Class action suit: Beaufort Co. jail uses ‘humiliating’ strip searches only on women
The Beaufort County Detention Center unlawfully subjects female inmates to “demeaning, outrageous, and intrusive” strip and body cavity searches, while exempting men from similar treatment, alleges a class action lawsuit filed on March 6 by two women.
Cheryl Munday and Margaret Devine filed the suit on behalf of themselves and “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of other women forced to strip naked in front of guards while visible to people of the opposite sex.
After an unnamed detention center employee’s comment that “you look great,” Munday was “willfully and maliciously sexually assaulted” by a guard during a full body pat down, says the suit.
Col. Quandara Grant, director of the detention center, and Philip Foot, assistant county administrator of public safety, violated the women’s rights to equal protection under the law and freedom from unreasonable searches, according to the complaint filed in Beaufort County Common Pleas Court. Ten detention center employees, identified only as Jane and John Does, are also named as defendants.
The jail’s operating procedures, reviewed by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, permit strip searches based on “reasonable suspicion” that an inmate possesses contraband, but explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sex.
Responding to an email to Foot and Grant, Foot referred questions to Beaufort County’s legal department, which did not return a message left Friday afternoon.
Munday and Devine’s lawyer, Robert Metro of Bluffton, declined an on-the-record interview but sent an emailed statement comparing the county jail’s treatment of women to the racial segregation of students in schools. “The detention center hands down a life sentence of irreversible inferiority of mind and heart,” he said.
Women allege sexual assault and demeaning treatment
The lawsuit details what Munday and Devine say they experienced while being booked into the detention center after arrest and before any court appearance, describing the treatment as assault. Approximately 86% of the jail’s average daily population in 2018 was being held before trial, according to statistics on the detention center’s website.
Munday was arrested by Bluffton Police in March 2018 and accused of driving under the influence, a charge later dismissed.
“You look great,” said a jail officer who reviewed her personal information during her booking, according to the suit.
Immediately afterwards, Munday was told she was subject to a full-body “pat down.” During the search, an officer “grabbed Munday’s crotch with great force” and assaulted her, while also attempting to fondle her, according to the suit.
Afterwards, Munday was taken to an area known as the “strip-search room” and required to remove her clothing, bend over and cough several times, as an officer “became angry and started shouting,” the lawsuit says. During the search, the door to the room remained open.
After the search, Munday observed a male inmate patted “from the knees down only” and given jail clothing, says the lawsuit. The complaint alleges that “men are not routinely strip-searched and forced to undergo visual body cavity search searches ... when they are first placed in general population,” but does not provide further evidence of this.
Devine was booked into the jail in January 2019, also on DUI charges that were later dismissed. She was also subject to a full body pat down and afterwards led to a shower stall and required to remove her clothing, according to the suit.
Afterwards, two guards was instructed to face a wall and bend over from the waist so that she was “fully exposed.” The guards asked her to cough. After she complied, they ordered her to “cough harder and louder,” says the lawsuit.
Devine was then ordered to take a shower while guards watched. After doing so, the officers “required Devine to shower again, this time making sure to wet her hair completely.”
“Devine was humiliated, demeaned and demoralized,” according to the lawsuit. Metro declined to make both women available for an interview.
Detention center policy limits strip searches
Operating policy documents obtained by the newspapers through public records requests limit strip searches on inmates. They also provide “inmates rights,” which include a non-discrimination clause and protection from physical abuse and harassment.
Munday and Devine’s suit says the detention center failed to follow its policies and meet state requirements.
County detention centers in South Carolina must meet “minimum standards” outlined in state law, which say jails should conduct a “proper search” when admitting new inmates but allow facilities to implement their own policies.
While an inmate is being admitted to the Beaufort County Detention Center, officers should use a handheld metal detector to search for contraband, including weapons and drugs, and conduct “a thorough pat search/frisk search,” according to admission procedures.
During a frisk search, policy documents say officers should “ensure the crotch area is felt for any contraband.”
“Normally, only frisk searches on newly admitted inmates will be done,” reads the policy. Strip searches are only to be conducted when there is “reasonable suspicion” that an inmate might be in possession of contraband based on “covert or suspicious movements,” previous or current criminal charges or a refusal to be searched.
Susan Dunn, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in South Carolina, called suspecting someone arrested for DUI of concealing contraband “far fetched.”
“If you think about it logically, somebody who’s been arrested on a DUI has not been planning to go to jail,” she said.
The detention center’s procedure for strip searches dictates they be conducted in private and “with the maximum of respect possible, [with] no derogatory comments and a minimum of physical discomfort for the inmate.”
The policy doesn’t instruct officers to require that inmates bend over and cough. Body cavity searches can be conducted only by credentialed medical staff with advance authorization from the detention center’s director, according to policy.
Strip searches draw legal challenges nationwide
Across the county, strip search practices have attracted lawsuits.
Last year, Los Angeles County agreed to pay $53 million to settle a class action suit brought by women strip-searched in groups inside a bus garage at a women’s jail. A judge found the lack of privacy violated their 4th Amendment rights.
The settlement applied to more than 93,000 women incarcerated over a period of almost seven years and represented the largest payout in the county’s history, according to the LA Times.
A 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case brought by a New Jersey man strip-searched after he was arrested on an erroneously issued warrant. In a split decision, the court held that officials may institute policies requiring strip searches of people arrested for any crime before they enter the general population of a jail, even with no suspicion of contraband, citing correctional facilities’ interest in keeping employees and other inmates safe.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer cited data from a county jail in New York that found just 16 contraband items after conducting 75,000 strip searches of new inmates over a five-year period. Only three of those items were located on or inside an inmate’s body.
“We are extremely skeptical of the times in which government steps over the line of bodily autonomy,” said Dunn with the ACLU. “Just because you’ve been arrested doesn’t mean that you’re not still part of democracy.”
Munday and Devine’s suit includes claims brought under South Carolina’s state Constitution, which grants citizens an explicit right to privacy that could be interpreted as offering a higher level of protection than the 4th Amendment, according to an S.C. Law Review article on strip searches in the state.
The women’s lawsuit seeks damages for themselves and every woman forced to undergo strip or body cavity searches at the jail.
