Bare Analysis: Prison Visitor Strip and Body-Cavity Searches and Federal Courts’ Insufficient Fourth Amendment Analysis

By TRISTEN LINDELL. Full Text.

Strip and body-cavity searches are among the most egregious invasions of personal privacy that the government can impose. The Fourth Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, demands that courts thoroughly analyze these searches. Courts must consider not only the suspicion that warranted the search, but the way the search was performed. But in the prison visitor context, U.S. Courts of Appeals have not done so. Instead of evaluating whether the search in question was conducted reasonably, including reasonableness in scope, courts have considered only whether prison officials possessed reasonable suspicion. This flies in the face of Supreme Court precedent.

This Note advocates for something better. It examines three approaches to Fourth Amendment analysis utilized by U.S. Courts of Appeals in the prison-visitor context. Among these options, this Note advances the Eleventh Circuit’s approach, a totality-of-the-circumstances inquiry that captures the whole picture: the suspicion to warrant the search and the way the search was performed. By adopting this approach, courts can remain faithful to Supreme Court precedent and vindicate the constitutional rights of prison visitors.