Opinion ID: 1208626
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Of the Clothing Exchange at the Schoharie County Jail

Text: For purposes of this appeal, we accept the plaintiffs' description of the clothing exchange procedure, although the procedure they describe appears to deviate in certain respects from the protocol purportedly established by the defendants. [2] See Salim, 93 F.3d at 90. We therefore proceed, taking the facts in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, to examine the constitutional question presented. See Pearson, 129 S.Ct. at 818. We first observe that the plaintiffs make no claim that they were subjected to visual or manual body cavity searches. Plaintiff Kelsey testified that a corrections officer stood in front of him during the brief period when he removed his street clothes and put on the jail uniform. Kelsey testified that he assume[d] that the officer saw [his] genitals during that time. Kelsey was not asked to manipulate his body in any way or to assume any particular position. Nor was he prevented from protecting his privacy by turning away from the officer as he undressed, by concealing the lower half of his body behind the half-wall in front of which he was standing, or by using the towel that was available to him during the clothing exchange. In any event, briefly seeing a man's genitals during a clothing exchange does not amount to a strip search. [3] Plaintiff Wright's characterization of the clothing exchange as a search is even more attenuated. According to Wright, the clothing exchange took place in a holding cell, where he disrobed in one minute as a corrections officer stood in front of him. Wright testified that he undressed [a]t somewhat of an angle to the officer but could not recall 100 percent which way [he] was facing. As best he could describe it, [it] was like sort of facing toward the officer. Apparently, a towel was available to him as he disrobed, and he took the towel with him as he went to take a shower before returning to the holding cell with the towel. Back in the cell, he dressed in the jail uniform. According to Wright's version of events, no officer was present when he put on the jail uniform. Also, as with Kelsey, Wright was not required to move or display his body in any particular way. Corrections Officer Kenyon, who supported the testimony of plaintiff Wright, at least to the extent of indicating that the clothing exchange took place in a holding cell (rather than behind the half-wall), declared that the purpose of the clothing exchange process, as far as I know, is simply to get inmates into the jail uniform and secure their street clothing. [4] Nevertheless, a necessary function of any corrections officer is to observe inmates at all times, whether the inmate is eating, sleeping, showering, undertaking recreational activity or engaging in any other activity within the confines of any jail. We conclude that the incidental observation of the body of an arrestee during a required clothing exchange, in the manner described by plaintiffs, is not an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, it seems to us that a clothing exchange observed by corrections officers under the circumstances described by plaintiffs is related to maintaining institutional security and preserving internal order and discipline[,] essential goals that may require limitation or retraction of the retained constitutional rights of both convicted prisoners and pretrial detainees. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 546, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). The objectives served by a clothing exchange, according to Sheriff Bates, include assurance that each inmate has clothing that is clean and free of infestation; that inmates are clearly identifiable and distinguishable from visitors, staff and members of the public; and that a positive state of mind be instilled in each inmate. In assessing the need to promote the foregoing interests, we recognize that we owe substantial deference to the professional judgment of prison administrators such as Sheriff Bates. See Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126, 132, 123 S.Ct. 2162, 156 L.Ed.2d 162 (2003). A clothing exchange is a common practice in jails and prisons as is the need for corrections officers to be vigilant at all times. See, e.g., Marriott, 227 F.R.D. at 169-70; Williams, 2008 WL 4501918, at ; see also Barber v. Overton, 496 F.3d 449, 463 (6th Cir.2007) (Cook, J., concurring) (Corrections officers must be ever vigilant of constant, and often innovative, threats to their safety.... (citation omitted)). Legitimate goals and policies of the penal institution support clothing exchanges at jail intakes as well as the watchful gaze of corrections officers over inmates, whether they are clothed or not. [5] Bell, 441 U.S. at 546, 99 S.Ct. 1861. The dissent points out that inmates are afforded privacy when they shower and change into prison attire during the clothing exchange process. From this the dissent infers that defendants have rejected the idea that the presence of officers when inmates remove their street clothes furthers security, order, and discipline in the jail. This inference is strained at best; and in any event, it is not for us to decide when officers should be permitted to observe inmates as they go about activities of daily life in jail, or specify (under the Constitution) times when inmates may not be watched. As the dissent observes, the Schoharie County Jail is a controlled environment, in which inmates have a limited expectation of privacy and freedom of movement. While we have an obligation to set a floor of constitutionality permissible conduct, we are ill-equipped to define the contours of life in jail. The District Court framed the issue thus: [I]f a CO w[ere] required to observe an inmate undress, would this procedure constitute an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution? Kelsey, 2007 WL 603406, at . Our answer to this question is that such a procedure is not per se an unreasonable search violative of the Fourth Amendment. In giving this answer, we do not depart from, or erode in anyway, our clearly established precedent that persons charged with a misdemeanor and remanded to a local correctional facility ... have a right to be free of a strip search absent reasonable suspicion that they are carrying contraband or weapons.... Shain v. Ellison, 273 F.3d 56, 66 (2d Cir.2001); see also N.G. v. Connecticut, 382 F.3d 225 (2d Cir.2004) (stating that this Court has ruled in several decisions that strip searches may not be performed upon adults confined after arrest for misdemeanors, in the absence of reasonable suspicion concerning possession of contraband (citing Shain, 273 F.3d at 62-66; Wachtler v. County of Herkimer, 35 F.3d 77, 81 (2d Cir.1994); Walsh v. Franco, 849 F.2d 66, 68-69 (2d Cir.1988); Weber, 804 F.2d at 802)). Our precedents do not control the allegations in this case. We hold here only that a process for the exchange of personal clothing for prison clothing under the observation of a corrections officer in the manner described by plaintiffs does not implicate the type of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment nor does it fall within the prohibitions established by our precedents relating to strip searches. Plaintiffs were not required to display or manipulate their body parts in any way. Moreover, Plaintiffs did not deny that methods were available to them to protect viewing of their private parts in the event they desired to make use of such methods.