A woman arrested for failure to license her dog in the City of Richmond Texas, who was strip searched, subjected to a cavity search, and jailed, filed this case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in 1987. The Court (Judge H. Sanders, Jr.) found that the city's strip search policy violated the Fourth Amendment on its face and as applied to the plaintiff.

On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the lower court's decision, but held that while the city's policy was susceptible of constitutional scrutiny, strip search cases are best determined by case by case analysis.

Denise Heberle - 08/14/2012


compress summary