Articles Tagged ‘Legal Advocacy and Litigation’

John C. Bienvenu

Over the vigorous dissent of four justices, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit jails from routinely strip searching inmates, even if people are booked into facilities for minor offenses and officials have no reason to suspect they are carrying contraband. In other words, even people arrested for such nominal offenses as driving without a license or failing to use a turn signal could be forced to strip naked and let jail guards inspect their most intimate parts with no recourse under our Fourth Amendment protection against unwarranted searches. This ruling strikes another blow to Americans’ vanishing guarantees of privacy.

Far-reaching as this ruling may appear, jail officials in New Mexico should not rush to assume that the Court’s ruling grants them carte blanche to begin blanket strip searches of all detainees. The New Mexico Constitution also prohibits unwarranted searches, and our state courts have shown greater enthusiasm for safeguarding that right than what the Supreme Court evidenced in its recent ruling. For example, New Mexico courts have consistently rejected the federal precedent that motorists lower their expectation of privacy, and are more subject to search, when they enter an automobile.

The jail that implements blanket strip searches runs the risk of inviting state constitutional claims that might be entirely undiluted by the high court’s ruling.

What’s more, even in federal court, the Supreme Court’s ruling might not protect a strip search policy that does not result in a higher incidence of detection of contraband or otherwise increase jail security. As our federal court of appeals observed nearly twenty years ago, “There can be no doubt that a strip search is an invasion of personal rights of the first magnitude.” Chapman v. Nichols, 989 F.2d 393, 395 (10th Cir. 1993). Other courts have aptly described strip searches as “demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying, unpleasant, embarrassing, repulsive, signifying degradation and submission.” (Id.)

The ACLU would not hesitate to represent someone who was forced to strip before a jail guard when they were accused of only a minor offense and gave no reason to suspect that they were connected to drugs, weapons, or violence. Among those who are booked into jails every day are people who have committed no crimes whatsoever, but who are the victims of bureaucratic snafus. Indeed, the plaintiff in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, the recent U.S. Supreme Court case, is someone who was erroneously arrested in 2005 for failing to pay a traffic fine that he had already paid.

Other people are booked into jails on accusations of minor misdemeanor offenses that have no relationship to drugs, weapons or violence. They are mothers, spouses, grandparents, siblings. In short, they are all of us and all of our family members and friends who, at any moment, can find ourselves taken to a jail on minor or completely erroneous charges. There is no reason to suspect across-the-board that anyone arrested for such minor offenses is likely to be smuggling contraband into jail through their bodily orifices. In his dissent, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer cited an Orange County, N.Y., correctional facility in which a study of strip searches detected one instance of contraband among 23,000 inmates searched.

Recent class action lawsuits throughout New Mexico have caused several jails to adhere to policies that restrict strip searches to circumstances in which jail officials have “reasonable suspicion” that a detainee may be harboring drugs, weapons or other contraband. Such policies strike a reasonable balance between the need to secure the facility and the need to protect the privacy and dignity of individuals who have not been convicted of any crime. They also agree with standards promulgated by the American Correctional Association, which rejects the need for suspicionless strip searches.

To cast aside the time-tested practice of using reasonable suspicion to guide strip searches on the basis of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling would be a grave error. We trust our government to use its powers judiciously, not to exploit them to their fullest extent just because it can. The ACLU guards against such gratuitous use of power, and we will as eagerly challenge it in the context of jail strip searches as we do in all other arenas of government authority.

John C. Bienvenu

Cooperating Attorney, ACLU-NM

Albuquerque, NM—The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico sent a letter today to Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston protesting plans to hold the only graduation ceremony for new County deputies at Legacy Church in Albuquerque.  The ceremony will take place at 1:30 PM this Friday, August 26 at the church located on Central Avenue NW.  According to biographical information posted on the County’s website, Houston worked as Legacy Church’s director of security “for several years” before becoming County Sheriff.  Like Houston, BCSO Captain Scott Baird also is a member of the Legacy Church.

“Government officials should not use their official positions to promote their personal religious beliefs,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson.  “Sheriff Houston evidently has a close relationship with Legacy Church.  If he wants to encourage people to follow his faith, he should do it outside of the work context and should not use the authority of his position to require new deputies to attend the only official graduation ceremony in his place of worship.”

