9th Plays Jail Strip Searches Left, Right & Center

Geez, do these Ninth Circuit judges have to be soooo predictable?

On Friday, a three judge panel consisting of Sidney Thomas, Sandra Ikuta and Richard Tallman weighed in (.pdf)on the city of San Francisco’s strip search policy. Judge Charles Breyer had found the sheriff’s blanket strip search policy at the city jail to be unconstitutional for folks who had not been arrested for violent crimes or drug charges, and who were not suspected of possessing contraband.

The appellate panel lined up just where you’d expect. Thomas, a leading liberal, found for the plaintiffs. Tallman, who is reflexively pro-law enforcement, went with the jailers. And Ikuta, who is a moderate-conservative but a stickler for precedent, reluctantly sided with Thomas because, she wrote, Ninth Circuit case law compelled her. But she was really, really reluctant, writing that the decision puts the lives of the guards at risk.

“Because we have dangerously substituted our judgment for the judgment of jail administrators, a reconsideration of our case law is urgently needed,” Ikuta wrote. 

—  Dan Levine