Yesterday the Court heard arguments in Judulang v. Holder and Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington, with media coverage focusing exclusively on the latter. [Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C. – whose attorneys either work for, or contribute to this blog – represent the petitioner in Florence, but the author of this post is not involved in the case.] Kiera provides links to the transcripts in both arguments here.
In Florence, the Court considered whether the Fourth Amendment allows jailers to conduct suspicionless strip searches of all arrestees, including those arrested for minor offenses. Greg Stohr of Bloomberg reports that “the justices today sought to draw a line that would both prevent the smuggling of weapons and drugs and protect the privacy interests of people arrested for minor violations.” Nina Totenberg of NPR, Joan Biskupic of USA Today, Adam Liptak of the New York Times, Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal, Warren Richey of the Christian Science Monitor, Robert Barnes of the Washington Post, Bill Mears of CNN, Mike Sacks of the Huffington Post, Mark Sherman of the Associated Press, James Vicini of Reuters, Jason Grant of the New Jersey Star-Ledger, Jan Hefler of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the AFP all have coverage. PBS NewsHour has an interview about the case with The National Law Journal’s Marcia Coyle (video).
The argument in Florence also generated early commentary. In his report for this blog, Lyle Denniston concludes that “nowhere near a majority of the Justices seemed prepared to rule flatly for or flatly against strip-searching of arrested individuals,” while Orin Kerr reviews the case in the context of Atwater v. City of Lago Vista and observes that Justice Alito “seemed more skeptical of the respondents (the jail) than I would have expected.” Steven D. Schwinn at the Constitutional Law Prof Blog contends that “[b]ecause of the inevitable line-drawing problems with any intermediate position, look for the Court to lean toward a categorical rule-either that reasonable suspicion is always required, or that it is never required [to conduct a strip search],” while Douglas Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy flags Florence as a potential “sentencing sleeper.” On a lighter note, writing at PrawfsBlawg, Debbie Borman discusses Justice Scalia’s use of the word “cooties” during arguments in Florence.
Briefly:
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