''Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders'', 566 U.S. 318 (2012), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case in which the Court held that officials may

strip-search A strip search is a practice of searching a person for weapons or other contraband suspected of being hidden on their body or inside their clothing, and not found by performing a frisk search, but by requiring the person to remove some or al ...

individuals who have been arrested for any crime before admitting the individuals to jail, even if there is no reason to suspect that the individual is carrying

contraband Contraband (from Medieval French ''contrebande'' "smuggling") refers to any item that, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold. It is used for goods that by their nature are considered too dangerous or offensive in the eyes o ...

Background

Albert W. Florence was riding in a BMW

sport-utility vehicle A sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a car classification that combines elements of road-going passenger cars with features from off-road vehicles, such as raised ground clearance and four-wheel drive. There is no commonly agreed-upon definitio ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

driven by his wife with their three children when she was pulled over for a traffic offense. The officer looked up Florence in the police computer database and discovered an outstanding warrant issued in Essex County. Florence had paid the fine, but the computer erroneously listed an outstanding warrant. Florence was placed under arrest in

Burlington County Burlington County is a county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The county is the largest by area in New Jersey. Its county seat is Mount Holly.

and spent six days in jail before being transferred to Essex County's jail. At both jails, custody officers "conducted a visual inspection of his body, instructing him to open his mouth, lift his tongue, lift his arms, and then lift his genitals." Florence went before a judge and was quickly released from jail. Florence filed suit against the two jails under alleging that his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated.. Florence, with Counsel of Record Susan Chana Lask, argued that "persons arrested for minor offenses cannot be subjected to invasive ... ( Fourth Amendment-unreasonable searches) ... searches unless prison officials have ... ( Fourteenth Amendment-

due process clause In United States constitutional law, a Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the government except as ...

) ... reason to suspect concealment of weapons, drugs, or other contraband." A federal judge agreed. On appeal, the

Third Circuit Court of Appeals The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts: * District of Delaware * District of New Jersey * East ...

reversed, holding that the "jails' interest in safety and security outweighed the privacy interests of detainees – even those accused of minor crimes." The case was subsequently appealed to the

; the Court granted ''

certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

'' on April 4, 2011.

Opinion of the Court

In a 5–4 decision written by Justice

Anthony Kennedy Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by Presid ...

, the Court held that officials may

individuals who have been arrested for any crime before admitting the individuals to jail, even if there is no reason to suspect that the individual is carrying

. Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice

John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including ''Nati ...

and Justices

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectu ...

Samuel Alito Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. ( ; born April 1, 1950) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on October 31, 2005, and has served ...

, and

Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 199 ...

. Justice Thomas joined all parts of Kennedy's opinion except part IV. In his opinion, Kennedy noted that Timothy McVeigh was stopped by a state trooper after the Oklahoma City federal building bombing for driving without a license plate. And, one of the

September 11 Events Pre-1600 * 9 – The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ends: The Roman Empire suffers the greatest defeat of its history and the Rhine is established as the border between the Empire and the so-called barbarians for the next four hun ...

hijackers was "stopped and ticketed for speeding just two days before hijacking Flight 93," emphasizing the discrepancies that may exist between why an individual is arrested and the kind of threat they pose to society. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito issued separate concurrences. Justice

Stephen Breyer Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is a retired American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and repl ...

dissented, joined by Justices

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President ...

Sonia Sotomayor Sonia Maria Sotomayor (, ; born June 25, 1954) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since ...

, and

Elena Kagan Elena Kagan ( ; born April 28, 1960) is an American lawyer who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 10, 2010, and has served since August 7, 2010. Kagan ...

. In the dissent, they argued that

empirical evidence Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...

on strip-searches suggests there is no convincing reason that, in the absence of

reasonable suspicion Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard of proof in United States law that is less than probable cause, the legal standard for arrests and warrants, but more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch; it must be based on "specif ...

, involuntary strip-searches of those arrested for minor offenses are necessary. They cited a study conducted in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

under the supervision of federal courts, where out of 23,000 people searched, only one inmate had hidden contraband in his body in a way that would have avoided detection by

x-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

and a pat-down. A cited

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

study found only three instances out of 75,000 inmates strip-searched in a five-year period.

Subsequent developments

The

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

released a press statement saying that the decision "puts the privacy rights of millions of Americans at risk."

References

External links

*
Coverage of the case on SCOTUSblog

Coverage of the case on the New Jersey ACLU's site
{{US4thAmendment, warrantexceptions, state=expanded United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Roberts Court United States Fourth Amendment case law 2012 in United States case law Burlington County, New Jersey Strip search

Background

Opinion of the Court

Subsequent developments

See also

References

Further reading

External links