(no subject)

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

In which SCOTUS's conservative wing denies that there is any limiting principle for the police. This ruling comes at the end of a long list of rulings which have ratified the worst practices of English monarchy: using the investigation system as a form of extrajudicial punishment.

Naturally, the government can't force you to buy health insurance, but it could arrest you on probable cause, subject you to multiple strip searches, and toss you into a prison for a few days while awaiting trial for... oh, it was a clerical error. The tickets had been paid, it's that no one told the right people.

So-Called Justices Approve Strip Searches for any Offense

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

As in the Bell case, Justice Kennedy wrote, the “undoubted security imperatives involved in jail supervision override the assertion that some detainees must be exempt from the more invasive search procedures at issue absent reasonable suspicion of a concealed weapon or other contraband.”

I'm persuaded by this, personally. It's hard to argue that a search of anyone who is entering a jail as a suspect, especially if they're going into a general population or holding cell, is "unreasonable."

Really, the answer here seems to be to lessen the number of ways people can be brought into jail, not make an already unsafe, problematic place more unsafe and problematic.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

I'm persuaded by this, personally. It's hard to argue that a search of anyone who is entering a jail as a suspect, especially if they're going into a general population or holding cell, is "unreasonable."

As usual, I am surprised, if not by the conclusion you reach, by the implicit reasoning that must underlie it. Here, you sign-off on the Court's broadly deferential approach to penological procedures by saying, simply, that it does not seem "unreasonable." But I don't see, in the Fourth Amendment, a balancing test between the state's interest in jailing people in whatever ways and whatever circumstances it please and an individual's right to be free of unreasonable searches. You keep telling me that the text, in itself, is the limit, but you keep pushing and pulling at the text's meaning, concluding that your conclusion, the one that happens here to endorse a discretionary procedure that is prone to precisely the same kinds of abuse the Fourth Amendment (it would seem) was designed to prevent, is just common sense.

There's no apparent willingness, here, to ask more fundamental questions, like: What is it about prison that requires us to strip-search every would-be inmate? Why do we accept as just obvious that strip-searches of inmates is an essential part of the incarceration process?

Nor is there a willingness to look to the next step - what about public schools? Is there any way to limit the rationale here from places of public accommodation - besides saying, "Well, prisons are different"?

Really, the answer here seems to be to lessen the number of ways people can be brought into jail, not make an already unsafe, problematic place more unsafe and problematic.

The problem with this kind of response - which I don't think is that bad as a theoretical matter - is that this is just not an available option. Police like to have the threat of jail. Legislators are not going to move against them. Mostly law-abiding citizens aren't interested in moving on the issue. So you suggest this as the "solution" to the problem, but in the end all that will happen is that more and more people will be subjected to abusive, dehumanizing strip searches for no genuinely defensible reason besides a broadly-articulated penological interest in "safety" whose precise contours are defined by exactly those people with the incentive to define the contours widely and so as to protect any abuse.

Well, I guess we just all have to hope that the state doesn't misfile our moving-violation ticket payments.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Since public schools are becoming like prisons, there isn't much difference any more. But it should be obvious what the difference ought to be.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

But I don't see, in the Fourth Amendment, a balancing test between the state's interest in jailing people in whatever ways and whatever circumstances it please and an individual's right to be free of unreasonable searches. You keep telling me that the text, in itself, is the limit, but you keep pushing and pulling at the text's meaning, concluding that your conclusion, the one that happens here to endorse a discretionary procedure that is prone to precisely the same kinds of abuse the Fourth Amendment (it would seem) was designed to prevent, is just common sense.

As this case doesn't seem to have any real impact on the state's interest in jailing people, merely the search, your complaint seems to be missing the point here.

The question is whether such a search is unreasonable. Given the circumstances, I agree in this case that it is not.

What is it about prison that requires us to strip-search every would-be inmate? Why do we accept as just obvious that strip-searches of inmates is an essential part of the incarceration process?

Kennedy answers these questions.

