Court Opinion

ID: 9470054
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:56:10.83519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:42.589997
License: Public Domain

CUMMINGS, Chief Judge,
concurring.
I concur only on the assumption that there was probable cause or at least a reasonable suspicion to believe that the Salinas family was concealing contraband on their persons. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 563, 578, 595, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1886, 1894, 1903, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (concurring opinion of Justice Powell, dissenting opinions of Justices Marshall and Stevens, with Justice Brennan joining in Justice Stevens’ dissent).1 Since the trial judge assumed the legality of the arrests (517 F.Supp. at 1275), he must have assumed there was probable cause to believe the four arrestees possessed heroin,2 as Judge Doyle points out (pp. 1083-1084, supra). Otherwise the search of the four would have constituted a constitutional tort compensable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as Judges Sprecher, Bauer and I held in Doe v. Renfrow, 631 F.2d 91, 92-93 (7th Cir.1980) (per curiam); certiorari denied, 451 U.S. 1022, 101 S.Ct. 3015, 69 L.Ed.2d 395; see also Iskander v. Village of Forest Park, 690 F.2d 126, 129-130 (7th Cir.1982); Tikalsky v. City of Chicago, 687 F.2d 175 and cases cited at 182 n. 12 (7th Cir.1982); Tinetti v. Wiltke, 479 F.Supp. 486 (E.D.Wis.1979), affirmed, 620 F.2d 160 (7th Cir.1980); United States ex rel. Guy v. McCauley, 385 F.Supp. 193 (E.D.Wis.1974); Jane Does 1-5, etc. v. City of Chicago (N.D.Ill. No. 79 C 789), mem. op. 10 (Jan. 12, 1982).

. While the majority opinion in Wolfish upheld body cavity searches of detainees and prisoners without probable cause, the implication is that probable cause would be necessary in the case of mere arrestees. See 441 U.S. at 558-566, 99 S.Ct. at 1884-1888.

. Robert Salinas, the pater familias, was the first to be arrested. This was done under a federal bench warrant because the arresting officers were “acting on a tip that he was transporting heroin to Wisconsin from Texas” in the auto occupied by him, his wife and four children. 517 F.Supp. at 1274.