Court Rules Against LAPD Strip Searches of Suspects

The Los Angeles Police Department’s policy of subjecting all people arrested for felonies to a visual body-cavity search violates constitutional protections against unreasonable searches, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals could affect police agencies throughout California and eight other Western states that are within the court’s jurisdiction.

LAPD spokesman Cmdr. William Booth said the department’s lawyers will review the decision, and he added that the department’s current policies and practices on strip searches “are in keeping with state law.” He said the policy complied with a 1984 state law on strip searches.

In a unanimous opinion, the three-judge panel held that the LAPD did not have sufficient justification for imposing its search policy.

The court stated that the Police Department “failed to offer a serious justification” for subjecting all people arrested for felonies to a strip search, while police only searched misdemeanor suspects if they were charged with a narcotics-related offense or were suspected of concealing contraband or weapons.

The judges stated that the LAPD policy offered no documentation to support the contention that people arrested for felonies had attempted to smuggle contraband into Los Angeles County jail with any greater frequency than people arrested for misdemeanors.

Wednesday’s appellate decision was written by 9th Circuit Judges Cynthia Holcomb Hall and Edward Leavy, and U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George of Las Vegas. They are all appointees of former President Reagan.

The decision upholds a 1987 jury verdict that awarded $38,000 in damages to Karen Kennedy of West Los Angeles, and it also upholds rulings made during the trial by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson.

“It’s a very important victory,” said Joan Howarth, a visiting professor of law at UC Davis, who as an American Civil Liberties Union attorney handled the case on appeal for Kennedy.

“We’re pleased that the court recognized that no one being booked by the police should be automatically subjected to the humiliating experience of being stripped and then forced to expose the most private parts of her or his body for contraband,” Howarth added.

“The police may conduct such a search whenever they have reason to believe a felony suspect is hiding contraband, but only then,” she explained.

Richard Helgeson, the assistant city attorney who handled the case for the Police Department, said the decision was “significant” because it will affect how jails are administered.

“There’s a good deal of evidence that drugs have a way of getting into these facilities,” he said.

Helgeson would not, however, go so far as to say that Wednesday’s decision would make it easier for drugs to get into local jails.

“I’m disappointed with the outcome,” he said. “It’s a delicate issue. I recognize the intrusiveness of the procedure (strip searches), but there are competing interests.”

Judge Hall acknowledged that courts have a “limited role” in administering detention facilities. However, she also quoted a U.S. Supreme Court decision that stated: “There is no Iron Curtain drawn between the Constitution and the prisons of this country.”

She said that police search policies in jails must be “reasonably related” to the facility’s interest in maintaining security.

Hall said that in order to justify the body-cavity search in Kennedy’s case, police would have had to demonstrate that there was a “reasonable suspicion” that Kennedy was concealing contraband, and the LAPD failed to do this.

The appellate decision grew out of a minor dispute over rent money.

Kennedy’s roommate, Karen Houghton, had moved out of their two-bedroom apartment without warning on Jan. 21, 1983, still owing $694 for rent and utilities.

After Houghton refused to pay the debt on one of her return trips to get her belongings, Kennedy moved two of Houghton’s wicker chairs into her bedroom and hid her television behind some drapes as “security” for the debt.

When Houghton could not find her belongings, she called the police and they arrested Kennedy.

She was taken to the Van Nuys jail and was booked on suspicion of grand theft--a felony. She was then forced to submit to a body-cavity search.

“After stripping off all her clothing, Kennedy was required to expose her vaginal and anal cavities so that two women officers could determine whether Kennedy was concealing drugs or weapons,” Hall noted, adding, “She was not.”

Kennedy sued the two arresting officers, James J. King and Stanley A. Schott, the LAPD and the city of Los Angeles for false arrest and violating her Fourth Amendment rights.