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May 21, 2008
The rights of detainees
Editorial: Daily Hampshire Gazette
Northampton, MA
The rights of detainees
05/21/2008
The Franklin County Jail has been sued by a man who says he was strip-searched twice before his court arraignment after being arrested for allegedly failing to pay excise taxes.
While both sides are due their day in court, one issue is not in dispute: Prior to the construction of a new Franklin County jail, the sheriff routinely conducted strip-searches of all detainees, except for those in protective custody.
The case is remarkably similar to a class-action suit that was filed against the Hampshire County sheriff for pre-trial strip-searches; the Hampshire sheriff eventually agreed to a $205,000 settlement last year to resolve the case.
In both cases, the sheriffs should have taken the extra step of separating those awaiting trial from the rest of their detainees, which would have eliminated the need for across-the-board strip-searches.
The Franklin County suit involves a Sunderland man, Gregory Garvey, who re-established residency in Massachusetts after his home in Mississippi was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Garvey was involved in a car accident in Whately on Nov. 29, 2006, at which time he was told by an officer that his license had been suspended for failure to pay excise taxes several years earlier when he previously lived in the state, according to the lawsuit.
Garvey said he paid the excise taxes but, on Jan. 30, 2007, Sunderland police arrested him on a default warrant for failing to appear in Greenfield District Court on a charge of operating with a suspended license. He was held in the Franklin jail pending his appearance in court the next morning; Garvey said he was strip-searched twice while in custody.
Garvey's case is being handled by Howard Friedman, the Boston attorney who also represented the plaintiff in the suit filed against the Hampshire County jail over improper strip-searches. In that case, Charles V. Ryan IV - the son of a former Springfield mayor - was strip-searched while awaiting a court appearance after he was arrested for allegedly violating an abuse-prevention order. The charge was subsequently dropped after the witness refused to testify against Ryan.
That incident occurred before Hampshire County opened a regional lockup facility, which has separate accommodations for those awaiting a court hearing.
In both cases, the sheriffs have argued that their older, cramped jails justified the strip-search policies. While we appreciate how difficult it can be to arrange the funding for adequate police facilities, their excuse does not pass constitutional muster. As in the Hampshire case, it may well turn out that it would have been a lot less expensive for the Franklin County sheriff to have provided separate accommodations. These cases provide necessary reminders that jails cannot skimp on basic rights no matter how short they are on funding.
Posted by lois at May 21, 2008 08:52 AM