Opinion ID: 687706
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Strip Search of Ms. Romo

Text: 26 Finally, plaintiffs contend that the strip search of Ms. Romo was unconstitutional because the officials conducting the search coerced Ms. Romo into signing the written consent form. Plaintiffs assert that, after the drug-sniffing dog alerted, the officials demanded that she submit to a strip search before entering the prison. If Ms. Romo's consent to the search was necessary and was obtained coercively, the strip search may indeed have been unconstitutional. But if the officials were authorized to strip search Ms. Romo without her consent, any alleged coercion is legally irrelevant. 27 As discussed above, other circuits assessing the constitutionality of subjecting prison visitors to strip searches have held that the Fourth Amendment requires individualized reasonable suspicion. See, e.g., Daugherty, 935 F.2d at 787; Thorne, 765 F.2d at 1277; Hunter, 672 F.2d at 674. While not holding that this standard was constitutionally required, this court ruled in Boren that a strip search of a prison visitor supported by reasonable suspicion is constitutionally permissible. 958 F.2d at 988. 28 In this case, the dog alerted to plaintiff Romo while sniffing her person. This court has held in several cases that a dog alert without more [creates] probable cause for searches and seizures. United States v. Ludwig, 10 F.3d 1523, 1527 (10th Cir.1993) (citations omitted); see also United States v. Klinginsmith, 25 F.3d 1507, 1510 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 669, 130 L.Ed.2d 602 (1994) (No. 94-816); United States v. Chavira, 9 F.3d 888, 890 (10th Cir.1993). If a dog's alert gives authorities probable cause to conduct a search, it certainly satisfies the lesser standard of reasonable suspicion. Thus, after the dog alerted to Ms. Romo, prison officials possessed at least reasonable suspicion that she was concealing narcotics. Consequently, ordering her to submit to a strip search before entering the prison was clearly constitutional.