Opinion ID: 2273474
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Existence of Risk, Pain, or Trauma

Text: We next consider the existence of risk, pain, or trauma. We first note that physical pain should not be the end of a court's inquiry, but rather mental pain should be considered as well. Here, while we find an absence of physical pain due to the search being visual in nature, we recognize that the search was probably a embarrassment to Appellee and thus consider his mental pain and its traumatic effects. We reiterate that a strip search is one of the most invasive and traumatic searches conducted. However, the fact that Appellee was turned, facing away from the open door and that no one other than the two officers were in the line of sight leads to the conclusion that the embarrassment was minimized to some degree. [9] Again, we repeat that simply because an individual chooses to hide contraband in an intimate location and does so making it immediately apparent to police, he may not then complain that the officers searched his person in an inappropriate manner absent other aggravating circumstances. Our consideration of trauma and mental pain is also affected by the fact that the officers did not come into physical contact with Appellee's genitals or buttocks. As noted by the Court of Appeals, even after seeing the drugs dangling from Appellee's genital area, the officers demonstrated restraint and common decency by removing the contraband without making physical contact with Appellee's anatomy. And while we understand that a visual examination is certainly uncomfortable, we posit that physical contact would have been even more upsetting. Thus, we find that the visual inspection, while inherently traumatic, involved minimal trauma and pain to Appellee.