On April 7, 1999, Valerie L. Noon and 102 other named plaintiffs filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, challenging the constitutionality of the Harrison County Sheriff's blanket policy of strip searching every pre-trial detainee that entered the Harrison County Jail, regardless of the offense charged and regardless of whether there was any reasonable cause to believe the detainee was carrying weapons or contraband. Plaintiffs claimed that the policy was unconstitutional and sought damages and class certification. Plaintiffs proposed that the class be defined as follows:

All persons arrested for offenses not greater than a misdemeanor, with the exclusion of offenses involving misdemeanor possession of controlled substances, and with the inclusion of the offense of Operating While Intoxicated, as a class D Felony, between April 7th, 1997 to April 7th, 1999 and that were required by the Harrison County Jail to remove their clothing for visual inspection of all or part of their exposed bodies, unless [there] existed reasonable cause to believe they were carrying concealed weapons or contraband.

The District Court (Judge David Frank Hamilton) denied class certification, noting that, while the case would operate as a class action in some ways due to the large number of plaintiffs, the proposed class was unmanageable. Noon v. Sailor, 2000 WL 684274 (S.D.Ind. Mar 14, 2000), reconsideration denied by Noon v. Sailor, 2000 WL 684219 (S.D.Ind. Apr 17, 2000).

A settlement conference was held on June 9, 2000 before Magistrate Judge Godrich. While it is not clear from the docket whether the case settled on the day of the conference, we do know that a settlement was eventually reached. The District Court (Judge Hamilton) approved an agreed order relating to the settlement on August 16, 2000. The settlement papers were not available and the terms are therefore unknown.

Dan Dalton - 02/17/2008


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