A federal appellate court, in the case of Demery v. Arpaio, has ruled that the use of webcams in prisons violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution by constituting improper punishment of pre-trial detainees. As such, the particular county sheriff in the case, and presumably sheriffs in other counties, no longer can invite the entire world into their facilities via webcams to view activities and circumstances of pre-trial detainees.
Background
Sheriff Joe Arpaio serves as the sheriff for Maricopa County, Arizona. At a certain point he announced the installation of webcams in the Madison Street Jail. In so doing, he proclaimed "[w]e get people booked in for murder all the way down to prostitution. When those johns are arrested, they can wave to their wives on the camera." The sheriff also stated that his policy deterred crime and opened the jails to public scrutiny: "The public has the right to know what's going on in our jails."
In July 2000, four webcams began streaming live images of pretrial detainees to Internet users around the world. The webcams were installed at the Madison Street Jail, a facility used exclusively to house pretrial detainees. The webcams were located within areas of the jail that were not open to the public other than through prearranged tours.
Although the Maricopa County Sheriff's Web site initially hosted the webcam images, the number of visitors to the site quickly overwhelmed that Web site's capacity. Thereafter, Sheriff Arpaio entered into an arrangement with a Web site called Crime.com to distribute the images to the public. Within the first several days of operation, Crime.com recorded six million hits, with visitors from remote locations such as Germany, Britain and Sweden. Ultimately, even the Crime.com Web site became overwhelmed by the number of visitors seeking to view the streaming webcam feed.
Unhappy with the streaming of those images, a lawsuit challenging this practice was filed by 24 former Madison Street Jail detainees.
The legal result
In considering the lawsuit on appeal, the federal appellate court cited to precedent from the United States Supreme Court that holds that under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a pretrial detainee "may not be punished prior to an adjudication of guilt." Indeed, the Supreme Court has held that "the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits all punishment of pretrial detainees."
The appellate court ruled that the pretrial detainees in this instance truly had been harmed by the webcam practices: "Having every moment of one's daily activities exposed to general and world-wide scrutiny would make anyone uncomfortable. Exposure to millions of complete strangers, not to mention friends, loved ones, co-workers, and employers, as one is booked, fingerprinted, and generally processed as an arrestee, and as one sits, stands, or lies in a holding cell, constitutes a level of humiliation that almost anyone would regard as profoundly undesirable and strive to avoid."
In rejecting Sheriff Arpaio's crime deterrence argument, the federal court was quite firm: "we fail to see how turning pretrial detainees into the unwilling objects of the latest reality show serves any. .. legitimate goals." Borrowing a line from a Supreme Court case, the appellate court stated that "[i]nmates are not like animals in a zoo to be filed and photographed at will..."
Accordingly, the appellate court affirmed the injunction that prohibited the webcam practices at the Madison Street Jail. The logic of this decision should apply to pretrial detainees in other jails. This case represents an instance where the power of the Internet does not trump constitutional protections.
Eric Sinrod is a partner in the San Francisco office of Duane Morris (www.duanemorris.com), where he focuses on litigation matters of various types, including information technology disputes. His column appears Wednesdays at USATODAY.com. His Web site is www.sinrodlaw.com, and he can be reached at ejsinrod@duanemorris.com. To receive a weekly e-mail link to Mr. Sinrod's columns, please send an e-mail with the word Subscribe in the Subject line to ejsinrod@duanemorris.com.
Reprinted here with permission from USAToday.com.