UNREASONABLE SUSPICION: DRAWING THE LINE ON THE STRIP-SEARCH

(New York) -- The jail-house drill is simple, if humiliating: Take off your
clothes. Raise your hands over your head. Be prepared to bend over or
squat. Someone may run a hand through your hair.

You have just been strip-searched, a procedure that is done thousands of
times a day in jails, prisons and police stations throughout the country.
But its very routineness has been called into question in the wake of
recent lawsuits filed by people who were searched after being arrested for
fare beating and other minor offenses. Just last week in New York, Alton
Fitzgerald White, who plays a leading role in the Broadway musical
"Ragtime," suffered the indignity of such a search after being mistakenly
arrested on drug charges.

A federal judge in New York ruled in June that people charged with
misdemeanors could not be strip-searched unless there was reasonable
suspicion that they were hiding something. This spring an estimated 4,000
people in Kentucky were searched illegally, and the authorities agreed to
pay $11.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought on their behalf. White is
discussing a lawsuit against New York City.

The legal decisions may force correction officials to rethink a policy that
has been effective in keeping drugs and weapons out of detention centers
and reducing violence in jails. Critics say the officials who authorized
searches later found to be illegal either misunderstood, ignored or were
unaware of established legal boundaries defining who could be strip-searched.

For more than a decade the courts have struggled to define these
parameters. There has been little objection to searching prison convicts or
suspects charged with violent felonies or drug crimes. But the courts have
said that those charged with petty crimes like urinating in public cannot
be routinely strip-searched.

That distinction was lost on officials at the Nassau County jail and at
several New York City booking facilities, where people are held until they
can be brought before a judge. They set up policies that resulted in
strip-searching everyone in custody. Now thousands may claim damages as
part of the class-actions suits that have been filed.

Despite the recent rulings, New York City still strip-searches everyone
entering its major jail at Rikers Island, regardless of the charge. "It is
remarkable, after all these years, that the jail people just can't figure
it out," said Richard Emery, an attorney whose office has filed several
suits on behalf of people who have been searched.

Some searches are clearly legal. Prisons search inmates because they have
already been convicted and because security is a paramount concern. The
courts have also enabled police officers or jail guards to search people
arrested for misdemeanors if there is a reasonable suspicion that they are
hiding a weapon or other contraband.

But "reasonable suspicion" is a phrase open to broad interpretation, and
some law enforcement officials argue for wide latitude, suggesting that all
prostitutes, for example, could be strip-searched given the prevalence of
drug use among them.

None of those distinctions were made at New York City booking locations in
Manhattan and Queens during a 10-month period between 1996 and 1997.
Everyone was searched. Emery, who has brought a suit against New York City
on behalf of many of those searched, estimates that as many as 63,000
people may have been subjected to the procedure. City officials privately
acknowledge the mistake, saying that when the Corrections Department took
over operations from the Police Department, it transferred the policy used
at city jails; everyone -- even those awaiting arraignment -- stripped.

New York has since revised the policy, but it may become an expensive
error. In one case decided last month, one woman, who was strip-searched
after her arrest in a domestic dispute, was awarded $19,600 in compensatory
damages and $5 million in punitive damages. If the thousands of people
represented in the class-action case were awarded even the lesser sum, the
financial toll on the city would be huge.

City lawyers are confident that a jury will decide that many people, though
their rights may have been violated, endured only a momentary
inconvenience. "Not very many people felt they experienced emotional or
physical damages," said Norma Kerlin, an assistant corporation counsel for
the city, because only about a dozen of those searched bothered to file
lawsuits.

Until recently, many jail officials in the country had assumed they could
search anyone after arraignment and before admitting the person to jail.
But in June, in a Nassau County case, a federal judge ruled that the county
could not search people without cause if they were jailed for minor
offenses. Nassau has since amended its policy, but is pursuing an appeal.

Despite the ruling, New York City continues to strip-search everyone at
Rikers as part of an enhanced security initiative that has seen slashings
drop dramatically. City officials plan to file a brief supporting Nassau's
appeal. "The judge's ruling was specific to the Nassau jail," said Thomas
Antenen, a corrections spokesman. "It does not impact our system."

In New York City, police officers are required to get a supervisor's
approval for such a search. But critics say unauthorized searches still
happen. In White's case, officials, who have apologized for the mistaken
arrest, said searching the actor was authorized because he was brought in
as a suspect in a felony drug case.

But Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties
Union, who has been advising White, questioned how police could have
developed a reasonable suspicion to search him since they had no grounds
for the arrest.

In another case, the city recently had to pay $25,000 each to four Fordham
University students who were forced to disrobe in the restroom of a Bronx
station house last year after they were arrested for doubling up to pass
through a subway turnstile. As it turned out, a police supervisor filled
out a document approving the searches -- after the fact.

"He said he wanted to protect them so they would not be searched again when
they got to central booking," said the students' lawyer, Martha Rayner.