TX: police conduct cavity search on woman for marijuana

[summer]

WaPo Opinion


A Spring woman claims sheriff’s deputies violated constitutional protections by conducting a body cavity search on the concrete of a Texaco gas station parking lot during a routine traffic stop in late June.



Charnesia Corley, a 21-year-old African American, was driving in northern Harris County around 10:30 p.m. on June 21 when a male deputy pulled her over for allegedly running a stop sign. He said he smelled marijuana, handcuffed Corley, put her in his vehicle and searched her car for almost an hour. He didn’t find any pot, according to her attorney, Sam Cammack.



Returning to his car where Corley was held, the deputy again said he smelled marijuana and called in a female deputy to conduct a cavity search. When the female deputy arrived, she told Corley to pull her pants down, but Corley protested because she was cuffed and had no underwear on. The deputy ordered Corley to bend over, pulled down her pants and began to search her.



Then, according to Cammack, Corley stood up and protested, so the deputy threw her to the ground and restrained her while another female was called in to assist. When backup arrived, each deputy held one of Corley’s legs apart to conduct the probe.



Incredibly, a spokesperson for the Harris County Sheriff’s Department told a local TV station that “the deputies did everything as they should.” And so there you have it. Holding a woman down and forcibly penetrating her vagina to search for pot is official policy in Harris County.



Keep in mind that under Texas law, it takes more than four ounces of marijuana to bring a felony charge. This is what four ounces of marijuana looks like. It seems doubtful that a woman could be casually driving around with that much marijuana stuffed into her vagina. So Corley was forced to the ground, stripped, and penetrated to search for evidence that at worst would have amounted to a misdemeanor. Which means that the Harris County Sheriff’s Department believes its perfectly acceptable to allow a stranger to forcibly probe a woman’s vagina in order to prevent her from possessing a personal-use quantity of marijuana. And even that happened without a warrant, based only on one deputy’s claim to have smelled the drug.



This story comes two years after two women filed a lawsuit claiming they were cavity searched after being pulled over for throwing cigarette butts out of the window. That lawsuit claimed to have found evidence that such searches were “standard procedure” in the Texas Highway Patrol. In May, Reason’s Jacob Sullum found three more incidents, all involving women suspected of possessing marijuana. Publicity from those incidents prompted the Texas legislature to pass a law that’s supposed to prohibit such searches without a warrant. But that law doesn’t take effect until next month. That the state would need such a law in the first place speaks volumes.



But it isn’t just Texas. In January of last year, I noted the other places where these searches have happened:



Oakland recently paid $4.6 million to 39 men who were illegally strip searched in public. A similar lawsuit was filed in Chicago just this week. There have been other recent allegations of cavity searches in Citrus County,Florida; Coral Springs, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; and Mission, Kansas. In Milwaukee, a group of four cops spent two years subjecting women to illegal cavity searches after traffic stops. They at least have been arrested and charged.



But requiring a warrant won’t stop these incidents from happening. In some jurisdictions, a cop can get a warrant with little more than a phone call. A couple of years ago, two horrifying cases in New Mexico made national headlines. One man subjected to repeated digital anal penetration, x-rays, enemas and a colonoscopy, all without his consent. Days later, another New Mexico man came forward with a similar story. In both cases, the police obtained warrants that were approved by a judge and local prosecutor. And in both instances, the police failed to find any drugs (not that it should matter).



Last October, I also posted here about two additional incidents in which men were anally penetrated during drug searches in Tennessee. One of those searches was authorized when a drug-sniffing dog “alerted” to a $20 the man was carrying. (Gives last week’s post about the inaccuracy of drug dogs a hell of lot more urgency, doesn’t it?)





There are times when it seems like we’re moving in the direction of sanity in the drug war, at least when it comes to marijuana. These cases are a good reminder that in most of the country, things are as bad as they’ve ever been. A majority of the Americans now believe that pot should be legal. In a few states, it already is, at least under state law. A majority also believe that even harder drugs should be treated as a medical condition, not a crime. Yet the government is still waging terrifying raids on people because of pot. It’s still performing sexual assault because pot. It’s still taking children away from their parents because of pot. And it’s still killing people because of pot.

[pixy0stix]

They raped her. Out in the open. Then claimed it was legal.

[elleblue]

Holy shit.

