CA5: Prison inmate stated claim for unreasonable strip searches conducted without “any penological justification”

Plaintiff prison inmate pled enough to overcome dismissal of his complaint for failure to state a claim for unreasonable strip searches conducted without “any penological justification.” Ponce v. Lucas, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 941 (5th Cir. January 22, 2015):

We first address Ponce’s claims that the searches here were unreasonable because they were conducted in the absence of any penological justification. Under the Fourth Amendment, “searches or seizures conducted on prisoners must be reasonable under all the facts and circumstances in which they are performed.” Elliott v. Lynn, 38 F.3d 188, 190-91 (5th Cir. 1994) (internal quotation and citation omitted). In analyzing the reasonableness of the searches, the district court was required to balance the need for the searches against the invasion of personal rights that the searches entailed by considering the scope of the intrusions, the manner in which they were conducted, the justification for them, and the places in which they were conducted. See Watt v. City of Richardson Police Dep’t, 849 F.2d 195, 196-97 (5th Cir. 1988). Accepting Ponce’s allegations as true, which we must, see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009), there was no justification, penological or otherwise, for the searches conducted in this case. Dismissal for failure to state a claim was premature and thus inappropriate because the facts Ponce alleges could entitle him to relief for a Fourth Amendment violation. See Moore v. Carwell, 168 F.3d 234, 236-37 (5th Cir. 1999). Accordingly, we vacate the dismissal as frivolous and for failure to state a claim of Ponce’s Fourth Amendment challenge to the strip and body cavity searches and remand the case for further proceedings.