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

Heading: Application of Law to Present Facts

Text: 15 In this case, the record clearly reveals that the July 5th search of Barr's cell was initiated by the prosecution, not prison officials. The decision to search for contraband was not made by those officials in the best position to evaluate the security needs of the institution, nor was the search even colorably motivated by institutional security concerns. The Supreme Court in Hudson did not contemplate a cell search intended solely to bolster the prosecution's case against a pre-trial detainee awaiting his day in court; it did not have before it the issue of whether such a search could lawfully be used by government prosecutors to uncover information that would aid them in laying additional indictments against a detainee. We read Hudson to hold that prison officials are presumed to do their best to evaluate and monitor objectively the security needs of the institution and the inmates in their custody, and then to determine whether and when such concerns necessitate a search of a prison cell. 16 The door on prisoner's rights against unreasonable searches has not been slammed shut and locked. We take seriously the Court's statement that no iron curtain separates prisoners from the Constitution, and that the loss of such rights is occasioned only by the legitimate needs of institutional security. The emphasis on the need to accommodate individual rights to what is recognized as legitimate penological objectives is the dominant theme throughout the Supreme Court's writing on this subject. From this it is patent that since no wall of steel and stone separates prisoners from the Constitution, prisoners' rights continue to exist. It is the scope of these rights that is necessarily limited by the broad authority prison officials must have to ensure institutional security; obviously the creation of a limitation or condition on the exercise of constitutional rights is essential to orderly prison administration. Yet, because conditioning the exercise of such rights rests on the twin-rationale of objective administrators insuring prison security, a limitation imposed on prisoners' constitutional rights cannot stand when the objectives the rationale serves are absent. Nor may federal courts charged with the duty to protect the rights of all citizens fulfill that obligation merely by paying lip-service to this concept. 17 In this case it is plain that no institutional need is being served. Were it a prison official that initiated the search of Barr's cell, established decisional law holds that the search would not be subject to constitutional challenge, regardless of whether security needs could justify it. But here the search was initiated by the prosecution solely to obtain information for a superseding indictment. In our view, this kind of warrantless search of a prisoner's cell falls well outside the rationale of the decided cases. Barr retains a Fourth Amendment right--though much diminished in scope--tangible enough to mount the attack on this warrantless search. 18 We hold therefore that Barr retains an expectation of privacy within his cell sufficient to challenge the investigatory search ordered by the prosecutor. Because his effects were searched at the instigation of non-prison officials for non-institutional security related reasons, the validity of the search may be challenged. An individual's mere presence in a prison cell does not totally strip away every garment cloaking his Fourth Amendment rights, even though the covering that remains is but a small remnant. 19 Thus, the district court's refusal to suppress all of the evidence obtained in Barr's cell search is reversed. Nevertheless, we remand the case to that court for it to decide whether--in light of the overwhelming evidence of Barr's guilt--the failure to suppress this material was harmless error. The trial court should hold a taint hearing to consider what fruits, if any, were obtained from information seized in the warrantless search of July 5th. We are cognizant of the fact that the evidence seized related primarily to the witness tampering and obstruction of justice charges, neither of which convictions are before us on appeal. The remand will permit the district court to decide what prejudice, if any, Barr suffered from the admission of this evidence. 20 Affirmed in part, reversed and remanded in part.