PORTLAND – A jury trial over illegal strip-searches alleged at the Knox County Jail is set to begin on May 1 in U.S. District Court after a federal judge on Tuesday refused to expand the time period covered by the class-action lawsuit.

An attorney representing the class had asked for the extension after a woman claimed that she was strip-searched illegally in January.

U.S. District Judge Gene Carter denied a motion to extend to May 1 the deadline when detainees who believe they were illegally strip-searched could join the class.

“If the court were to extend the class period, then it would be necessary to reopen discovery,” Carter wrote. “This would, undoubtedly, delay trial. Given the history of the discovery efforts by the parties in this case, the court finds that it is not in the interest of the class members, or of judicial economy, to expend the class period until May 1, 2006.”

In 2003, about a year after it was filed, Carter certified the case as a class-action lawsuit that allowed people charged with nonviolent misdemeanors who were strip-searched at the Rockland jail between Nov. 19, 1996, and Dec. 31, 2004, to join the lawsuit.

By the time the trial begins next month, the case will have been pending for nearly 31/2 years. A similar case against York County that was filed two months earlier than the lawsuit against Knox County was settled 26 months after it was filed in October 2004.

The motion Carter denied was filed last month along with an affidavit in which a Rockland woman alleged that she was strip-searched on Jan. 16 at the jail.

Peter Marchesi, the Waterville attorney representing the jail, said last month that allegations that the jail is conducting illegal searches are untrue. The jail’s policies and procedures comply with all applicable constitutional requirements, he said.

“My initial reaction [to Carter’s decision] is this means we’re going to have to file an additional class-action lawsuit to cover the period not included” in the current litigation, Dale Thistle of Newport, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

He said that a new lawsuit would not be filed before the trial in the current case is over.

Thistle’s motion also asked the judge to issue an injunction ordering Knox County Jail personnel to stop the “illegal and unconstitutional practice of conducting strip-searches of detainees … without detailed, written and signed statements outlining [reasonable] suspicion” as to why they are being strip-searched.

Carter did not comment on that portion of the motion in Tuesday’s order.

Maine law allows strip-searches of detainees charged with felonies that are violent, drug-related or involve weapons. Detainees charged with nonviolent, nondrug- or nonweapon-related infractions and those charged with misdemeanors are not subject to strip-searches unless there is a reasonable suspicion they are concealing contraband.

Laurie Tardiff of Thomaston sued the Knox County Jail, Sheriff Daniel Davey, and other jail officials in December 2002 in U.S. District Court in Portland. Last November, Carter issued a strongly worded summary judgment opinion that criticized the sheriff and other jail officials for failing to stop unconstitutional strip-searches of jail inmates despite knowing for years that the procedure violated jail policy and Maine state law.

Last month, Marchesi asked the judge to reconsider that decision. On Tuesday, Carter also denied that motion, but did adjust the time period that applied to the class covered in his summary judgment order.

“There remains substantial uncontroverted record evidence that there was a practice of strip searching misdemeanor detainees without reasonable suspicion,” Carter wrote in a section of his order that dealt with Marchesi’s objections to the judge’s previous summary judgment decision. “If this was not evidence of the fire itself, it undoubtedly showed the smoke rising over the trees.”

Originally, the class covered detainees illegally strip-searched at the jail between Nov. 19, 1996, and Dec. 31, 2004. In his most recent order, the judge set the end of the class period covered by his previous order as Aug. 31, 2002.

“Plaintiffs have thus far established a custom of strip searching misdemeanor detainees without reasonable suspicion existed from Nov. 20, 1996, through August of 2002,” Carter wrote in his latest order.

Thistle estimated on Wednesday that the same number of people – between 4,200 and 4,600 people – were illegally strip-searched in Knox County on misdemeanor charges under the new time limits as were under Carter’s previous order.

Marchesi said Thursday that he was pleased the judge had changed the time period that applied to the class, but still believed Carter’s original summary judgment order reached conclusions and made findings not supported by the record.

Marchesi also said that before he found that detainees had been illegally strip-searched Carter first should have determined if detainees at the Knox County Jail had a reasonable expectation of privacy.