Judge lets family sue social worker who strip-searched kids
The state health cabinet and the Hardin County sheriff’s office have been dismissed as defendants. But Walker stripped the social worker and deputy of the legal shield that public officials ordinarily enjoy through “qualified immunity,” because, he wrote, what they did was “so clearly unconstitutional.”
“To hold otherwise would permit social workers to strip search children as a matter of course in every investigation,” wrote Walker, who recently was elevated from the district court in Louisville to a high-profile seat on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. “Incredibly, Childress repeatedly testified that she believed she should ‘automatically’ strip search any child who was four or under.”
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures, particularly in their homes, he wrote in his Aug. 18 order and opinion....