4/02/2012

In Brief(s): Supreme Court Says That Your Naked Junk Will Be Searched:
You know what? It doesn't matter what the case was about. Here's the outcome of Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders (in New Jersey's Essex County): if you are stopped by police and you have a few too many parking tickets, even if it's a mistake, you can be arrested and, if going to be placed in the jail, strip-searched by the police. Don't worry, though, the Supreme Court says, because the cops can't touch you, but they may ask you to lift your nutsack so they can see if you have drugs under there.

Playing the fucking fool, Justice Anthony "Swings Both Ways, But Hangs to the Right" Kennedy says that the lawyers of the plaintiff, a poor bastard who got chewed up by our incarceration nation mentality, didn't even really define "strip search," despite there being, you know, a definition offered in police manuals. You see, it's confusing because "It may refer simply to the instruction to remove clothing while an officer observes from a distance of, say, five feet or more; it may mean a visual inspection from a closer, more uncomfortable distance; it may include directing detainees to shake their heads or to run their hands through their hair to dislodge what might be hidden there; or it may involve instructions to raise arms, to display foot insteps, to expose the back of the ears, to move or spread the buttocks or genital areas, or to cough in a squatting position." Oh, yeah, ladies, lift your tits, spread your coochie lips, and let the flashlights of justice illuminate the truth.

The whole issue of whether or not these particular prisoners, who, according to the conservative majority, must be searched because they could hide weapons or drugs or gang tattoos or lice, can be touched during strip searches came up several times. In a concurring opinion, Samuel Alito clarified, "To perform the searches, officers may direct the arrestees to disrobe, shower, and submit to a visual inspection. As part of the inspection, the arrestees may be required to manipulate their bodies." Man, Alito's wife must get so hot when he's manipulating her disrobed body.

Justice Stephen Breyer, in his dissent, quickly dispelled all of the arguments about the security of prisoners: "The searches already employed at Essex and Burlington include: (a) pat-frisking all inmates; (b) making inmates go through metal detectors (including the Body Orifice Screening System (BOSS) chair used at Essex County Correctional Facility that identifies metal hidden within the body); (c) making inmates shower and use particular delousing agents or bathing supplies; and (d) searching inmates’ clothing...In particular, there is no connection between the genital lift and the 'squat and cough' that Florence [the plaintiff] was allegedly subjected to and health or gang concerns." That's right: it's not enough for the majority that you might have to sit on a chair that scans your asshole for contraband. It's not enough that you can be watched while you shower. No, if Clarence Thomas wants you to squat and cough, you're gonna squat, motherfucker, so you can shoot that knife right out of your sphincter.

Breyer concludes, "I cannot find justification for the strip search policy at issue here — a policy that would subject those arrested for minor offenses to serious invasions of their personal privacy." It makes sense that there be some limit, some sense of personal dignity somewhere in our skewed justice system. But for the majority, there is no minor offense and no unreasonable infringement if your dick is being subject to viewing by the authorities.