Opinion ID: 2271465
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Justification Required for a Strip Search of an Arrestee

Text: Relying primarily on the Supreme Court's decision in Schmerber, [42] Scott argues that the police needed to have probable cause to believe he was concealing contraband in the private parts of his body they ordered him to expose; and that in the absence of exigent circumstances, the police were required to obtain a search warrant. The government, distinguishing Schmerber and citing the weight of judicial authority since the Supreme Court's 1979 decision in Wolfish [43] upholding strip searches of prison inmates on less than probable cause, argues that a strip search incident to a lawful arrest  an arrest itself based on probable cause  need only be justified by reasonable suspicion, a less demanding standard than probable cause. [44] We begin our consideration of the parties' contentions with the recognition that, although the Fourth Amendment generally requires a law enforcement officer to have probable cause for conducting a search of any nature, [45] searches incident to a lawful custodial arrest are an exception to that rule. In United States v. Robinson, [46] the Supreme Court explained that [t]he authority to search the person incident to a lawful custodial arrest, while based upon the need to disarm and to discover evidence, does not depend on what a court may later decide was the probability in a particular arrest situation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found upon the person of the suspect. [47] Rather, the Court held, a search incident to an arrest supported by probable cause requires no additional justification.... [I]n the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a `reasonable' search under that Amendment. [48] A full search incident to a lawful arrest properly may involve a relatively extensive exploration of the person of the arrestee. [49] However, as the Supreme Court has cautioned, that does not mean it automatically may include a strip search. [50] The Fourth Amendment requires that even searches incident to an arrest must be reasonable in scope. In most circumstances, the reasonableness of a search's scope depends only on whether it is limited to the area that is capable of concealing the object of the search. [51] But strip searches are so exceptionally intrusive that they cannot be defended as a reasonable accompaniment of all custodial arrests regardless of the circumstances. [B]oth subjective and reasonable societal expectations of personal privacy support the treatment of such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct elements of justification ... for going beyond a search of outer clothing and belongings. [52] In each case, the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness standard requires a balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails. [53] In performing this balancing, [c]ourts must consider the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is conducted. [54] As to the scope of the intrusion, courts that have considered strip searches in the decades since Wolfish have recognized, as do we, that strip and [especially] visual body cavity searches impinge seriously upon the values that the Fourth Amendment was meant to protect. These searches require an arrestee not only to strip naked in front of a stranger, but also to expose the most private areas of [his or] her body to others. This is often, as here, done while the person arrested is required to assume degrading or humiliating positions. [55] We will not cavil with judicial descriptions of strip searches involving visual body cavity inspections of the anus or vagina as demeaning, dehumanizing, and offensive to personal dignity. [56] Along with other courts, though, we also appreciate that the law enforcement need to remove concealed weapons and drugs from arrestees is a powerful countervailing consideration. As Officer Schagnon testified, and numerous cases in this and other jurisdictions attest, it is by no means uncommon for drug dealers (or other offenders) to secrete weapons and drugs in their genital or rectal areas to avoid detection. [57] Both the benefits of discovering such items in the possession of persons under custodial arrest and the dangers of failing to discover them are obvious and substantial. Furthermore, while we do not minimize the intrusiveness of a strip search, its unpleasantness may be mitigated if it is conducted  as the Fourth Amendment requires  in a reasonable, private and secure setting and in a reasonable, non-abusive manner. [58] Balancing the legitimate needs of law enforcement against the privacy interests of persons under lawful arrest, the majority of courts have concluded that a strip search (including a visual body cavity inspection) of an arrestee is permissible under the Fourth Amendment if it is justified by reasonable suspicion that a weapon or contraband may be found in the area inspected. [59] Reasonable suspicion, though a less demanding standard than probable cause, [60] imposes a requirement of objective justification. It is a standard that will not be met in the case of every custodial arrest, [61] for it requires the police to have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting that the search will be productive. [62] The suspicion must be specific to the individual being searched, [63] and the more intensive the bodily examination, the more particularized the suspicion must be. [64] In determining the existence of reasonable suspicion for a strip search incident to an arrest, the crime charged, the particular characteristics of the arrestee, and/or the circumstances of the arrest all may have a bearing; [65] and as with probable cause, the police are allowed to draw on their own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that `might well elude an untrained person.' [66] But the police must be able to articulate more than an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch. [67] Considering what is at stake, we agree with the majority of other courts that reasonable suspicion is a constitutionally sufficient justification for conducting a warrantless strip search incident to a lawful arrest. The search may include a visual body cavity inspection (but not a physical intrusion) if particularized reasonable suspicion exists to justify that step. We are not persuaded that the police must have probable cause to believe the strip search will yield a weapon or contraband, or that the police must first obtain a warrant to conduct the search in the absence of exigent circumstances. It is true that the Supreme Court adopted a probable cause standard and a warrant requirement in Schmerber for searches involving intrusions into the human body. [68] But as the Court recognized implicitly in Wolfish and Redding, strip searches do[] not implicate the Court's cases governing bodily intrusions ... because [they do] not involve a `physical intrusion, penetrating beneath the skin.' [69] There is a qualitative difference between a purely visual strip search, even one involving a visual body cavity inspection, and a physical intrusion such as a manual body cavity search, that warrants a difference in the level of justification required. As the New York Court of Appeals has explained: Unlike manual body cavity searches, strip searches and visual cavity inspections do not create a risk of physical pain or injury to arrestees. Because a manual cavity search is more intrusive and gives rise to heightened privacy and health concerns, when weighed against the legitimate needs of law enforcement, we believe it should be subject to a stricter legal standard. [70]