Thompson, Jr. DeHart and Karl S. Mayer, Deputy Attorneys General, for Appellant. Five prisoners at San Quentin State Prison brought these lawsuits after spouses or friends were indefinitely excluded from the prison following refusals by the visitors, all women, to submit to fully unclothed body searches. The searches were requested because prison authorities suspected the women of attempting to bring contraband into the prison.
At the main gate each woman was asked by a male officer to submit to an "unclothed body search. According to the pleadings, the strip searches of Ms. French and Ms. Owen were requested based on "specific, confidential information, deemed reliable by the staff" that Ms.
French was bringing drugs into the prison and Ms. Owen "contraband. Of the 9, monthly visitors to San Quentin only 10 or 12 are asked to submit to searches. Eighty to 90 percent of these persons consent to be searched. Yet these searches never produce contraband and the persons so searched are not treated with suspicion on future visits.
Nonetheless, pursuant to a per se but then unofficial San Quentin rule, fn. Owen to submit to a search was deemed "a tacit admission of attempting to smuggle contraband.
Through counsel, inmates French and Owen pleaded under oath that their wives refused to submit to the searches because they were menstruating and because Ms. Owen "was under the impression that a male guard would perform" the search of her person. It does not appear that either woman had had previous experience with the search procedures. Thus, there is no reason to believe that they were aware that the body searches would have been conducted by women and would not have included digital probing.
