Smook v. Minnehaha County.

• Position: FEMALE PRISONERS - Brief Article

U.S. District Court

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Smook v. Minnehaha County, 340 F.Supp.2d 1037 (D.S.D. 2004). Former detainees at a county juvenile detention center brought a [section] 1983 action challenging the center's policy of strip-searching all juveniles admitted to the facility, regardless of the seriousness of the charged offense or the existence of suspicion. The court granted partial summary judgment in favor of the detainees. The court held that the suspicionless strip-searches of all juveniles could not be based on the officials' state statutory duty to report child abuse or neglect, where the duty to report was not a duty to detect, and any interest the officials had in detecting abuse was outweighed by the detainees' privacy interests. According to the court, the strip-search of non-felony detainees violated their rights to freedom from unreasonable searches, even though the center had implemented a policy requiring a two-hour grace period before a search. The court found that the officials'...