The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday about the following, according to Scotusblog:
Does the Constitution permit the government to strip search every
person admitted to a jail, even if there is no reasonable basis to
suspect that the person has hidden weapons or contraband?
For more detail:
- ACLU
- The Volock Conspiracy.
- The NYT.
Update: Jeffrey Rosen wants the court to rule against strip searches for people arrested for trivial offenses. He points out that this has been the case up until recently:
For decades, federal courts had held that people arrested for minor
offenses couldn’t be strip searched unless prison officials had reason
to suspect them of concealing weapons or contraband. But over the past
three years, some federal appellate courts have reached the opposite
conclusion. By reaffirming the traditional prohibition on suspicionless
strip searches, the Supreme Court can resurrect a basic constitutional
principle that it has allowed to erode in recent years: namely, that the
intrusiveness of a search should be proportional to the seriousness of
the suspected crime.
Here's more:
At the time of the Framing, juries had the discretion to rule against
the government in cases where the intrusiveness of a search outweighed
the seriousness of a crime. In the case that inspired the Fourth
Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches, for example, a British
jury awarded John Wilkes a thousand pounds after the King’s agents
searched his desk drawers for evidence that identified him as the author
of an anonymous pamphlet criticizing the King. In the jury’s view, the
crime of which Wilkes was suspected—seditious libel—didn’t justify such
an intrusive search of his most intimate papers and effects.
That bit is fascinating. Considering the attention given to original intent, is it worth considering how searches were conducted in colonial and early America?
And this:
During the early twentieth century, this proportionality principle was
retained in criminal statutes: During Prohibition, for example, it was
illegal to sell alcohol, but not to purchase or possess it. That sensible limitation was abandoned, however, during the war on
drugs, when Congress and the states imposed ruinous penalties on drug
possession and purchase. This effectively spelled the end of the
proportionality principle: Suddenly the police could approach anyone
whom they suspected of carrying a small amount of drugs and do a full
body pat down or car search. The principle eroded further as the police
began to use low-level traffic violations as a pretext for enforcing the
drug laws: They could pull over virtually any motorist for speeding or
turning without signaling, and use the encounter as a pretext to look
for drugs.
I'm not paranoid by nature, but are we allowing the gradual development of a police state? I'm especially interested since so many students seem to support expansive police powers.
