Wilson v. Jones, No. 00-12827

• Decision Date: 23 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-12827
• Citation: 251 F.3d 1340
• Parties: (11th Cir. 2001) DEANGELA WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JAMES JONES, Sheriff of Shelby County, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1340

251 F.3d 1340 (11th Cir. 2001)

DEANGELA WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JAMES JONES, Sheriff of Shelby County, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 00-12827.

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT.

May 23, 2001.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. D. C. Docket No. 99-00110-CV-TMP-S

Before BARKETT, HILL and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal, we consider the constitutionality of a strip search performed on Plaintiff DeAngela Wilson, who was detained at the Shelby County Jail after being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. We agree with the district court's finding that the search, conducted without reasonable suspicion, violated Wilson's rights under the Fourth Amendment. Nevertheless, because we hold that Defendant Sheriff James Jones is entitled to qualified immunity, we reverse the district court's finding of liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

I. BACKGROUND

On May 1, 1998, deputy sheriffs of Shelby County, Alabama arrested Wilson at a license checkpoint for driving under the influence of alcohol. After her arrest, Wilson was taken to the Shelby County Jail, where, due to the level of alcohol in her blood, she was required to remain until the following morning. Because the Shelby County Jail does not have separate facilities to hold temporary female detainees, Wilson was placed in a cell within the general female population of the jail.

Before taking Wilson to her cell, a female corrections officer performed a strip search on Wilson pursuant to Policy Number B-103 of the Shelby County Jail, which requires each arrestee to undergo a "complete search" prior to admission into the general population of the jail. The officer escorted Wilson to an unoccupied restroom in the jail and, after allowing her to use the restroom, instructed her to disrobe completely, face the wall, squat, spread her buttocks, and cough three times. The officer also checked Wilson's ears, mouth, nose and breasts during the search. She did not, however, do a visual or manual inspection of Wilson's body cavities below the waist.¹

Subsequently, Wilson brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Sheriff Jones, asserting that he violated her Fourth Amendment rights by creating and implementing the policy under which she was searched.² The district court denied Sheriff Jones's motion to dismiss and his motion for summary judgment, finding (1) that the policy requiring a strip search of all arrestees admitted to the Shelby County Jail was unconstitutional; and (2) that Sheriff Jones was not entitled to qualified immunity. Sheriff Jones appeals the district court's denial of his motion for summary judgment.

II. DISCUSSION

We review de novo the district court's order denying Sheriff Jones's motion for summary judgment. See Sheth v. Webster, 145 F.3d 1231, 1235 (11th Cir. 1998). In reviewing the district court's denial of summary judgment, we "'must first determine whether the plaintiff has alleged the deprivation of an actual constitutional right at all, and if so, proceed to determine whether that right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.'" McElligott v. Foley, 182 F.3d 1248, 1254 (11th Cir. 1999) (quoting Conn v. Gabbert, 526 U.S. 286, 290 (1999)).

A. Constitutional Violation

We begin our discussion with the Supreme Court case of Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1978), which held that strip and visual body cavity searches may, in certain instances, be conducted on inmates with less than probable cause. In Bell, the Court articulated the balancing test by which courts are to evaluate the reasonableness of a particular search:

The test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application. In each case it requires a balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails. Courts must consider the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is conducted.

Id. at 559. Balancing "the significant and legitimate security interests of the institution against the privacy interests of the inmates," the Bell Court upheld a prison policy requiring inmates to submit to routine strip searches with visual body cavity inspections after each contact visit with a person from outside the institution. Id. at 560. Despite holding that particular policy constitutional, however, "Bell v. Wolfish [did] not validate a blanket policy of strip searching pre-trial detainees." Masters v. Crouch, 872 F.2d 1248, 1253 (6th Cir. 1989).

Rather, "[t]he Bell balancing test for reasonableness requires at a minimum, that the facts upon which an intrusion is based be capable of measurement against an objective standard . . . ." Justice v City of Peachtree City, 961 F.2d 188, 192 (11th Cir. 1992) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Courts considering the issue "have applied 'objective standards' ranging from 'reasonable suspicion' to 'probable cause.'" Id. (citations omitted). This court recognizes that "reasonable suspicion" is sufficient to justify the strip search of a pretrial detainee. See Skurstenis v. Jones, 236 F.3d 678, 682 (11th Cir. 2000); see also Justice, 961 F.2d at 193 (holding that law enforcement officers "may conduct a strip search of a juvenile in custody, even for a minor offense, based upon reasonable suspicion to believe that the juvenile is concealing weapons or contraband").

