KY jail settles lawsuit claiming Muslim woman was forced to remove hijab after arrest
A Muslim woman who filed a federal lawsuit against the Warren County Regional Jail that claimed she was required to remove her religious headwear and garments, was photographed without them, and live-streamed during an “unnecessary full body strip search,” has reached a settlement agreement.
The Warren County Muslim woman, identified in court documents as “Jane Doe,” claimed Jailer Stephen Harmon and Deputy Jailer Brooks Lindsey Harp violated her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment Constitutional Rights, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and her religious freedoms as a result of the strip search and forced removal of her headwear.
She is being represented by the Council on American-Islamic Relations Legal Defense Fund.
Warren County Judge-Executive Doug Gorman, Harmon, Harp, Officer Benjamin Carroll, and two other unidentified officers were originally listed as defendants in the suit, according to court documents. Several weeks ago, Doe filed a motion to dismiss claims against all defendants except Harmon and Harp.
Harmon and Harp filed a notice on Monday which stated they have come to an agreement with Doe to “resolve all remaining claims,” according to court documents.
The parties are moving towards dismissing the suit as a result, court documents said. The specifics of the settlement have not been released.
“We welcome the settlement of this case and hope correctional institutions nationwide will take note and implement policies that protect the religious rights of all those in custody,” CAIR Legal Fellow Aya Beydoun said in a news release. “The rights of Americans do not stop at the jailhouse door.”
Matt Cook, an attorney for Harmon and Harp, could not release details about the settlement until it’s finalized. He said the settlement doesn’t indicate an admission of wrong-doing.
“I think the important thing from the perspective of Warren County and the jail, is they have always tried to respect religious beliefs of employees and inmates.,” Cook told the Herald-Leader. “Just because they reached a settlement, doesn’t mean they believed they failed in any regard — I just think that sometimes you have to make a business decision about the cost of litigation and that is what happened here.”
What happened the night of the arrest
On April 6, officers with the Bowling Green Police Department arrested the woman at her residence after they responded to a call. She was wearing her hijab and abaya, a long-sleeved, full-length dress, according to the lawsuit. After being placed in the cruiser, the woman began to question officers about the jail’s policy for allowing her religious garments, according to the lawsuit.
She repeatedly expressed concerns about her religious beliefs and the jail’s attire policy. Once officers started searching the woman at the jail, they told her they would need to do a “more thorough” search of her person, and would require her to remove her clothes in a private room at the jail.
The woman agreed, and was permitted to put her hijab back on as well as a uniform with short sleeves. She was later given a long-sleeve thermal shirt to accommodate her religious attire requirements. While sitting on a metal bench, she realized there was a TV screen above the room where she had been strip searched, in full view of both male and female inmates to see.
“Mrs. Doe felt mortified, degraded, violated, and humiliated,” the lawsuit states. “She panicked as she realized that everyone in the hallway and lobby saw her fully nude and being strip searched, which is considered a severe violation of her sincerely-held religious beliefs that require her to wear clothes that cover her body in front of strange men and women.”
The lawsuit alleges the officer who conducted the search was aware of the live-stream, and did not make any efforts to protect the privacy of the woman. The lawsuit alleges the defendants acted in concert to violate the victim’s religious beliefs.
Officers insisted the woman remove her hijab for them to take her booking photo, according to the lawsuit. She allegedly protested and said wearing her hijab was a religious requirement and constitutional right.
After tearful pleas to officers to keep on her head covering, officers forced her to remove the hijab in front of male employees and inmates, telling her it was policy, the lawsuit says.
“Appearing in public without hijab or being photographed without wearing hijab and having that photo available to the public is a serious breach of Mrs. Doe’s faith and a deeply humiliating and defiling experience in conflict with her sincerely held religious beliefs,” the lawsuit said.
The photo was later uploaded to the JailTracker website, and is still publicly available, which continues to cause the complainant emotional anxiety, the lawsuit said.
