{"id":1048,"date":"2012-04-09T19:49:34","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T00:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1048"},"modified":"2012-04-09T19:49:34","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T00:49:34","slug":"no-slam-dunk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1048","title":{"rendered":"No Slam Dunk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last September I wrote that the United States Supreme Court was about to hear oral arguments in a case called Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 As you\u2019ll recall, this is what I had to say about it:<\/p>\n

Albert Florence was a passenger in a car traveling on a New Jersey road when the driver was pulled over by a New Jersey State Trooper.\u00a0 Florence was taken in to custody on a non-indictable civil matter unrelated to the traffic stop.\u00a0 Even though he claimed the unpaid matter had been taken care of, the trooper brought him to the jail to be booked.\u00a0 In the booking process, Florence was told to strip, hold his hands out, lift his genitals, and raise his tongue with his mouth open.\u00a0 All of this took place with a jailer standing within an arm\u2019s length.<\/p>\n

If that wasn\u2019t bad enough, Florence was transported from the Burlington County Jail to the Essex County Correctional Facility after 6 days.\u00a0 At Essex, he went through a similar naked routine as he did upon entering the Burlington County Jail. This time \u201che and four other detainees were instructed to enter separate shower stalls, strip naked and shower under the watchful eyes of two corrections officers. After showering, Florence was directed to open his mouth and lift his genitals. Next, he was ordered to turn around so he faced away from the officers and to squat and cough.\u201d\u00a0 After a day spent in the Essex County facility, the charges against Florence were dropped and he was released.<\/p>\n

I also wrote that this case was not a \u201cslam dunk\u201d in favor of what many of us consider being a violation of the Fourth Amendment.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 The SCOTUS handed down its decision last week.\u00a0 In justification for saying that it\u2019s okay for correctional and jail officials to conduct intrusive searches, Justice Kennedy said that \u201c[p]eople detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals.\u201d\u00a0 He likened Florence to Timothy McVeigh and the serial killer Joel Rifken<\/a>. \u00a0(I had no idea who Rifken was and had to Google<\/a>\u00ae him \u2013 he is a serial killer who may have killed up to 17 prostitutes in the New York\/Long Island area.)\u00a0 Justice Kennedy got it wrong.\u00a0 Instead of expecting Timothy McVeigh, jails and detention centers should be expecting the people more like Florence.\u00a0 Not only are most people entering these facilities more like Florence, but even Justice Kennedy couldn\u2019t show that McVeigh or Rifken were security risks when detained.\u00a0 Contrarily, both appeared to be closer to gentlemen than hoarders of contraband, and in the case of Rifken, very cooperative.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that \u201cthe strip search procedures described by the District Court at BCJ and ECCF are reasonable.\u201d The Appeals court reversed the \u201cDistrict Court\u2019s grant of summary judgment\u201d and remanded the case \u201cfor further proceedings consistent with [its] opinion.\u201d\u00a0 In coming to this conclusion, two of the three circuit judges based their reasoning on balancing \u201cthe Jails\u2019 security interests at the time of intake before arrestees enter the general population against the privacy interests of the inmates.\u201d\u00a0 They gave more weight to the security interests than they did to the constitutional rights of the accused.\u00a0 Justice Kennedy did the same.\u00a0 He barely mentioned constitutional rights, but he went on with page after page about the security of jails.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if the Jailers Association of America wrote the decision.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re coming to a point where the needs of government are becoming greater than the rights our forefathers envisioned.\u00a0 Yes, there needs to be control over what comes into our correction and detainment facilities.\u00a0 But comparing Florence to McVeigh or Rifken is insulting to anyone who is going to be asked to \u201ccome down to the station to get this little matter of a traffic ticket settled\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last September I wrote that the United States Supreme Court was about to hear oral arguments in a case called Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders.\u00a0 As you\u2019ll recall, this is what I had to say about it: Albert Florence … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,17,56],"tags":[380,282,234,379,62,377,378,230],"class_list":["post-1048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-issues","category-privacy","tag-3rd-circuit-court-of-appeals","tag-albert-florence","tag-fourth-amendment","tag-joel-rifken","tag-justice-kennedy","tag-strip-search","tag-timothy-mcveigh","tag-united-states-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1048"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1050,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048\/revisions\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}