Paulino v. State, decided Monday by Maryland’s highest court, asked whether a particular search incident to arrest was reasonable. The police officers who arrested Paulino didn’t just normally search him (just fine, even without a probable cause or a warrant, and even if done in public). They also, in a relatively public place, “lifted up Paulino’s shorts” and “spread[] apart the cheeks of [his] buttocks” — which revealed some drugs that Paulino had hidden between the cheeks (which is where an informant had told them Paulino often hid drugs).
The court held that under the circumstances in this case the search incident to arrest exception didn’t justify such an intrusive search (which was not as intrusive as a manual body cavity search, but was more intrusive than most searches). That’s an interesting and technical question that I won’t get into here.
What struck me about the case, though, was Judge Cathell’s short dissent:
I join Judge Battaglia