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Lawsuit filed about search at Boyle jail

August 22, 2007|TODD KLEFFMAN

A former inmate at the Boyle County Detention Center alleges in a federal lawsuit that he was subjected to an illegal body cavity search.

John Francis of Harrodsburg, who is now an inmate at Northpoint Training Center, filed the claim last week in U.S. District Court in Lexington.

It names Jailer Barry Harmon, deputies Danny Sallee and Scott Rousey, and nurse Brenda Rousey as defendants, and asks for $200,000 in damages from each of them.

Francis, who is acting as his own attorney, maintains in the lawsuit that the two deputies and the nurse performed an unconstitutional search of his anus on March 3 while looking for drugs. Francis states he told the deputies he did not have any drugs in his possession and the search came up empty.

"I told all three it wasn't going to happen. ... They responded it would," Francis writes in the lawsuit. "I requested an opportunity to produce a bowel movement in a bucket or be placed in the dry cell, anything other than a cavity search."

After jail personnel denied the request and threatened to bring in additional deputies, Francis said he submitted to the search, which was conducted by Brenda Rousey, states Francis, who is serving a six-year sentence at Northpoint after being convicted earlier this year on drug trafficking and bail jumping charges.

The search violated constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure and cruel and unusual punishment, the lawsuit maintains.

Harmon declined to comment directly about Francis's lawsuit, but said the jail's policies and procedures allow for cavity searches if jail personnel have "reasonable cause" to suspect an inmate is hiding contraband. Such searches have to be conducted by medical personnel, Harmon said.

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