Individual Assignment Criminal Law Paper

Individual: Criminal Law Paper

CJA/354

Individual: Criminal Law Paper

The case I chose to write about this week has to do with strip searches that happen in jails. The case is Albert W. Florence v. The Board of Chosen Freeholders. The plaintiff was arguing that his constitutional rights were violated when he was forced to strip down and expose himself on two separate occasions in the county jails. He felt that these searches violated his Fourth and Fourteenth amendment rights. The case has to do with the constitutionality of this process in the jail system. More specifically Albert Florence was arguing that because he was only brought into the system for a traffic warrant he felt that he should not have been subjected to stripping down and searched.

Albert Florence was driving with his wife in his personal vehicle when he was stopped by a traffic enforcement officer. The officer ran Mr. Florence through their database and found his name with a warrant attached to it. The officer did not know at the time that the warrant for Mr. Florence was issued erroneously. The officer arrested Mr. Florence and booked him into a general population facility. When being booked into the facility Mr. Florence was told to strip down and lift his arms, tongue, open his mouth, and lift his genitals. This happened on two occasions at two separate facilities during his six day stay in the jail system. Six days after being arrested a judge released Mr. Florence from custody. Upon release Mr. Florence contacted a lawyer and filed a claim that he felt his rights were violated.

This case is interesting to me because I work in a custody environment as a Deputy in another state. I work in the exact phase of processing where we accept the inmates from the outside agencies and search them in their street clothes. I am in charge of searching them and ensuring that the person does not have any contraband anywhere on their person. One of the ways that we do this is to strip them down at...