Over half a dozen attorneys, jail staff and incarcerated people say that, over the past few weeks, San Francisco sheriff’s deputies have begun routinely strip-searching inmates after they meet with their attorneys.
The strip-searches, which are at the sheriff’s discretion, are part of an effort to “stem the flow of contraband into our jails,” said Tara Moriarty, the sheriff’s spokesperson.
“We are enforcing our longstanding policy on a more regular, frequent basis for any incarcerated person who has a contact visit,” said Moriarty. The sheriff’s policy has not changed, Moriarty said. Sworn staff were notified of this change in enforcement, she added.
The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department Custody and Court Operations Policy Manual states that incarcerated people may be strip searched before and after “contact visits” — essentially, any in-person meeting. It does not specify guidelines for legal visits.
“It is common practice for incarcerated persons to be strip-searched after having contact visits, not just visits with an attorney,” said Moriarty.
While a visit from a lawyer is technically a contact visit and the manual doesn’t have a separate category for legal visits, local attorneys said they had never before heard of inmates being strip-searched after speaking to attorneys.
Attorneys worry the new practice will have a “chilling” effect on incarcerated people exercising their Constitutional right to meet with counsel. Already, attorneys said, some were opting not to meet with lawyers to avoid the strip searches.
Angela Chan, the city’s assistant chief public defender, said a number of her office’s clients have already turned down legal visits. The practice, she said, would likely have a “disproportionate impact” on women, transgender people and people who have experienced sexual assault.
While clients may speak to their attorneys over the phone, Chan said it is recommended they do so in person, especially when sharing privileged information.
One man who has been in County Jail No. 3 in San Bruno for several years told Mission Local that, a couple weeks ago, his attorneys wanted to see him before a hearing. After a trusted deputy warned him that there’d be a strip-search after, the man declined to see his lawyers, he said.
The de facto change began a few weeks ago, sources close to the jails said.
In early September, Manuel, identified by a pseudonym after he expressed fears of retaliation, was escorted in handcuffs from his cell in San Francisco County Jail No. 3 to a visitation room, where he met with his attorney. Deputies in the room watched the two of them the entire time.
Normally, Manuel said, he would be returned to his cell after a meeting like this. Instead, he was taken to a room typically used for people awaiting medical services, and told to take off all his clothes and show the deputy his gums, feet and the area behind his ears.
“Spread your cheeks,” one of the deputies said, before telling him to “squat and cough” so that both deputies could visually inspect his rectum for signs of contraband.
Deputies do not touch people in custody, the sheriff’s spokesperson said. But during the approximately two-minute search, Manuel said, “Anybody can walk by and see you … butt naked.”
The privacy curtain in the room was “fake,” Manuel said; he felt it concealed little.
Manuel, who is no stranger to the carceral system, found this highly unusual, unpleasant and a deviation from every visit with his lawyer up until this point. But he said he was informed that these strip searches are now the new normal after every in-person lawyer visit.
San Francisco public defenders have been worried about clients being strip-searched after legal visits for months. On Feb. 8, a public defender complained that their client was told that if they spoke to their attorney without phones and a glass barrier between them, they would be strip searched afterwards.
Three veteran defense attorneys with decades of experience said strip-searches after a legal visit were new to them. Chan said she hadn’t heard of any accusations of contraband being smuggled into legal visits, and was unsure why the practice is being implemented now.
“It is concerning that the Sheriff’s Office often cites staffing shortages as a reason for delays in access to legal visits, yet they now appear to have the staffing to conduct strip-searches after these visits,” Chan said.
“Our clients’ constitutional right to counsel is fundamental, and we encourage the Sheriff’s Office to allocate resources in a way that ensures timely access to legal representation.”
A few weeks ago, private defense attorneys began circulating emails about clients being strip-searched after meetings.
After visiting clients who said they expected to be strip-searched “down to nothing,” one attorney said he then decided not to see another client he usually stops to chat with. He didn’t want them to have to be searched.
Nearly three decades ago, some of the attorney’s clients reported being patted down after meetings. He compared those searches to an airport security pat down.
But he’d never heard of anyone being strip-searched after a legal visit until now, the attorney said, and he was unaware of any incident in the last 20 years where an attorney had smuggled anything in for a prisoner.
“I don’t even wanna go see a lawyer anymore,” Manuel said over the phone from County Jail No. 3. Other inmates, he said, have also been declining visits, telling the deputies, “I don’t feel like taking my clothes off for you today.”
These days, he asks his attorney to call him on the phone. But he has a trial coming up, which is also grounds for a strip search, according to department policy.
So is returning from a work detail, a hospital appointment, an interview or any other activity occurring outside of an assigned housing unit. He could get strip-searched every day.
Maybe if less contraband gets in, less people will get hurt?
Sounds like staffing is improving if they are actually doing what the policy has said all along…
This isn’t how contraband gets in at any significant scale whatsoever. They aren’t strip searching the deputies in contact, for one example.
Fact, most contraband in prison brought in by “staff” and sold to the inmates. Perhaps a random search of the “staff” by person not associated with the jail would be appropriate in addition to searching the inmates.
It is their house. The sheriffs can do whatever they need to make sure the house is secure. How would these inmates get drugs or cell phones into jail from any contact? It could always be a deputy, but contact is with an attorney is more “privileged “ so anything can happen.
So have they found anything at all during these searches? Yes or no?
If lawyers are passing contraband that’s grounds to be disbarred and prosecuted.
AFAIK that isn’t happening.
The searches are a deterrent. If nothing is found then it is working.
And yet they still have a contraband problem, how interesting!
Way to think things through David.
THEY WATCH them when they meet attorneys, and the guards the main way drugs and phones get into prisons, they get off being cruel jerks.
Seria bueno que tambien hicieran una investigacion exaustiva en los sheriff’s que trabajan ahi y en todos los trabajadores , porque a ellos no los checan tantos policias corruptos ahi y nadie hace nada ,
This is insane and I hope there is someone working to end this practice. They can watch (but not listen) to an attorney meeting and clearly see no contraband was transferred. This is cops being cruel just to be cruel. Want to bet the contraband is being brought in the jails by the guards themselves? Do they get strip searched every time they arrive at work?
I just read a book by an author who spent a year as a prison guard at Sing Sing.
Strip searches after attorney visits are apparently standard procedure in New York state.
I doubt that this is the worst part of being in prison.
This isn’t prison, this is pre-trial. And they aren’t leaving the jail to visit with lawyers.
The worst is having the deputies take extended, longing gazes at your genitalia while they conduct their so-called, “search”. Just like they are cowards in so many other areas, I think that many of them are too scared to come out of denial, and admit that they are really same sex loving men who are just repressing their desires and pretending to be straight. If only they’d have the courage to acknowledge who they truly are, maybe it would help them to have integrity and decrease the ramp and Corruption and abuse of power and dishonesty that happens on a daily basis from those jailhouse-half-cops. Just because they’re all not falsifying reports and engaging in the constant beatings and lies, evidence planting, etc., doesn’t mean that it’s just a few bad apples. If anything, it’s just a few good apples. And I would purport that there are no good apples and they are all bad apples as long as any of them are remaining quiet while there colleagues continue to engage in obvious corruption. Silence equals complicity by not speaking up, they are just as guilty as the ones directly engaging in the corrupt and abusive behavior. I’d like to see all of them have to spend a month incarcerated in a prison on a level 4 yard then they learn who t h w qhe punk is and who isn’t. 1312.
Strip search the lawyers.
Hey.
If you don’t commit a crime and get arrested then you won’t be in jail and get strip searched.
Shazam! Just like that!
If you’re innocent and in jail pending your trial?