Opinion ID: 33402
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Unlawful Strip Search

Text: 19
20 On appeal, defendants argue that, within the context of executing a hazardous search warrant, it was proper for Harris to conduct strip searches of plaintiffs. In Ybarra v. Illinois, the Supreme Court addressed the search of a bar patron, which occurred during the execution of a search warrant that authorized police to search the Aurora Tavern and a bartender named Greg for heroin and other contraband. 20 The Court accepted that police had a valid warrant to search the premises, but concluded that it gave them no authority whatever to invade the constitutional protections possessed individually by the tavern's customers. 21 Reasoning further, the Court stated: 21 [A] person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person.... Where the standard is probable cause, a search or seizure of a person must be supported by probable cause particularized with respect to that person. This requirement cannot be undercut or avoided by simply pointing to the fact that coincidentally there exists probable cause to search or seize another or to search the premises where the person may happen to be. 22 22 The Court also concluded that even the initial frisk of the patron, Ybarra, much less his subsequent search, was unjustified. 23 Although Terry v. Ohio created an exception to the probable cause requirement, allowing police officers to protect themselves by conducting a patdown of a suspect, the Ybarra court held that [t]he `narrow scope' of the Terry exception does not permit a frisk for weapons on less than reasonable belief or suspicion directed at the person to be frisked, even though that person happens to be on premises where an authorized narcotics search is taking place. 24 23 Here, the district court concluded, relying primarily on Ybarra, that Harris's strip search of plaintiffs violated their Fourth Amendment rights. On appeal, Harris and the County contend that the violent history of the Club created exigent circumstances, which threatened officer safety and thus justified the strip search of the plaintiffs. In contrast to Ybarra, they argue, the exigent circumstances in this case presented a situation in which there was more than plaintiffs' mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity. 24 Although the discrete facts of this case differ from Ybarra, those differences are not sufficient to create a meaningful distinction. Ybarra squarely held that in premises searches like this one, police must have either articulable reasonable suspicion to frisk an individual or probable cause to search him. The record evidence, in particular Harris's own testimony, reflects that, vis-à-vis the plaintiffs, the police lacked even reasonable suspicion. None of the plaintiffs was named in the warrant, and Harris offered no reasonable belief that the plaintiffs in particular were armed or engaged in criminal activity. Even if, based solely on the Club's history, it had been reasonable for Harris to suspect that plaintiffs were armed or carrying drugs, searching them would still have been unlawful: Ybarra reiterated that the Terry -style search is limited to a frisk for weapons. 25 Harris's officers frisked the plaintiffs, but found no evidence of weapons, drugs or contraband to ripen into the probable cause required for a full-blown search. Harris testified that the officers conducting the search had no individualized probable cause as to any of the plaintiffs. Instead, he stated only that there was probable cause to believe that everyone in there may have had drugs on them. Finally, as the district court reasonably explained, the intrusiveness of the search outweighed the legitimate law enforcement interests in protection and safety, because the officers had already handcuffed and patted down the plaintiffs before forcing them to undergo strip searches. 26 25 Neither of the other two potential justifications for the strip search — arrest or identity in a warrant — mitigate the unlawfulness of the search. First, although two of the plaintiffs, Brumley and Brown, were arrested that evening, neither of the arrests justified strip searches under the applicable law. Brumley was arrested for disorderly conduct after he was strip searched; thus his post hoc arrest could not have justified the search. Brown was arrested before the search, but for attempting to enter the Club (claiming he owned it) in spite of an officer's order to leave the area. 26 We have allowed strip searches in custodial situations but, consistently, not when the suspect has committed only a minor offense and there exists no reasonable suspicion that he might possess weapons or contraband. 27 Although Brown was attempting to enter a Club in which drugs were found, defendants offer no evidence for suspecting that he possessed weapons or contraband. Indeed, Harris admitted that he had no probable cause toward Brown; the arresting officer testified that he had no suspicion that Brown was carrying weapons; and prior to the strip search the officers took everything out of Brown's pockets, revealing no weapons or drugs, and thereby dispelling any suspicion of illegal activity. As a result, the subsequent strip search, after reasonable suspicion had failed to mature into probable cause, was unreasonably intrusive. 27 Second, the affidavit that Harris filed to obtain the warrant was insufficient to justify a strip search of plaintiffs. The affidavit submitted for the warrant included as suspects all other person or persons whose names, identities, and descriptions are unknown to the affiant. The warrant itself only authorized the police to enter the suspected place described in [the affidavit] and to there search for the personal property described ... and to seize same and to arrest and bring before [the magistrate] each suspected party named in [the affidavit] (emphasis added). None of the plaintiffs was named as a suspect in the affidavit. Furthermore, as Ybarra confirmed, because the Fourth Amendment requires particularity, `open-ended' or `general' warrants are constitutionally prohibited. 28 To construe this warrant as authorizing a general search of any person found in the Club would sanction exactly the type of general warrant that the Constitution forbids. 28 In sum, the strip search of the plaintiffs was unlawful because Harris lacked probable cause toward each of them. 29
