Our SO received a "FOIA" request from a law firm in Houston (Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Anaipakos) asking for copy of county's procedures regarding "visual inspections of arrestees during dress-out into jail clothing, pat-down searches of inmates and strip searches of arresttes "and/or" inmates." (Don't you just hate "slash writing: and/or, he/she," etc.?

I assume this was sent to every Sheriff's office in TX....maybe fishing for info for a class action suit?

Has anyone else seen this? Do we have to give it to them? Has anyone else already talked to the AG's people? (The law firm should receive a 15-yard penalty for citing the Federal law rather than State law!)

Yes. My county has received the same request. I've thumbed through the Handbook and don't see any exceptions so far. Section 522.108 might apply as a record of law enforcement (procedures at the jail), but I doubt that it really applies. Our jail does not have an in-house policy. They go by the Jail Regulations code book so it really shouldn't be a problem for us. If you find out anything please let me know!

Our sheriff received this same letter. We had a recent incident in which a female (very intoxicated) prisoner claimed a male officer viewed her strip search (an untrue statement, by the way). My sheriff thought he might be facing a lawsuit when he received this letter, so he was relieved when I told him that letter was evidently going around the state. Our policy is very unobjectionable, so I recommended that our sheriff go ahead and send it to the firm requesting it.

Denton has also received such a request and replied. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the 5th circuit came down with a recent decision about the unconstitutionality of blanket strip search policies...does anybody have knowledge of this?

Unfortunately, if jail policies or directives regarding examinations are reduced to writing, I think they are subject to disclosure regardless of any applicable exceptions, unless there is some applicable "other law" besides subchapter C of the Public Information Act. See Tex. Gov't Code Ann. sec. 552.022(a)(8), (9) (Vernon Supp. 2002). Although the Texas Supreme Court held in In re City of Georgetown that the privileges contained in the Rules of Civil Procedure qualified as such "other law," I don't see how that is of any assistance here, unless your jail regulations can legitimately be characterized as work product or attorney-client communication. That's about as likely as me getting a raise.

In answer to Hugh's inquiry, the most recent "blanket" pronouncement from the Fifth Circuit concerning strip searches in the corrections environment appears to be Oliver v. Scott, 276 F.3d 736 (5th Cir. 2002). In Oliver, the Fifth Circuit opined that a TDCJ-ID policy which provided that strip searches were to be performed by officers of the same sex as the inmate "when possible" or "unless circumstances dictate[d] otherwise," and which delegated discretion to the warden to determine when cross-sex strip searches were unavoidable, was constitutionally sound. 276 F.3d at 743. The Oliver opinion, however, was concerned only with policies governing the procedure of strip searches, not the more substantive criterion of when to conduct such a search. Generally, an inmate booked on a minor offense can only be strip searched based upon reasonable suspicion that he or she is hiding contraband or a weapon. Kelly v. Foti, 77 F.3d 819, 821 (5th Cir. 1996).