In Skurstenis v. Jones, a case decided subsequent to the search of Wilson, we already addressed the reasonableness of the policy at the Shelby County Jail. See Skurstenis, 236 F.3d at 680-82. Relying on the balancing test articulated in Bell, we determined that Policy Number B-103 violated the Fourth Amendment because it did not require reasonable suspicion as a predicate to strip searching newly admitted detainees.³ Id. at 682 ("This policy, which does not require any reasonable suspicion, does not comport with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.").⁴ Nevertheless, we concluded that Plaintiff Skurstenis's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated by a search pursuant to that policy because officers had reasonable suspicion that she was concealing a weapon.⁵ Id.

Here, unlike Skurstenis, there is no evidence that the officers at Shelby County Jail had reasonable suspicion that Wilson was concealing weapons or any other type of contraband. Indeed, as the district court noted, an officer permitted Wilson to use the bathroom prior to the search, which indicates a lack of fear that Wilson might flush any such substance down the toilet. Moreover, Sheriff Jones testified that "I don't believe we had a reason to suspect that [Wilson] had any contraband."

Because Wilson was strip searched absent reasonable suspicion, we hold that the search of Wilson, as well as the jail's policy authorizing her search, violated the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. Other circuits addressing this issue have held similar policies unconstitutional. See, e.g., Roberts v. Rhode Island, 239 F.3d 107 (1st Cir. 2001); Chapman v. Nichols, 989 F.2d 393 (10th Cir. 1993); Fuller v. M.G. Jewelry, 950 F.2d 1437 (9th Cir. 1991); Masters v Crouch, 872 F.2d 1248 (6th Cir. 1989); Watt v. City of Richardson Police Dept., 849 F.2d 195 (5th Cir. 1988); Weber v. Dell, 804 F.2d 796 (2d Cir. 1986); Jones v. Edwards, 770 F.2d 739 (8th Cir. 1985); Mary Beth G. v. City of Chicago, 723 F.2d 1263 (7th Cir. 1983).

B. Qualified Immunity

Having established the existence of a constitutional violation, we turn to the issue whether or not Sheriff Jones is entitled to qualified immunity. "Qualified immunity shields a § 1983 defendant from liability for harms arising from discretionary acts, as long as the discretionary acts do not violate clearly established federal statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1164 (11th Cir. 2000).⁶ In analyzing a qualified immunity defense, we are to consider only the "clearly established law and the information possessed by the official at the time the conduct occurred." Hope v. Pelzer, 240 F.3d 975, 981 (11th Cir. 2001) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). "For qualified immunity to be surrendered, pre-existing law must dictate, that is, truly compel (not just suggest or allow or raise a question about), the conclusion for every like-situated, reasonable government agent that what defendant is doing violates federal law in the circumstances." Lassiter v. Ala. A & M Univ. Bd. of Trs., 28 F.3d 1146, 1150 (11th Cir. 1994). Upon review of the record, we cannot conclude that the preexisting case law "compels the conclusion" for every reasonable government official in Sheriff Jones's position that the policy at Shelby County Jail violates the Fourth Amendment.

At the time of Wilson's search, the only controlling cases in this jurisdiction involving strip searches of pretrial detainees were Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979) and Justice v. City of Peachtree City, 961 F.2d 188 (11th Cir. 1992). As discussed below, neither of those cases clearly established a constitutional violation on facts "materially similar" to those in the present case. See Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1150 ("When considering whether the law applicable to certain facts is clearly established, . . . [t]he facts need not be the same as the facts of the immediate case. But they do need to be materially similar.") (emphasis added) (citation omitted).

In Bell, as discussed supra, the Supreme Court upheld a federal prison's policy that required pretrial inmates "to expose their body cavities for visual inspection as a part of a strip search conducted after every contact visit with a person from outside the institution." Bell, 441 U.S. at 558. In justifying the...