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NJ County To Pay Up to 20,000 People Wrongly Strip Searched PDF Print E-mail
Thursday, 06 September 2007
The Trentonian
Mount Laurel, New Jersey
Camden County has agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit with people illegally strip searched at the county jail between 2003 and 2005.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs said that as many as 20,000 people may have been improperly searched and could be eligible for the money, which he said he expects to come to about $1,000 per person.
A smaller group of people who were held as long as 24 hours even after they posted bail could get even more, said Charles J. LaDuca, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.
The two original plaintiffs, Laverne Hicks and Michael Velez, are entitled to $15,000 each under the terms of the settlement.
Both were arrested on minor charges and strip searched.
In a court filing, Hicks said he arrested for not paying a previous traffic ticket. He paid his bail of $168, then was strip searched.
Velez said he was held for about 10 hours while police checked into whether he had any outstanding warrants. He had none.
The settlement must be approved by a federal judge before it takes effect.
The plaintiffs say that it was the policy of the jail for about two years to strip search every one sent to the jail awaiting trial, even if there was no reason to think the suspects were hiding contraband on their body.
Also, they said, some people who were arrested on charges as minor as failure to pay parking tickets we held in jail for up to 24 hours after they had paid bail while officials checked to see if there were other warrants out for them.
The measures came amid broad efforts to reduce crime in Camden, a city that consistently ranks as one of the nation's most crime-ridden.
LaDuca, who works in Washington, said the detention practice is one he has not seen elsewhere in the many similar cases he has handled.
But the strip searches, he said, happen in many jails.
"It's more common than you would ever imagine," he said.
LaDuca said that several federal judges have ruled that authorities may not strip search suspects in non-felony cases unless they have reasonable suspicion of contraband. If so, the searches are conducted in private and only in the presence of corrections officers of the same gender as the detainee.
Jail officials in Camden County stopped conducting the routine strip searches after the lawsuit was filed in April 2005.
A spokesman for Camden County did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Thursday, 06 September 2007
The Trentonian
Mount Laurel, New Jersey
Camden County has agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit with people illegally strip searched at the county jail between 2003 and 2005.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs said that as many as 20,000 people may have been improperly searched and could be eligible for the money, which he said he expects to come to about $1,000 per person.
A smaller group of people who were held as long as 24 hours even after they posted bail could get even more, said Charles J. LaDuca, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.
The two original plaintiffs, Laverne Hicks and Michael Velez, are entitled to $15,000 each under the terms of the settlement.
Both were arrested on minor charges and strip searched.
In a court filing, Hicks said he arrested for not paying a previous traffic ticket. He paid his bail of $168, then was strip searched.
Velez said he was held for about 10 hours while police checked into whether he had any outstanding warrants. He had none.
The settlement must be approved by a federal judge before it takes effect.
The plaintiffs say that it was the policy of the jail for about two years to strip search every one sent to the jail awaiting trial, even if there was no reason to think the suspects were hiding contraband on their body.
Also, they said, some people who were arrested on charges as minor as failure to pay parking tickets we held in jail for up to 24 hours after they had paid bail while officials checked to see if there were other warrants out for them.
The measures came amid broad efforts to reduce crime in Camden, a city that consistently ranks as one of the nation's most crime-ridden.
LaDuca, who works in Washington, said the detention practice is one he has not seen elsewhere in the many similar cases he has handled.
But the strip searches, he said, happen in many jails.
"It's more common than you would ever imagine," he said.
LaDuca said that several federal judges have ruled that authorities may not strip search suspects in non-felony cases unless they have reasonable suspicion of contraband. If so, the searches are conducted in private and only in the presence of corrections officers of the same gender as the detainee.
Jail officials in Camden County stopped conducting the routine strip searches after the lawsuit was filed in April 2005.
A spokesman for Camden County did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
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Re: been strip searched lately?
Fri, September 28, 2007 - 3:17 AMmy friend was illegally stripped search by the Montclair police, after a confrontation when handing out political leaflets.
He sued and won $17,000.
Which is not to say that my buddy can't be obnoxious, he can. But strip searching was a little extreme.
+++
Amnesty International releases reports about all sorts of human rights abuses.
in one report, they released a figure of how much the NYPD loses in lawsuits per year. The figure?
$50 million!!!
And that was 10 - 15 years old.
I am not one to just say, that the police are bad. They have a massively difficult job to do. I don't think I could walk around NYC looking for criminals. So, I do have real sympathy for them.
I think there are various kinds of problems. One is that the job is so distasteful, that often many people leave the job. So, instead of having 30 and 35 year old officers, with years of experience, walking the beat, I think they often have the 25 year olds. Bad judgment calls come to those with less experience. I think that they need some way to make the job a real career for people, so that the folks out on the street interacting with the neighborhood, really do that...they know all the shop keepers, they are on a first name basis with lots of people in the community...and policing comes more naturally, as a caring member of the community trying to help...rather than some foreign "soldier" coming in to clean up. I think that will always create the conflicts that cause abuses.
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Re: been strip searched lately?
Fri, September 28, 2007 - 8:07 AMThe police have gotten progressively out of control. 09/11/01 hasn't helped as it seems to have given them an excuse to escalate their aggressiveness and the idiot media has made them into minor deities.
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