Opinion ID: 2324699
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Common Law Assault/Battery

Text: The District argues next that there is insufficient evidence to support the assault and battery verdict against the unknown officer based on the public search of Minor because (1) it was a valid search incident to a valid arrest based on probable cause and (2) even if there was no probable cause for the arrest in the constitutional sense, the unknown officer was entitled to assume that if Minor was in police custody, he had been properly arrested, see, e.g., Scott v. District of Columbia, 322 U.S.App.D.C. 75, 101 F.3d 748, 754-55 (1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1231, 117 S.Ct. 1824, 137 L.Ed.2d 1031 (1997), and thus validly search Minor incident to such arrest by fellow officers. Because we have already determined that the jury could reasonably have concluded that Kelsey arrested Minor without probable cause, the District's first argument fails. We conclude that the District's second argument fails as well. Although Minor brought the assault and battery claim against an unknown police officer, there was evidence presented at trial from which the jury could have concluded that this unknown officer was in fact Officer Kelsey. Kelsey testified at trial that he had conducted only a pat-down search of Minor prior to placing him in the police car for the first time and denied having conducted the public strip-search of Minor upon which this charge was based. However, in cross-examination, plaintiff's counsel read verbatim from Kelsey's deposition in which Kelsey described in detail his search of Minor, including dropping Minor's pants and searching the rim of his underwear. [21] Kelsey acknowledged that he had so testified in his deposition, although he claimed that he now remembered that it was Carney, not Minor, that he had searched. Furthermore, Minor himself in describing the search began by saying that they took me back out of the squad car. Thus, particularly in view of the fact that Kelsey had been discredited as a witness generally, a reasonable jury could have concluded that Kelsey was in fact the officer who searched Minor or at least was involved in it. For the reasons already mentioned, if Kelsey was an unknown officer, the search of Minor would not have been privileged as to him. It also appears that the form of the judgment as entered, to which no exception is taken, reflects an assumption that Kelsey was a participant. The compensatory damages in their entirety are awarded against Kelsey as well as the District. [22] And the punitive damage award is imposed only against Kelsey, not the unknown officer. Conversely, if Kelsey is not in fact the unknown officer, this would appear to moot out the issue whether the evidence supports the assault and battery award based on the strip search, since no judgment was ever entered based on that count.