Amaechi v. West
| Decision Date | 02 November 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-1129,00-1129 |
| Citation | 237 F.3d 356 |
| Parties | (4th Cir. 2001) LISA AMAECHI, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MATTHEW WEST, Defendant-Appellant, and BERNARD R. PFLUGER; TOWN OF DUMFRIES, Defendants. . Argued: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria.
[Copyrighted Material Omitted] COUNSEL ARGUED: Robert S. Corish, BRANDT, JENNINGS, ROBERTS, DAVIS & SNEE, P.L.L.C., Falls Church, Virginia, for Appellant. Victor Michael Glasberg, VICTOR M. GLASBERG & ASSO-CIATES, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: John J. Brandt, BRANDT, JENNINGS, ROBERTS, DAVIS & SNEE, P.L.L.C., Falls Church, Virginia, for Appellant. Kelly M. Baldrate, VICTOR M. GLASBERG & ASSOCIATES, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.
Before WILLIAMS and MICHAEL, Circuit Judges, and Joseph F. ANDERSON, Jr., Chief United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina, sitting by designation.
Affirmed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Williams wrote the opinion, in which Judge Michael and Chief Judge Anderson joined.
Appellee Lisa Amaechi filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, against Appellant Officer Matthew West in his individual capacity, pursuant to 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West Supp. 2000).1 Amaechi sought damages arising out of what Amaechi claims was a sexually intrusive search executed upon her by West incident to her arrest for violation of a town noise ordinance. The district court denied West's motion for summary judgment based upon a defense of qualified immunity, reasoning that West's search, as described by Amaechi, violated Amaechi's clearly established constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment. West ultimately disputes Amaechi's description of West's search, presenting what the district court referred to as a "factual conundrum." (J.A. at 306). Because this is an interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity on summary judgment, however, we must accept Amaechi's version of the facts surrounding the search as true for purposes of this appeal.2 See Pritchett v. Alford, 973 F.2d 307, 313 (4th Cir. 1992). Based upon Amaechi's characterization of the search, we affirm the district court's denial of qualified immunity, and we remand for further proceedings.
Amaechi and her husband, a guard at the Lorton correctional facility, lived in a townhouse in Dumfries, Virginia. Amaechi's young children sometimes played music in the townhouse too loudly, causing neighbors to complain.3 On August 10, 1997, Officer Stephen Hargrave, of the Dumfries Police Department, responded to a complaint from one of the Amaechis' neighbors about the loud music coming from the Amaechis' townhouse. Hargrave instructed Amaechi to turn down the music, and she did so. At that time, Hargrave told Amaechi that he would not arrest her unless he received another complaint about the noise level. Believing that Hargrave was unnecessarily impolite in his handling of the matter, Amaechi called the Prince William County Police Department and complained about Hargrave's conduct.4 Hargrave discovered that Amaechi had registered a complaint against him later that afternoon. On August 12, 1997, without any further complaints about the noise level, Hargrave secured an arrest warrant charging Amaechi for the two-day old violation of the Town of Dumfries's misdemeanor noise ordinance. 5
After 9:00 pm that night, Officer Pfluger took his trainee, West, and other officers to the Amaechis' townhouse to execute the arrest warrant.6 When Pfluger and West knocked on the door, a nude Amaechi was in her bathroom preparing for bed. She covered herself with a house dress and followed her husband downstairs.7
When Amaechi answered the door with her husband, Pfluger told her she was under arrest. Amaechi fully cooperated during the arrest, but when told that she was to be handcuffed, Amaechi pointed out to the officers that she was completely naked under the dress and requested permission to get dressed because she would no longer be able to hold her dress closed once handcuffed. This request was denied, and Amaechi's hands were secured behind her back, causing her dress to fall open below her chest.
