New York: It has sparked protests outside the American embassy in New Delhi. Burnings of President Barack Obama’s photo. And angry speeches by Indian officials. But the arrest – and, yes, even the strip search – of an Indian diplomat accused of visa fraud also revealed a simple and longstanding reality of the US justice system: Everyone charged with a crime here is supposed to be treated the same, whether wealthy or poor, prominent or ordinary, citizen or foreigner.
“There is a remarkable and almost charming egalitarianism in it,” said New York City defence attorney Ron Kuby. “Everybody is treated in exactly the same disrespectful, casually brutal and arrogant fashion.”
The United States is the only place where “the rich as well as the poor get to sleep on cold floors and urinate in overflowing toilets – together.”
Indian officials have been angry over the way federal marshals handled Devyani Khobragade, the country’s deputy consul general in New York, calling the treatment degrading and inhumane.
Yet most Americans would find the procedures fairly typical for a criminal case – though certainly not pleasant. Khobragade, who was arrested last week outside her daughter’s school, complained that she was strip-searched and held in a cell “with drug addicts” until her appearance before a judge. She posted $250,000 bail and was released. And she insists she is not guilty of charges she submitted false documents to obtain a visa for an Indian woman who worked as her housekeeper in Manhattan.
The case stirred widespread outrage in India, where the idea of an educated, middle-class woman being strip-searched is almost unheard of, except in the most extraordinary crimes. The fear of public humiliation resonates strongly there, and heavy-handed treatment by the police is normally reserved for the poor.
US Attorney Preet Bharara, who brought the charges, was born in India and raised here. He said the diplomat was “fully searched” by a female deputy, which is “standard practice for every defendant … in order to make sure that no prisoner keeps anything on his person that could harm anyone, including himself.”
Khobragade’s lawyer said “similarly situated individuals of her stature are routinely provided an opportunity to report to the authorities to address charges at their convenience, instead of being swept off the street like a common criminal.”
In India, the wealthy fearing arrest often approach courts for anticipatory bail, a means of avoiding arrest. The poor cannot afford that luxury because they are not in a position to hire prominent attorneys and pay legal costs. Influential politicians sometimes feign illness after an arrest to get shifted to hospitals rather than prisons. But in the US, defendants of all types are routinely searched, photographed and fingerprinted before going to court.
When Dominique Strauss-Kahn, at the time a contender for the French presidency, was arrested in New York in 2011 on sex-assault charges, photos of the diplomat in handcuffs drew outrage in France, where the images would have been illegal. But they are routine in the US. Nationwide, deputy marshals have discretion to do “in-custody” searches or – if deemed warranted – more intrusive strip searches, according to a US Marshals Service directive obtained by AP.
With in-custody searches, deputies have the prisoner remove only outerwear, shoes and contents of pockets. By contrast, the memo describes a strip search as “a complete search of a prisoner’s attire and a visual inspection of the prisoner’s naked body, including body cavities.”
The directive says a strip search may be conducted if there’s reason to suspect the prisoner may be carrying weapons or contraband. The suspicion could be based on the nature of the crime, the prisoner’s demeanor, the circumstances of the arrest or other factors.
The rules also state that the strip searches must be conducted in a private area, with a witness of the same sex as the prisoner and “in a professional manner causing the prisoner as little embarrassment as possible.” (AP)
