Strip-searched, jailed for a traffic fine already paid

One minute Albert Florence was riding in an SUV alongside his wife, his 4-year-old son in the back, heading to dinner. The next, he was handcuffed, hauled off to jail and strip-searched twice - all based on a warrant for a traffic fine that Florence had, in fact, paid.

Florence talked with reporters Tuesday about his seven days in jail in 2005, which included strip searches that his lawyer argues were unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear Florence's case later this year.

Florence, 35, a father of four who lives in Bordentown, said he was puzzled when he arrived at the Burlington County jail and an officer ordered him to strip behind a half-open curtain.

"It's almost like I was in third person: I could see myself from the outside in," he told reporters during a news conference at a Newark law office.

Naked, Florence was ordered to spread his arms and turn around. Then the officer sent him to the showers to wash up with delousing soap.

After three days in jail, Florence, a finance manager at an auto dealership, approached an officer in tears, begging to call his wife, April, who was then six months' pregnant. After five days in jail, Florence was transferred to Essex County jail, where incoming prisoners were strip-searched in groups.

Florence stands over 6 feet tall, so he could see over the partition that separated the prisoners waiting in line from those being stripped naked. He watched the officers line the men up four at a time, tell them to spread their arms, turn around, squat, lift their genitals, and cough.

"You're looking at this and you're like, 'Wow . . . in another five minutes, that's going to be me. In another two minutes, that's going to be me,' " Florence said. "It lasted forever; it was horrible. I can even remember looking at a couple of the officers and one of them had a grin on his face . . . It's disgusting, really disgusting."

Florence had been in Essex about a day when a judge agreed that he shouldn't be there and released him.

As an African American, Florence said he was somewhat wary of the police, which is why he carried documentation from the court to prove he had paid a traffic fine in 2003. But even the paperwork didn't save him when a New Jersey state trooper pulled his wife over that night in March 2005. He accused her of speeding although no ticket was issued. The trooper ran the car's registration, which was in Florence's name, and found an arrest warrant for Florence based on the supposedly unpaid fine.

The mixup was sorted out, but not until after Florence's stint in jail.

Appellate courts are divided over whether to permit blanket strip searches in jails. While some have ruled them unconstitutional, citing a 1979 Supreme Court decision, four appellate courts - including the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia - have recently decided that the 1979 ruling was misinterpreted. Those four courts have reversed themselves, arguing that such searches were permissible in order for prison and jail officials to maintain security and prevent contraband from entering the jails.

Florence's case asks the court to decide whether everyone entering a jail - including those arrested on minor charges - should be subject to strip searches.

"If I'm walking in there for a broken taillight, I don't expect to get strip-searched," said Florence's lawyer, Susan Chana Lask, who took on the case without charging him a fee.

But lawyers defending the two counties argue that a blanket strip-search policy is the easiest, fairest way to keep jails safe. Besides contraband, strip searches allow officers to look for evidence of communicable diseases - such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, known as MRSA, a bacterial infection that resists antibiotic treatment and shows up as a skin rash.

The strip search also allows officers to check incoming prisoners for injury or for tattoos that indicate gang membership.

"The nature of the offense doesn't necessarily detail the nature of the offender," said attorney J. Brooks DiDonato, who represents Burlington County. "Somebody who is a gang member and a stone cold killer could be admitted to a jail for a minor offense, whereas . . . you could have an accountant admitted for embezzlement and the rules would say . . . that we could strip search him."

He added, "If you don't have a blanket policy, aren't you really raising the question of whether there's equal protection under the law?"

The Supreme Court will hear the case in the fall.