Pfluger then turned to West, who was at the door with Pfluger, and told him to complete Amaechi's processing. West escorted Amaechi to the police car in her semi-clad state, walking past several officers on the way to the car. Amaechi proceeded to enter the back door of the car, which West had opened. West stopped her and told her that he would have to search her before she entered the car. Amaechi protested that she was not wearing any underwear, and West said, "I still have to search you." (J.A. at 33). West then stood in front of Amaechi, squeezed her hips, and inside her opened dress, "swiped" one ungloved hand, palm up, across her bare vagina, at which time the tip of his finger slightly penetrated Amaechi's genitals. Amaechi jumped back, still in handcuffs, and exclaimed,"I told you I don't have on any underwear." (J.A. at 40). West did not respond and proceeded to put his hand "up into [her] butt cheeks," kneading them. (J.A. at 41). West then allowed Amaechi to enter the car. This search took place directly in front of the Amaechis' townhouse, where the other police officers, Amaechi's husband, her five children, and all of her neighbors had the opportunity to observe.
On June 2, 1999, Amaechi filed a seven count complaint in federal district court, claiming money damages against West in his individual capacity, the Town of Dumfries, and Pfluger under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West Supp. 2000) and under state law for West's alleged sexually invasive search. Upon the close of discovery, all defendants moved for summary judgment. Amaechi voluntarily withdrew the count alleging the unconstitutionality of the Town of Dumfries' policy permitting her arrest for violation of the noise ordinance and the count alleging West's intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court granted summary judgment on the three counts pertaining to Pfluger and the Town of Dumfries.8 The district court, how ever, denied West's motion for summary judgment as to the two counts against him and denied West's defense of qualified immunity.9 West filed an interlocutory appeal with this Court.
The only issue we consider is whether the district court correctly denied West's summary judgment motion upon determining that West was not entitled to qualified immunity. We review the district court's ruling de novo. Hodge v. Jones, 31 F.3d 157, 163 (4th Cir. 1994). "Qualified immunity is an accommodation by the courts to the conflicting concerns of, on one hand, government officials seeking freedom from personal monetary liability and harassing litigation and, on the other hand, injured persons seeking redress for the abuse of official power." Id. at 162 (internal quotation marks omitted). To that end, qualified immunity protects government officials performing discretionary functions from liability for civil damages "insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). In determining whether a government official is entitled to qualified immunity, the steps are sequential; we "`must first determine whether the plaintiff has alleged the deprivation of an actual constitutional right at all,'" before "`proceed[ing] to determine whether that right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.'" Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 609 (1999) (quoting Conn v. Gabbert, 526 U.S. 286 (1999)). Accordingly, we address Amaechi's claim by focusing first on whether Amaechi's complaint has alleged a deprivation of her constitutional right to be free from an unreasonable search, and we then turn to whether that right was clearly established at the time of her arrest.
In relevant part, the Fourth Amendment protects"[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. Therefore, to be constitutional, a search must not be unreasonable. Vernonia Sch. Dist. v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995).
Amaechi contends that West's search, including the touching and penetration of her genitalia, was unreasonable in light of the circumstances surrounding the arrest. West argues, on the other hand, that Supreme Court precedent allows an officer, conducting a search incident to arrest, to effectuate a "full search of the person." (Appellant's Br. at 16) (emphasis in original) (citing United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 236 (1973)). West argues that this right to conduct a full search of the person under Robinson includes the right to briefly "swipe" the arrestee's outer genitalia and slightly penetrate the genitalia. (Appellant's Br. at 17-18).
We believe that West interprets Robinson too broadly.10 Robinson did not, nor could it, rewrite the Fourth Amendment to exclude the explicit requirement that no search be unreasonable. Nor did Robinson hold that all searches incident to arrest, no matter how invasive, are inherently reasonable. To the contrary, since Robinson, the Supreme Court has continued to emphasize that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence prohibits unreasonable searches incident to arrest. See, e.g., Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 645 (1983) (). Therefore, to determine whether West's search of Amaechi is constitutional, it is not enough to conclude that it was a search incident to a valid arrest. Rather, we must determine whether the search was...
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