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FL: Pulling out defendant's underwear to look inside was not unreasonble, even in a public place, because he wore his pants to expose his underwear

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Officers had probable cause to stop defendant based on predictive behavior from a CI that proved accurate. After the defendant was patted down, the officer sought and got permission from a supervisor to pull out the waistband of defendant's underwear and look inside, where drugs were found. That search was not a strip search and was reasonable the way it was conducted. [This is based, in part, on the fact that the defendant wore his pants hanging down, already exposing his underwear to the public.] Jenkins v. State, 2008 Fla. LEXIS 370 (March 6, 2008): Based upon these findings, in our view nothing equivalent to a strip search occurred in the instant case. Rather, the search here qualifies as a "reach-in" search, where the suspect remains clothed during the search and the suspect's genitals are not visible to onlookers...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on March 11, 2008 (boomark / email).