Amendments To The Constitution*

August 20, 2012--Our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures has been undermined by a narrow conservative majority concerned more with protecting public officials than with the rights of ordinary Americans.

The following article first appeared in the Nation.

This past April, the five conservative Supreme Court Justices gave jail officials the right to strip and search every person arrested and jailed, even if the alleged offense is trivial and there is no reason to suspect danger of any kind.

Yes folks, America is seriously under siege by the money people like the Koch brothers. We should recognize the process; we’ve witnessed it throughout the years as country after country was/is swallowed up simply for being too weak to defend itself.

The ruling in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington, compounds the assault on human dignity committed by the Court in another 5-4 decision eleven years ago.

In Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, when it authorized a full custodial arrest for even trivial “fine-only” offenses like a temporarily unbuckled seat belt.

On March 3, 2005, Albert Florence, an African-American businessman, his pregnant wife and their 4-year-old son, were in the family BMW, when a New Jersey state trooper pulled them over.

Florence’s wife was driving; no reason for the stop appears in the record and no citation was ever issued. The trooper ordered Florence, the owner, out of the car.

A computer check disclosed that an arrest warrant for civil contempt had once been issued against him for nonpayment of a fine but failed to note that the fine had been paid and the warrant withdrawn.

Florence had been stopped several times before, which he attributed to his being an African-American driving an expensive car.

Ya think?

He therefore carried a certificate attesting to the cancellation of the warrant, which he showed to the trooper.

Nevertheless, he was handcuffed, arrested and taken to the Burlington County jail. The jail authorities conceded that they had no suspicion of any wrongdoing by Florence apart from the fine.

Another oopsie daisy?

Yet he was still forced to strip, shower with a delousing agent, open his mouth for inspection, hold out his arms, lift his genitals, and turn around so the officer could examine his buttocks.

Thoughts of Saddam Hussein probably danced in his head, although there was no cave involved.

Does Florence now get to humiliate these phuques the same way they humiliated him?

After six days without appearing before a magistrate as required by law, Florence was transferred to the Essex County jail.

Do you get the distinct feeling our laws are in shambles?

There he was again strip-searched, without any indication he had done anything wrong, only this time he was required to squat and cough, and undergo close examination of his ears, nose, mouth, scalp, armpits, inner thighs and other parts of his body.

Gee, are these fux, fux or what?

The next day Florence was brought before a judge who, “appalled” at his treatment, ordered his immediate release. Florence sued the two counties and was joined in a class-action by others subjected to the same treatment.

What happened to him could happen to anyone.

Only if they’re black, and are driving a BMW in the United States!

Had the mother of three at the center of Atwater—who was handcuffed and jailed after she and her children were found to have unbuckled their seatbelts, temporarily—been arrested today, she could have also been subjected to a strip search.

Welcome to conservative-majority America! 

This is because state penal and traffic codes are stuffed with a vast array of such minor and often trivial offenses for which an arrest can be made wholly at the discretion of police.

There’s the problem. These morons have no idea what discretion means and we expect them to have any? This is clearly a CYA maneuver! 

Among those who joined the class-action lawsuit filed by Florence were people who had been charged with having a noisy muffler, an inoperable headlight, a bald tire, high beams on and a faulty windshield wiper.

And DWB (driving while black)?

Others were charged with ignoring a stop sign, improperly backing up, crossing a double line, and parking in a no-parking zone.

And forgetting to say,“mother may I?”

In DC, the lawsuit notes, a 12-year-old girl was arrested for eating a French fry in the Metro station and a driver was arrested for “false pretenses” after backing out of a parking garage. In Kentucky, a woman was charged for failing to appear in traffic court when the judge provided her with the wrong appearance date.

Tell me this creep isn’t a phuque!

People of color, like Florence, are especially vulnerable to such police tactics, for in many cases, the arrests and subsequent searches are really for the “offenses” of Driving While Black, being in the wrong neighborhood, or talking back to the police.

Ya think?

Remember Trayvon Martin, the black teenager who lost his life simply for choosing Skittles and taking a short cut through a white neighborhood.

Political protesters like the civil rights workers who marched in the South and the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, especially protesters and demonstrators in hostile settings, are also vulnerable to the abuses made possible by the Florence and Atwater decisions.

Kinda gives ya the warm fuzzies, don’t it?

The Supreme Court justified both the  Atwater and Florence decisions with the argument that police and jail officials need a “bright-line” rule so as not to be subject to personal liability for making an unnecessary arrest or search and not to be discouraged from taking such action when they should.

We needn’t worry about the police. They are clearly winning the fight against “suspicious” black drivers.

But a bright-line rule for both such situations is readily available: Police should not be authorized to arrest or search someone for a minor fine-only violation except in extraordinary circumstances.

The police are in no danger of personal liability if they make a good-faith mistake, because they are entitled to immunity for such mistakes.

No one can dispute a federal appellate court’s characterization of a strip search as “demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying, unpleasant, embarrassing, [and] repulsive, signifying degradation and submission.”

Even the Supreme Court has said that a search that intrusive “demands its own specific suspicions.”

The shock and humiliation suffered by persons subjected to such arrests and searches is aggravated by the fact that they are almost always ordinary citizens who have never been in jail before.

In one case a Chicago woman doctor who had been strip-searched afterward suffered paranoia, suicidal feelings and depression and would not undress anywhere but in a closet

The conservative majority in  Florence stressed that jails are dangerous places, and therefore the actions of jail officials are entitled to judicial deference.

Jails are dangerous—and drug smuggling is indeed a problem.

But people like Florence don’t pose a threat, which is why the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the US Marshals Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs all forbid strip searches of minor offenders except upon reasonable suspicion.

Similarly, standards defined by the American Correctional Association—the accrediting body for adult correctional facilities—require a reasonable belief or suspicion of contraband for a strip search.

The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority.

For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official. The framers would be appalled.

The trooper pulled them over. Florence’s wife was driving; no reason for the stop appears in the record and no citation was ever issued. The trooper ordered Florence, the owner, out of the car. A computer check disclosed that an arrest warrant for civil contempt had once been issued against him for nonpayment of a fine but failed to note that the fine had been paid and the warrant withdrawn.

*The Bill of Rights will be posted on the next blog post. Best to know them and not to forget those rights were composed and given to us by our forefathers.