Nor is there a willingness to look to the next step - what about public schools? Is there any way to limit the rationale here from places of public accommodation - besides saying, "Well, prisons are different"?

As much as I believe that schools are very much like a prison, the presumption of criminality and of negative health and safety issues exists for your typical prisoners and suspects entering the system that does not exist for your typical student. It's a really silly comparison.

The problem with this kind of response - which I don't think is that bad as a theoretical matter - is that this is just not an available option.

It's absolutely an available option, just not for the court in this case.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As I recall, isn't English monarchy pretty much a joke and has been a joke since the English nobles lopped off the King's head in the 17th Century? If this is English monarchy, then there's nothing to worry about.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I actually agree with their ruling, the 4th does not prohibit it per se. What's unreasonable is putting every arrestee in the general jail population. That should fall under the cruel and unusual punishment clause. Only someone convicted of a crime by a court should be in the general jail population.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Agree with this 100%. I'd add "convicted of a felony," personally.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the law never buys the cruel and unusual punishment stuff when it comes to police action. I agree that police should have the right to strip-search suspects they feel are worth it, but nuance needs to play a part in it. They should require probably cause, and strip-searching someone for an arrest where the strip-search is completely irrelevant to the arrest should not be allowed.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

[existentme.livejournal.com]

I don't really care about the reasoning, which as others have noted seems sound enough. At the end, however, it's a simple statement about the intended dedication to the current industry. "This is the way it is, and the way it is going to stay, ergo..."

I'm not sure, because now I begin to think it must have been all just in my imagination, but it seems I recall a time when jurists would assert (apparently silly) principles about how a few guilty men will have to be set free to preserve freedom for the innocent. Now, you have Justice Kennedy, in support of the opinion, saying, "people detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals.”

So yeah, turns out, anyone can turn out to be any number of dangerous things. There was a time when not just the people, but supreme court justices, as well, tacitly or happily accepted that as a necessary evil for the preservation of liberty. Not anymore.

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

Now, you have Justice Kennedy, in support of the opinion, saying, "people detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals.”

That seems like really strange reasoning. A strip search wouldn't have stopped Timothy McVeigh, or the 9/11 terrorist that was cited. In fact, I want to call that bullshit reasoning. His point might be more that just because it's a minor offense, it doesn't mean that the person isn't capable of much more, but that seems really paranoid.

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

So... How about we get rid of these lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices? 10 years is good.

I really hope one of the justices who supported this decision gets arrested and has to go through a strip search. I mean, even if it's a minor offense, who knows what they are capable of?!

It's ridiculous that this guy was held for so long. But in a case like this, where he was arrested without advance warning, how would he have even been able to smuggle contraband in? He would have needed something there before he got in the car (unless he was able to sneak something in at the last minute).

[telemann.livejournal.com]

And you know what the real zinger is?

The guy had a document stating he had paid his traffic ticket, and it has a state seal on it, that he had paid the fine, just in case he was stopped. He knew there was a glitch in the computer system, and did everything he could think of to prevent from what happened, from happening.

Rachel Maddow had a great segment on this tonight (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#46934105), suggesting that a strict 5-4 ruling along "party" lines isn't good.

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I would think at most, they would take him to the station, sort it out, and let him go. I don't understand why he was kept for so long. It sounds like he had to wait for a hearing? I don't know, I could have that wrong.

It's tough to separate that part of this individual case from the general principle of allowing strip searches for minimal offenses. Generally speaking, it seems like there is a lot of potential for abuse. I also saw this article:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/11682964-418/supreme-court-strip-searches-ok.html

"In his dissent, Breyer said inmates in the two New Jersey jails already have to submit to pat-down searches, pass through metal detectors, shower with delousing agents and have their clothing searched."

It's not like it's invasive strip search or nothing. What's with conservatives and stuff like this - invasive strip searches, transvaginal ultrasounds? It seems kind of perverted, when you put it all together.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It is interesting that so little contraband is discovered with this practice, yet it is still seen as effective. There are other ways of getting contraband into jails. None of those ways are ones that law enforcement officers wish to curtail because they profit from them.