Does the "Blanket" policy really cover it all?

In 2005, Albert Florence, age 35 was a passenger in a car with his family, when the car was pulled over unexpectedly by New Jersey police. Florence was then arrested because he allegedly hadn't paid a court fine and there was a warrant for his arrest. He was sent to jail and spent seven days there, when previously he had paid the fine, and it was officially stamped; the reason the document wasn't accepted was because it wasn't in the computer. During his time in jail, he was strip-searched twice. After this, Albert felt violated and felt like the jail infringed upon his fourth amendment right against unreasonable search and seizures. He claims that the jail had no real reason to strip search him because he only committed a minor offense and there would be no suspicion that he would try to smuggle drugs, etc. Albert Florence's case was brought through the 11th circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals against two jails, one in Burlington County as well as the Essex County Correctional Facility, in the case of Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders. This case can be compared or contrasted with the one that was decided by the Supreme Court in 1979 called Bell v. Wolfish, in which the court decided that the jail has the right to protect itself against possible dangers like drugs or weapons when they have suspicions, and there also must be a balance of the necessicity of the search versus the invasion of personal rights. Now many officials have rejected the ideas of Florence, claiming that the security aspects of jails are more important than the privacy of a detainee. The judge in a previous case based his decision on the case of Bell v. Wolfish and decided that the "blanket" search policies are constitutional.


In this case, Albert Florence attempted to use the court pathway of action to challenge the right of jails to claim a "blanket" search a seizure policy instead of one based off of actual suspicion and threat. The issue at hand was that his fourth amendment right had been violated because the strip searches had been unreasonable. The jails were trying to make the arguement that if they did not protect the jail and instead disregarded those who were charged with minor offenses, there might be a rise in people who tried to smuggle in drugs and weapons. Florence and his attorney claimed the exact opposite. Through the cultural change pathway of action or even the grassroots mobilization pathway, this type of problem could be remedied. This has already been shown somewhat when people protested the TSA searches at the airport. The constitutionality of government or officers invading someone's personal property (and claiming that the person was suspicious and the officer had a right to because the security aspect) is obviously standing strong, but there is no doubt that more cases like this will fall into the hands of the Supreme Court and there will be many more supporters in the population to challenge them.





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