On December 12, 1985, a detainee for a minor traffic violation filed this 42 U.S.C. §1983 action in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey against Hunterdon County, the Sheriff, and the Warden of the Hunterdon County Jail, and the Township of the arresting officers. The Plaintiff, represented by private counsel, asked the court for punitive damages, claiming that her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated because of a mandatory strip search.

On December 13, 1983, the plaintiff was pulled over and arrested on a bench warrant for failure to pay $75 in parking tickets in Newark. Plaintiff was unable to pay the $75 as bond at the stationhouse. She elected to wait for the Newark police instead of calling a family member to make bond (because it was very early in the morning). She was transported to Hunterdon County Jail for detention awaitingthe Newark Police. She was strip searched, over protests that she did not want to be detained and that she was menstruating, and detained thereafter.

On September 14, 1987, the Court (Judge Anne E. Thompson) granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff, finding Hunterdon County liable for damages (but not punitive damages), and dismissing the claims against the unnamed officers, the warden and the sheriff in their individual capacities. The charges against the township presumably were allowed to continue.

We have no further information about this case, except that it was closed three years later, on April 4, 1990.

Blase Kearney - 04/29/2012


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