30 The district court concluded that no reasonable officer could have believed that conducting a strip search in these circumstances, without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, was objectively reasonable. The court noted that both Ybarra and Watt v. Richardson Police Department 29 clearly established that strip searches conducted without individualized reasonable suspicion or probable cause are unlawful. On appeal, Harris contends that reasonable officers could have disagreed about the legality of the strip search because of the hazardous conditions surrounding the execution of the search warrant. 30 31 Hope instructs that once it is clear that a constitutional violation has occurred, courts must examine whether the state of the law at the time gave the defendants fair warning that their behavior toward the plaintiffs was unlawful. In this case, we agree with the district court that Ybarra and our case law on strip searches provided fair warning to Harris that his conduct was unlawful. Ybarra addressed a situation substantially similar to the one here, and explicitly held that officers must have reasonable suspicion to conduct a frisk or individualized probable cause to conduct a lawful search. Even accepting that there were aspects of this warrant's search that made it more hazardous than the one conducted in Ybarra, or made it more likely that multiple persons would be in possession of drugs, none of these extenuating circumstances created probable cause or reasonable suspicion particularized with respect to [plaintiffs]. 31 And even if hazardous circumstances had given rise to reasonable suspicion that plaintiffs, by being present, might have possessed weapons or contraband, Harris should have known that his officers were limited to a patdown of each plaintiff. Thus, to the extent this case differs factually from Ybarra, it still fits comfortably under the general rule promulgated by the Supreme Court in that case. Indeed, Harris's declaration that we did have probable cause to believe that everyone in [the Club] may have had drugs on them demonstrates his unjustified disregard or deliberate ignorance of the rule articulated by the Ybarra court. 32 In addition, our prohibition of strip searches in other contexts presented more than fair warning at the time that the strip searches at issue here were illegal. In Stewart v. Lubbock County, we employed the test articulated in Bell v. Wolfish, balancing law enforcement interests in the search against the level of invasion of personal rights caused by the search. 32 We concluded that the strip search policy at issue there violated the Fourth Amendment because it applied to minor offenders about whom the police had no reasonable suspicion of possessing weapons or contraband. 33 Similarly, in Watt v. Richardson Police Department, we recognized that even though strip searches of inmates were often allowed to maintain institutional security, when an arrestee's offense is minor, his criminal history innocuous or ancient, and his personal characteristics at odds with reasonable fears about prison security, the strip search is illegal. 34 33 Unlike both Stewart and Watt, this case concerns individuals outside the prison context, thus individuals toward whom the police had even less individualized reasonable suspicion or probable cause — none, to be precise. Thus, if any law enforcement interest existed at all, it concerned only officer safety, not prison security. After handcuffing and patting down the plaintiffs here, however, even this law enforcement interest ceased to exist. On appeal, Harris and the County repeatedly incant the hazardous conditions of the search, yet Harris admits that he had no individualized probable cause that any of the plaintiffs had weapons, drugs or contraband. Furthermore, even though Brown was arrested before he was strip searched, he was arrested because he interfered with the duties of a public servant, not because of any probable cause or reasonable suspicion related to drugs or weapons. To the extent the police were legitimately worried about their safety in regard to Brown or any other individuals before or during the searches, those concerns surely evanesced once the officers handcuffed and patted down the plaintiffs. At that point, the law enforcement interests were substantially less significant than those in either Stewart or Watt. Finally, weighed against this interest, the invasion of personal rights caused by the strip searches here are at least if not more intrusive than in either Stewart or Watt. 35 In short, Stewart and Watt also provided fair warning to Harris that law enforcement interests in safety did not justify the extreme intrusiveness of strip searches especially once the plaintiffs were handcuffed and patted down. 34 In sum, Ybarra, Stewart and Watt dispel any doubt that the law was clearly established by the night of the raid in April, 1995, that strip searching individuals, about whom the police had no individualized probable cause of weapon or drug possession, was unlawful. This in turn precludes Harris's entitlement to qualified immunity.