Thompson
Thompson v. Souza
Opinion
Lead Opinion
Trott, J.
OVERVIEW
Prison officials Gary R. Souza, T.M. De La Rosa, and G.D. Jordan (collectively, “Officials”) appeal the district court’s order denying their motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. California state prisoner Charles W. Thompson sued the Officials pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 , alleging that a strip search and urinalysis drug test for contraband drugs violated his constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Because Thompson has failed to show that the strip search and urinalysis test violated any clearly established constitutional rights, we reverse.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Thompson is serving a fifteen-year-to-life sentence at the California Men’s Colony (“CMC”) for second-degree murder. 1 At the time of the conduct at issue in this case, Official Souza was the Associate Warden at CMC; Official De La Rosa was a Correctional Sergeant in the Security and Investigations Unit at CMC; and Official Jordan was an Evidence Officer in the same unit.
*697 In June 1994, Souza and De La Rosa developed a plan to detect illicit drugs at CMC. The plan called for prison staff to remove pre-selected inmates, and their cellmates, from their cells after…
Dissenting Opinion
Nelson, J.
dissenting:
Because I believe that the manner in which the prison officials conducted the body-cavity search and urinalysis violated clearly established law, I dissent from all but Part B of the Discussion Section of the opinion.
As the majority notes, it is clear that under the law of this circuit, incarcerated prisoners retain a limited Fourth Amendment right to bodily privacy. Michenfelder v. Sumner, 860 F.2d 328, 333 (9th Cir.1988); see also Jordan v. Gardner, 986 F.2d 1521, 1524 (9th Cir.1993) (en banc). The Seventh Circuit is the only circuit that has interpreted Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 527 , 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3200 , 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984), to strip prisoners of all Fourth Amendment rights. See Johnson v. Phelan, 69 F.3d 144, 150 (7th Cir.1995), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 506 , 136 L.Ed.2d 397 (1996).
In assessing the reasonableness of a search of a prison inmate, courts must consider the manner in which the search was conducted. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559 , 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1884-85 , 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979); Vaughan v. Ricketts, 859 F.2d 736, 740 (9th Cir.1988). It is clearly established that an important element of this assessment is whether the…