The ACLU’s letter cites multiple legal cases in which courts held that no government entity “can force [or] influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will.”  The letter ends with the request that Sheriff Houston identify a new, non-religious location for the August 26^th graduation ceremony.

Simonson said, “It is hard to believe that there were no non-religious sites available to hold this event.  Why put the County in the position of discriminating among different faiths?  Inevitably the Sheriff is going to alienate some deputies and their families who do not subscribe to his particular religious beliefs and cause them to fear retaliation if they voice their concerns to their new bosses.”

CONTACT: Peter Simonson, Executive Director,             (505) 266-5915       Ext. 1002, psimonson@aclu-nm.org

ALBUQUERQUE, NM – On Independence Day, July 4th, Grace Williams, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico from 1975 to 1993, passed away in her home in Albuquerque. Grace was a founding member of the state affiliate and led the ACLU of New Mexico for 18 years, doggedly defending the civil liberties of all New Mexicans. During her long tenure with the ACLU of New Mexico, Grace grew the organization in size, impact and influence, winning significant victories in the cause of liberty.

New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Daniels, who served as president of the ACLU-NM board of directors during Grace’s tenure, said, “New Mexicans have never had a more dedicated champion of our constitutional rights than Grace Williams. She never forgot that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

“Grace was a pistol,” said ACLU-NM Co-Legal Director Phil Davis. “She had boundless energy, and could wax eloquent on civil liberties at the drop of a hat. She had a great sense of humor. She was fearless and brash about the importance of civil liberties and was willing to tell anyone, anywhere, anytime why civil liberties were critical to the fabric of American society. She stood up against mayors, and governors and legislators, and was not afraid to let them know exactly what she thought.”

As Executive Director, Grace tripled the ACLU staff, recruited volunteer attorneys from the community and organized a legal panel to steer the organization’s litigation efforts. The ACLU of New Mexico also became fully financially independent from the national ACLU due to Grace’s skillful fundraising and management.

Grace played a major role in elevating civil liberties work in New Mexico to the national stage. Under her direction, the ACLU of New Mexico won many important victories that created a lasting impact on the legal landscape, including litigation that:

-        Removed religious iconography from the Bernalillo County Seal,

-        Challenged infiltration of citizen organizations by the Albuquerque Police Department and

-        Introduced sweeping reforms of the New Mexico corrections system in the wake of the 1980 Santa Fe penitentiary riot.

In recognition of her contributions, the ACLU of New Mexico honored Grace as Civil Libertarian of the Decade in 1992. She has also received the Albuquerque Bar Association’s Liberty Bell Award, and the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Women.

As Grace prepared to retire in 1993, longtime Albuquerque Journal writer Jim Belshaw reflected on her storied career:

“We all get irritated [with the ACLU] for the same reason. Liberty as an abstraction is sometimes easier to deal with than liberty as a reality. Which is to say that when it comes to the exercise of individual rights, sometimes all we do is talk a good game. For the past 18 years, Grace Watson Williams has dragged us, kicking and screaming, out of abstraction and into reality. It’s all in a day’s work for her.”

“We have lost one of New Mexico’s greatest champions of freedom,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “Grace put the ACLU on the map in New Mexico. She embodies the fighting spirit of the organization and its unwavering commitment to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. She will be missed.”

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ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Today, in a ruling handed down in the Second Judicial Court, Judge Nash ruled that the City of Albuquerque did not have to correct the city’s mal-apportioned city council districts before the October elections. However, as a consequence of this lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico, the city has agreed to implement the reapportioned districts immediately instead of in 2013 as they had originally planned.

The following statement can be attributed to ACLU-NM Managing Attorney Laura Schauer Ives:

“We are pleased that, as a consequence of the ACLU of New Mexico’s lawsuit, the city will redistrict and implement those changes immediately. Our primary concern was that the citizens who live in districts one and five on Albuquerque’s West Side would be grossly underrepresented until 2013, when the city initially intended to implement the new districts. However, in its closing arguments, the city stated that “as soon as a redistricting plan is approved by the Mayor and is published for five days, it will go into effect.” This means that, although redistricting will not be completed in time for the October election, West Side residents will be equally represented a few months from now as required under the Constitution.”

The ACLU of New Mexico still maintains that redistricting could be completed before the October elections and the plaintiffs are currently considering an appeal to the judge’s ruling.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

July 18, 2011

CONTACT: Micah McCoy, (505) 266-5915 x.1003 or mmccoy@aclu-nm.org

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