T.S. v. Doe

Juvenile Law Center filed an amicus brief supporting parents who, on behalf of minors J.S. and K.S., sued officials at the Breathitt Regional Juvenile Detention Center (BRJDC) challenging the center’s policy of conducting suspicionless strip searches on juveniles arrested on minor violations – in this case, public intoxication. BRJDC conducted the searches not to locate contraband or weapons, but rather to detect illness, injury, and signs of abuse, and to document deformities, scars or tattoos.

Juvenile Law Center argued in its brief that the Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable searches by requiring searches to be based on a warrant and probable cause. In a very limited set of circumstances, government actors may conduct searches without a warrant or probable cause when there is a “special need” for the search. Juvenile Law Center argued that this highly intrusive search to detect abuse or injury was not so urgent as to qualify as a “special needs” search. As a result, the searches at issue, which took place absent a warrant and probable cause, violated the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, even applying the special needs test, which requires the court to balance the intrusiveness of the search against the need for information, the search was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court and courts around the country, relying on social science research, have recognized that strip searches are frightening, demeaning and degrading, and that juveniles are particularly vulnerable to harm from such searches. While the government may have an interest in detecting abuse, illness or injury, the search here, conducted by untrained personnel with no medical expertise, was not tailored to accomplish its goals, and cannot outweigh the harm of the strip search.

On February 5, 2014, the Sixth Circuit declined to rule on the constitutionality of BRJDC strip searches and remanded the case for further proceedings in Federal Eastern District Court of Kentucky. See T.S. v. Doe, 742 F.3d 632 (6th Cir. 2014) (reversing and affirming the district court on other grounds).