions of the Constitution that are applicable in general to all citizens must be accomodated to institutional needs and objectives, no wall separates the constitution from prison inmates. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 555-56, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). Thus, prisoners have been held to retain right of access to the courts, see Johnson v. Avery, 393 U.S. 483, 485, 89 S.Ct. 747, 748, 21 L.Ed. 2d 718 (1969); Ex parte Hull, 312 U.S. 546, 548-49, 61 S.Ct. 640, 641, 85 L.Ed. 1043 (1941); Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects them against invidious discrimination on the basis of race, except as may be essential to prison security, see Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. at 321, 92 S.Ct. at 1081; Lee v. Washington, 390 U.S. 333, 334, 88 S.Ct. 994, 995, 19 L.Ed.2d 1212 (1968) (per curiam); and the Eighth Amendment safeguards inmates from deliberate indifference to [their] serious medical needs.... Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104, 97 S.Ct. 285, 291, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976). 11 From these cases there emerges a rule that when a prison restriction infringes upon a specific constitutional guarantee, it should be evaluated in light of institutional security. Security is the main objective of prison administration; prison officials must have broad latitude to adopt rules that protect the safety of inmates and corrections personnel and prevent escape or unlawful entry. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 547, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1878, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). This principle applies equally to pretrial detainees and convicted prisoners. A detainee simply does not possess the full range of freedoms of an unincarcerated individual. Id. at 546, 99 S.Ct. at 1878. 12 This brings us to the Supreme Court's 1984 decision in Hudson v. Palmer. In that case a convicted inmate filed an action against a prison official under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1982) claiming that an unreasonable shake down search of his prison locker and cell violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The Court restated the now self-evident truth that prisoners retain rights as prisoners that are not fundamentally inconsistent with imprisonment itself or incompatible with the objectives of incarceration. 104 S.Ct. at 3198. Yet, because the interest of society in the security of its penal institutions outweighs the interest of the prisoner in privacy within his cell, it held that the traditional Fourth Amendment privacy right is fundamentally incompatible with the close and continual surveillance of inmates and their cells required to ensure institutional security and internal order. Id. at 3200-01. Such a conclusion is bottomed on common sense because if drugs, weapons, and contraband are to be ferreted out of jail cells, then prison officials must have unrestricted access to those places to accomplish that objective. Concededly, isolated instances of unreasonable searches by prison officials may occur, but overall considerations of institutional security outweigh a prisoner's claim to privacy in particular cases. We are satisfied that society would insist that the prisoner's expectation of privacy always yield to what must be considered the paramount interest in institutional security. Id. at 3201. 13 Prior to Hudson, decisions upholding cell searches had done so only in cases where prison officials had grounded the reason for the search on security. See Lyon v. Farrier, 727 F.2d 766, 769 (8th Cir.) (per curiam ), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 140, 83 L.Ed.2d 79 (1984); Olson v. Klecker, 642 F.2d 1115, 1117 (8th Cir.1981); United States v. Lilly, 576 F.2d 1240 (5th Cir.1978), reh'g denied, 599 F.2d 619 (5th Cir.1979) (per curiam); United States v. Ready, 574 F.2d 1009, 1014 (10th Cir.1978) (Certainly in a federal prison the authorities must be able to search the prisoners' cells without a warrant, without notice and at any time, for concealed weapons and contraband of the type which threatens the security or legitimate purposes of the institution.); Bonner v. Coughlin, 517 F.2d 1311, 1316-17 (7th Cir.1975). In determining whether pre-trial detainees had superior rights to convicted prisoners, the Supreme Court stated in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 546, 99 S.Ct. at 1877, that the fact of confinement and the legitimate objectives of the penal institution curtail the constitutional rights of any prisoner, whether convicted or not. Although pretrial detainees have not been adjudicated guilty of the crimes for which they have been charged, the Court believed that in terms of prison security there was no basis to conclude that pre-trial detainees pose a lesser risk to security than convicted inmates. Id. at 546 n. 28, 99 S.Ct. at 1878 n. 28. 14 We are left then with deciding whether the consistent holdings of the Supreme Court in the several decisions recited mean that a pre-trial detainee retains no Fourth Amendment rights, regardless of the circumstances underlying the search. This is the view the government urges. We refuse to adopt it in this case for the following reasons.