4th Amendment Violation.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Delores Henry, et al. v. Melody Hulett, et al.

Case No.: 16-4234

Officials: EASTERBROOK and MANION, Circuit Judges, and JOHN Z. LEE, District Judge.

Focus: 4th Amendment Violation

Members of a certified class contend that during 2011 female inmates at an Illinois prison were strip-searched as part of a training exercise for cadet guards. The district court summarized the allegations this way: [Plaintiffs] were required to stand naked, nearly shoulder to shoulder with 8-10 other inmates in a room where they could be seen by others not conducting the searches, including male officers. Menstruating inmates had to remove their tampons and sanitary pads in front of others, were not given replacements, and many got blood on their bodies and clothing and blood on the floor. The naked inmates had to stand barefoot on a floor dirty with menstrual blood and raise their breasts, lift their hair, turn around, bend over, spread their buttocks and vaginas, and cough. 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 194393 at *6 (C.D. Ill. Apr. 14, 2016).

Plaintiffs maintained that such an inspectionunnecessary for security and conducted in an offensive mannerviolated their rights under both the Fourth Amendment and the Eighth Amendment, applied to the states by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and 42 U.S.C. 1983. The most one can say for plaintiffs is that judges, including those within the Seventh Circuit, have disagreed...