E.D.La.: Claim of sexual touching during jail strip search was de minimus

Plaintiff’s strip search which he alleged included a sexual touching was a de minimus claim for a jail, and summary judgment is granted. Brown v. Brooks, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69383 (E.D. La. June 17, 2010)*:

Even if the touching was sexually motivated, as Brown alleges, such conduct, while despicable, must be characterized as constitutionally de minimis in this context. Copeland, 2001 WL 274738, at *3; see Brown v. Sloan, No. 1:09-cv-01066, 2010 WL 476720, at *2 (W.D. La. Feb. 10, 2010) (Drell, J.) (citing Copeland, 2001 WL 274738 at *3) (quoting Boddie, 105 F.3d at 861) (Plaintiff’s claim that corrections officer fondled him while conducting a shakedown failed to state an Eighth Amendment claim when plaintiff did not allege any physical injury. “This single incident is not severe enough to be objectively sufficiently serious or egregious to state a constitutional violation. … [S]uch conduct does ‘not involve a harm of federal constitutional proportions as defined by” the Supreme Court.); accord McGill v. Corrections Corp., No. 08-CV-0923, 2009 WL 790363, at *5 (W.D. La. Mar. 25, 2009) (Drell, J.) (citing Copeland, 2001 WL 274738, at *2); Washington v. City of Shreveport, No. 03-2057, 2006 WL 1778756, at *5-6 (W.D. La. June 26, 2006) (Hicks, J.) (citing Berryhill v. Schriro, 137 F.3d 1073, 1076 (8th Cir. 1998); Boddie, 105 F.3d at 861; Copeland, 2001 WL 274738, at *2; Buckley v. Dallas County, No. 397-CV-1649BC, 2000 WL 502845, at *5 (N.D. Tex. Apr. 27, 2000)).

. . . Under the Fifth Circuit’s standards, a prison official’s burden of proving the reasonableness of a strip search “is a light burden because an administrator’s decisions and actions in the prison or jail context are entitled to great deference.” Tuft, 2010 WL 420003, at *7 (citing Elliott, 38 F.3d at 191).