Criminal Law Formal Legal Brief - Case Study Example

This decision was appealed by the officials from Burlington and Essex Counties. The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the judgment by stating that any individual who has been incarcerated can be searched by officials without the need for suspicion that the person might be carrying weapons or drugs (Beler, 2011). Yes as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said in support of a 5-4 majority that strip search of individuals who are arrested in a jail does not infringe the rights bestowed by the Fourth Amendment.

Furthermore, the courts concluded that jail officials cannot effectively identify whether a prisoner will have contrabands based upon the nature of the offense or the criminal history (Beler, 2011). The principle is that the jails need to ensure safety and efficiency in order to ensure sound outcomes. Hence there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment according to the views of the court. The Court identified several instances where individuals who have perpetrated minor traffic violations have been capable of extreme belligerency and hostile behaviors.

The Court cited the example of Timothy McVeigh who had been arrested for a minor traffic offense. The desire of jails is to ensure that the employees as well as the inmates can be safeguarded in an efficient and effective manner (Ha, 2011). The strip search policy is based upon achieving this objective. The Court concluded that sometimes there might be exceptions when the arrestees do not interact with other inmates or will not have access to the general population. The final decision by the Court was that it affirmed the decision made by the lower courts that the Fourth Amendment laws were not violated when jail officials engage in strip searching inmates in order to achieve the goals of safety and security.

Some of the judges argued that there are certain exceptions to the rule (Wagner, 2012). They also argued that some strip searches might be unreasonable but this needs to