China Nelson, a 48-year-old transgender Louisiana woman traveled with her mother and a brother to Angola Penitentiary to visit an incarcerated brother.
Nelson says guards stopped her from entering the prison after a body screening machine revealed an "unknown object" in her pants.
When an unknown guard stated that she saw ‘something’ in Ms. Nelson’s pants, Ms. Nelson acknowledged that she was born a male as indicated on her driver’s license in an effort to explain the ‘something’ the guard stated she saw.
Ms. Nelson acknowledged that she was born a male as indicated on her driver’s license in an effort to explain the ‘something’ the guard stated she saw.
After two guards escorted her to a men’s restroom and instructed her to remove her pants and underwear, she refused and said she would forego the visit and wait in her vehicle while her mother and a brother visited her other brother.
A supervisor and approximately nine other guards insisted on “shaking down” the vehicle and told Nelson that she “would have to reveal her genitalia before being permitted to leave the premises." Nelson said she consented to the search of her vehicle but again refused to remove her pants and underwear. Prison officials ultimately canceled the visit by Nelson, her mother and brother.
Ms. Nelson has filed suit against the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, accusing the prison guards of violating her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
One of Nelson’s attorneys, Galen Hair, said his client should have been treated the same as any man who is screened for a prison visit.
Surely, the (prison) is not strip-searching every man who goes through the machine.
--Hair
Nelson had been on the prison’s “approved visitor list” for 14 years before the Sept. 10, 2017, visit, and had never been asked to submit to a strip search during many previous visits, according to Hair.
A deputy warden wrote Nelson a letter which included the following:
Security advised you of the shakedown policy and the strip search would be based on your driver’s license. Security tried to explain but you continued to interrupt.
Security officers cancelled their visit after Nelson’s brother began recording the encounter at the vehicle and swore at officers.
The letter also informed Nelson that she was suspended from visiting the prison for at least six months. She has not seen her incarcerated brother since the day the incident occurred.