Court Opinion

ID: 9549207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:14:51.837569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:59.959002
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent because in my opinion the majority will create chaos in law enforcement in this state. I dissent for the following reasons.
The majority reacts as the average law-abiding members of our population would react personally to such a search and applies the law in that setting. More importantly, the opinion treats this case as though there is a sexual right of privacy which would preclude any search that involves the touching of genitalia of prisoners by either sex. If the male prisoners have the right of privacy as discussed in the majority opinion *767they have a right not to be searched at all or, at least, to be searched by the sex of their choice.1
At the opposite extreme, the attitude of the dissent seems to be that prisoners have so few rights that they cannot be heard to complain. There appears to me to be another view. Justice Marshall in his dissent in Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 US 321, 346 n 5, 97 S Ct 2720, 53 L Ed 2d 786 (1977), brings that view into focus.
"* * * If women guards behave in a professional manner at all times, they will engender reciprocal respect from inmates, who will recognize that their privacy is being invaded no more than if a woman doctor examines them. The suggestion implicit in the privacy argument that such behavior is unlikely on either side is an insult to the professionalism of guards and the dignity of the inmates.”
What we are confronted with here has far greater implications than are apparently recognized by either the majority or other dissenting opinion, but at least the conclusion of the dissent would bring about a more reasonable result. Under the majority decision we could have the following situations: female guards would not be permitted to pat-down male inmates and male guards would not be permitted to pat-down female inmates; female parole officers would not be able to search male parolees and male parole officers &ould not be able to search female parolees; a female police officer would not be able to search a male suspect and male officers would not be able to search a female suspect; a female police officer could not "stop and frisk” a male detainee nor could a male police officer do likewise of a female detainee. The problems for law enforcement are beyond the imagination. I ask whether the reasonable search which has been held to *768be valid under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and under our statutes is now to be applied only when the "searcher” and the "searchee” are of the same sex?
In the setting of the prison searches I agree with the four-prong test of reasonableness set out in Bell v. Wolfish, 41 US 520, 99 S Ct 1861, 60 L Ed 2d 447, 481 (1979).
"* * * Courts 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. * * *”
Applying these criteria to the present situation only the first two are bases for the complaint. In my opinion the scope of the intrusion must be defined objectively and not based on the subjective reaction of the individual searched. On the second criterion there is no allegation that the searches conducted by female guards were other than professional.
Aside from all the arguments of equal employment opportunities, the complexities of modem law enforcement procedures simply do not allow us the convenience of sexual preference in searches which are required in a penal institution.
For these reasons I respectfully dissent.

It is interesting to speculate what choices there might be— heterosexual males searching heterosexual males, heterosexual females searching heterosexual females, heterosexual males searching homosexual females, homosexual males searching homosexual females, heterosexual males searching homosexual females and heterosexual females searching homosexual males.