Body-Search Policy
* In reference to Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer’s declaring unconstitutional the Sheriff’s Department’s policy of conducting body cavity searches on prisoners (Dec. 19), let me say this. Sometimes members of the court are too far removed from the realities of the world.
Eighteen years ago, while I was attending a parole hearing at San Quentin State Prison on behalf of the people of the state of California, I was repeatedly stabbed by an inmate, as was Parole Board chairman Raymond Brown, who intervened to save my life. Where did the prisoner get the knife? He had it secreted in his rectum. Despite the fact that he was manacled, using a prison-made handcuff key, he unlocked himself and removed the knife at a restroom break. When he returned to the hearing, he attempted to murder us.
Had San Quentin had a body-cavity search policy then, Mr. Brown and I would have been spared that experience. All body-cavity search policies for inmates or prisoners do have a rational basis.
ROBERT E. SAVITT
Deputy District Attorney
Los Angeles County
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