Opinion ID: 1459439
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Searches and Seizures of Individual Plaintiffs

Text: Slocum, Rauls, LaCour, and Doyle are not entitled to qualified immunity for their searches and seizures of Lyle, Dar, Erica, Olivia, Christine, Carley, Mabou, and Jonathan. As alleged, the searches and seizures of those plaintiffs violated their clearly established Fourth Amendment rights. [26]
A search and seizure of a person must be based on probable cause particularized with respect to that person unless a constitutionally adequate substitute for probable cause exists. See Ybarra, 444 U.S. at 91-94, 100 S.Ct. 338. Defendants argue that the searches and seizures of the individual plaintiffs were (1) reasonable weapons searches based on the consent presumed under Louisiana statutory law when the plaintiffs entered Club Retro, see LA.REV.STAT. ANN. § 14:95.4(A); (2) stops and frisks based on reasonable suspicion that plaintiffs were engaged in unlawful activities and armed and dangerous, as authorized by Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); and (3) reasonable searches incident to arrest whether formal or de facto based on probable cause. [27] Plaintiffs have alleged facts showing that defendants' searches and seizures of Lyle, Dar, Erica, Olivia, Christine, Carley, Mabou, and Jonathan far exceeded the scope of permissible statutory searches for weapons; were not based on individualized suspicions as required by Terry ; and were not searches incident to arrests based on probable cause.
Based on the facts alleged in the amended complaint, the searches and seizures of plaintiffs during Operation Retro-Fit were not reasonable weapons searches. Louisiana Revised Statutes Annotated § 14:95.4(A) provides that [a]ny person entering an alcoholic beverage outlet ..., by the fact of such entering, shall be deemed to have consented to a reasonable search of his person for any firearm by a law enforcement officer ... without the necessity of a warrant. Two factual allegations dispel any contention that this statute authorized the searches in this case. First, the searches conducted were not limited to searches for weapons. The presence of drug sniffing dogs and the assistance of narcotics and parole officers suggests that the searches were for evidence of crimes, not only firearms. Second, the searches were not reasonablea statutory requirement for the presumed-consent searches. The deputy sheriffs pointed guns at, physically assaulted, and threatened plaintiffs. Jonathan was pushed to the ground at gunpoint and searched. Mabou was searched at gunpoint. Christine was forced to the ground at gunpoint and searched. Carley, a minor staying in the separate apartment, was shoved against the wall. Christine, Carley, Erica, and Olivia were all removed from the premises. Lyle and Dar were seized, assaulted, searched, and removed to a secure location. These searches and seizures were not reasonable manifestations of the statutorily permitted search to which persons consent when they enter a bar. [28]
Plaintiffs' allegations also make clear that the searches and seizures of the individual plaintiffs were not justified by the Terry stop-and-frisk exceptions to the probable cause and warrant requirements. In Terry, the Supreme Court held that an officer who lacks probable cause but who can point to specific and articulable facts that reasonably warrant the inference that a particular person is committing a crime may briefly detain that person in order to investigate the circumstances that provoke suspicion. 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868. The Supreme Court has time and again reiterated that the stop must be brief, minimally intrusive, and `reasonably related in scope to the justification for [its] initiation.' United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 880-81, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 29, 88 S.Ct. 1868). An accompanying frisk for weapons is warranted if the officer can articulate specific facts and reasonable inferences that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual. Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868. The search is a limited protective search for concealed weapons, not a search to discover evidence of a crime. Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). Overall, [t]he manner in which the seizure and search were conducted is, of course, as vital a part of the inquiry as whether they were warranted at all. Terry, 392 U.S. at 29, 88 S.Ct. 1868; see also Williams v. Kaufman County, 352 F.3d 994, 1004 (5th Cir.2003) (holding unreasonable, and thus unlawful, the officers' prolonged, hand-cuffed detention of customers in a public commercial establishment). In this case, the factual pleadings contain no particularized determinations by the deputy sheriffs that any of the individual plaintiffs were presently committing crimes or armed and dangerous. Moreover, as discussed above, the manner of the searches and seizures far exceeded the limited, non-threatening intrusions that Terry permits. [29]
Defendants also argue that they had the right to search Lyle, Dar, Erica, Christine, Mabou, and Jonathan incident to their arrests. Officers may perform searches incident to constitutionally permissible arrests in order to ensure their safety and safeguard evidence. Moore, 128 S.Ct. at 1607; United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973) (A custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search incident to the arrest requires no additional justification. (quotation marks omitted)). A search incident to a custodial arrest, however, must be narrowly tailored. The search is limited to the area within the arrestee's immediate control and restricted to securing any weapons that the arrestee might use or evidence the arrestee might conceal. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969). We have already concluded, based on the amended complaint, that defendants lacked probable cause to arrest Lyle, Dar, and Erica; therefore, the defendants' searches of them were not pursuant to lawful arrests. The same conclusion applies to the searches of Christine, Mabou, and Jonathan, which defendants argue were pursuant to seizures based on probable cause resulting in de facto arrests. Defendants have pointed to no particularized facts contained in the amended complaint supporting probable cause to lawfully arrest Christine, [30] Mabou, or Jonathan; thus, the searches of those three plaintiffs were not proximate to their lawful arrests. Overall, on the facts alleged in the amended complaint, Slocum, Rauls, LaCour, and Doyle violated Lyle's, Dar's, Erica's, Olivia's, Christine's, Carley's, Mabou's, and Jonathan's Fourth Amendment rights by searching and seizing them without probable cause or one of its substitutes; thus, we must determine if those rights were clearly established at the time of the searches and seizures.
Plaintiffs have alleged violations of Fourth Amendment rights that were clearly established in February 2006. Defendants do not contest that the Fourth Amendment's probable cause and reasonableness requirements; Terry 's requirement of specific, articulable facts giving rise to reasonable suspicions that criminal activity is afoot and that the suspect is armed and dangerous; the limited scope of Terry and similar weapons searches; and the necessity of a lawful arrest to conduct a search incident to arrest were well-established at that time. Nor have defendants presented any other basis on which to conclude that they acted reasonably. We thus conclude that Slocum, Rauls, LaCour, and Doyle are not entitled to qualified immunity for the searches and seizures of Lyle, Dar, Erica, Olivia, Christine, Carley, Mabou, and Jonathan. We affirm the district court's order denying qualified immunity to Slocum, Rauls, LaCour, and Doyle for these plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment unreasonable search and seizure claims.