CA7: Surveillance cameras covering courthouse lockup toilets are reasonable

The use of surveillance cameras viewing the toilet areas of the Cook County Courthouse lockups are, on balance of the interests involved, reasonable. Alicea v. Cty. of Cook, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 33401 (7th Cir. Dec. 18, 2023):

We leave those difficult [privacy] questions for another day. Even if a Fourth Amendment search occurs, invasions of privacy may be “subject to reasonable intrusions that the realities of incarceration often demand,” so long as those intrusions are limited in response to “ever-present institutional concerns over safety and security.” Id. at 779, 783. Because we find that Cook County’s use of cameras in courthouse holding cells is reasonable under the circumstances, we need not determine whether a search occurred in the first instance.

The reasonableness of a search depends on four factors: “the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is conducted.” Id. at 779 (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559 (1979)). One such reasonable, limited intrusion is guards “routinely and incidentally observing [inmates] in various states of undress in their … toilets.” Id. at 783 (citing Johnson, 69 F.3d at 145).