[AJL]

Holy fuck. That woman was sexually assaulted under the guise of police business. Fire those police officers and then prosecute the shit out of them.

[summer]

Aug 13, 2015 15:23:07 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

They raped her. Out in the open. Then claimed it was legal.

exactly

[MrsAggie]

[ESF]

Fuck these pieces of shit.

What is wrong with you that you do not see this as wrong?

OMFG.

[FloFTW]

Oh my god. This is unconscionable.

[aurora]

I don't have words to express how disgusted I am by this crime.

[gpw]

I love how they said she consented. Because OF COURSE someone would consent to have a cavity search ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. I fucking hate people.

::throws things::

[UMaineTeach]

Aug 13, 2015 16:11:25 GMT -5 gpw said:

I love how they said she consented. Because OF COURSE someone would consent to have a cavity search ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. I fucking hate people.

::throws things::

She tried to refuse even. But like most rape, power and control won over and the victim "cooperated" until it was over, to not get killed.

Reading the other story about bail, suggests that they could have arrested her for suspicion without finding any drugs and she would have been in jail for 3 weeks. They wanted to rape her.

[iammalcolmx]

This sounds like the red dog unit in Atlanta that would cavity search people for no reason! I don't have words....

[gault]

This is giving me a lot of panic in my chest. How dare they. HOW DARE THEY try to excuse this.

[decemberwedding07]

You mean she wasn't a rich, white woman? I'm shocked! This is sickening. Forcible probing of a woman's vagina is rape. I don't care if you're a cop. WTF is happening? How is this going on in the USA? This is the sort of thing that I would imagine happening in some super corrupt country, but nope! It happens here, too!

[josieposy]

Holy fuck. That is disgusting.

[whitemerlot]

This is terrible.

[iammalcolmx]

Remember the movie Crash?

[gault]

I don't know if this is possible, but I hope to God she can sue their asses for trauma and assault.

[summer]

Aug 13, 2015 17:22:50 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

Remember the movie Crash?

That is exactly what I was thinking of!!! I remember when it came out people were like, "but that would never happen." oh reeeeeally?

[Michelle]

Aug 13, 2015 17:31:45 GMT -5 summer said:

Aug 13, 2015 17:22:50 GMT -5 iammalcolmx said:

Remember the movie Crash?

That is exactly what I was thinking of!!! I remember when it came out people were like, "but that would never happen." oh reeeeeally?

Unfortunately Harris County also has the lovely history of employing a cop who was convicted of multiple rapes of people he pulled over. He was also married to someone I used to work with. She had no clue about that side of him.

When I saw Crash I immediately thought of him.

[Michelle]

Aug 13, 2015 15:23:07 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

They raped her. Out in the open. Then claimed it was legal.

That was my thought. And "they" were women. She was raped by other women out in the open on the side of the road. Sickening.

[vanlatte]

Aug 13, 2015 15:23:07 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

They raped her. Out in the open. Then claimed it was legal.

So much saddness and anger, and so much wrong with our corrupt system, where it's okay to rape and hummiliate Charnesia Corley.  #charnesiacorley  #sayhername

[marriedfilingjoint]

Her lawyer is right, this is some third world country ish right here. HOW IS THIS PROTOCOL? How is it possibly ok to throw a woman to the ground at a dirty gas station and penetrate her?

This about sums it up:

[blink]

Holy fuck, what the hell is wrong with people and our country that someone thinks this is even remotely justifiable? How the fuck can people claim this is legal and 'nothing to see here, move along'?

[underwaterrhymes]

I feel sick.

[Deleted]

The forced colonoscopy part - a doctor agreed to this?

[darnkatz]

I've read this multiple times and still don't know what to say. I feel sick to my stomach for this woman.

[sparkythelawyer]

If she had actually agreed to this the cop should have arrested her right then and there for being high off her goddamned mind. Because NOBODY in their right fucking mind says, "By all means, violate me on the side of the damned road."

[oliviapope]

That poor woman

When my SO was applying for jobs I crossed Harris County and HPD off the list because they have such a long history of being absolutely disgusting. They are getting ripped to shreds on their FB page.

[secretlyevil]

Aug 14, 2015 9:47:43 GMT -5 darnkatz said:

I've read this multiple times and still don't know what to say. I feel sick to my stomach for this woman.

x2

I'm utterly speechless right now.