Not exactly a win for liberty, butt…
“… while visual cavity searches that do not require physical entry into a prisoner’s body are generally permissible without a warrant during the jail intake process, physical cavity searches generally are not.” Did the Court recognize a general rule against sergeants yanking things out of our a**es without a warrant? Not exactly. It’s the Ninth Circuit, sure, but this is still America. The Court avoided a broad rule. “We need not and do not determine whether a warrant is required to seize evidence discovered during a visual strip search from an inmate’s body because the officers’ conduct here was unreasonable for other reasons.” The Court decided that the search was unreasonable — and thus violated the Fourth Amendment — because the officers violated the jail’s own written policies requiring a medically trained person conduct cavity searches, because Fowlkes posed no immediate threat, because the officers had no training in such measures that would let them evaluate whether they were safe or necessary, and because the officers did not take any steps to minimize trauma:
Who honestly feels better after this ruling?
