Lawsuit against County Jail gets class-action status

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July 5, 2007

Anonymous The Press Republican Thu Jul 05, 2007, 03:41 PM EDT

By LOIS CLERMONT

News Editor

PLATTSBURGH — A federal judge has elevated a local woman’s lawsuit against Clinton County to the class-action level.

In 2006, Phyllis Mitchell, 47, of Ellenburg filed a lawsuit against the county, claiming she was illegally strip-searched at Clinton County Jail in March 2003 when she was being admitted on misdemeanor charges.

Her attorney, Robert Keach of Amsterdam, said in filing the lawsuit that people charged with minor crimes shouldn’t be subjected to strip searches unless jail officials have reasonable cause to believe they are hiding evidence of a crime.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeks a judgment of at least $3 million against Sheriff David Favro, Undersheriff Jerry Maggy and Maj. Michael Smith, the jail administrator.

On Thursday, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Norman A. Mordue granted the lawsuit class-action status, which means other people charged with misdemeanors, violations and infractions who were strip-searched at the County Jail can join the action.

Mordue cited a previous Second Circuit ruling that held that “persons charged with a misdemeanor and remanded to a local correctional facility ... have a right to be free of a strip search absent reasonable suspicion that they are carrying contraband or weapon.”

Mitchell was arrested March 27, 2003, on charges of abandonment of animals and failure to provide proper food and drink to animals, which are misdemeanors.

When she was taken to Clinton County Jail, she had to remove all her clothes in the presence of a female correction officer and had to lift her breasts, squat and cough and submit to a visual inspection of her vaginal and rectal area.

She posted $7,000 bail and was released the next day.

Her lawyer said the jail had no probable cause to suspect she was carrying illegal drugs or a weapon.

The jail had a blanket strip-search policy until Oct. 24, 2003, when Smith, the jail administrator, wrote a memo revising the rules. The new policy was read to correction officers but not distributed to them, so they continued to carry out the practice of blanket strip searches, according to the lawsuit.

The judge, in granting class-action status, divided plaintiffs into two subclasses:

E Class A: People who were brought in on misdemeanors or more minor crimes who were strip-searched from Feb. 28, 2003, to Oct. 24, 2003. These people will be the subject of a directed-verdict motion.

E Class B: People who were brought in on misdemeanors or more minor crimes who were strip-searched from Oct. 24, 2003, up until the jail stopped doing blanket strip searches. These people will have liability determined by jury trial.

Sheriff Favro was off Thursday and didn’t return a call from the Press-Republican placed through another jail official.

Keach said Mitchell was “obviously very happy with the decision.

“It’s a victory on behalf of the plaintiff and the class to have the court address Clinton County’s illegal strip searches.

“There were several hundred people during an eight-month time period that were illegally searched. I’ve talked to a number of people as part of our investigation.”

The lawyer said his office is “in process of discovery of the case and will be writing out a class notice against Clinton County.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do to send out the class notices.”

— Contributing Writer Katelyn Mockry added to this report.