Masters v. Crouch

• Decision Date: 14 July 1989
• Docket Number: No. 88-5477,88-5477
• Citation: 872 F.2d 1248
• Parties: Karen B. MASTERS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Bobby G. CROUCH, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1248

872 F.2d 1248

Karen B. MASTERS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Bobby G. CROUCH, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 88-5477.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued Jan. 31, 1989.

Decided April 18, 1989.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied July 14, 1989.

Gregory A. Bolzle (argued), Woodward, Hobson & Fulton, Louisville, Ky., for plaintiff-appellee.

N. Scott Lilly, Asst. Co. Atty., argued, Louisville, Ky., for defendants-appellants.

Before MERRITT and MILBURN, Circuit Judges, and LIVELY, Senior Circuit Judge.

LIVELY, Senior Circuit Judge.

This action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 presents two claims of constitutional violations in connection with the plaintiff's arrest and detention. The plaintiff's first claim is that the arresting officer and detention personnel violated her Fourteenth Amendment right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law by failing to investigate sufficiently to determine whether a warrant for her arrest had been issued by mistake. Her other claim is that a strip search of the plaintiff at the Jefferson County jail was unreasonable, and therefore violated the Fourth Amendment. The defendants, officers and employees of Jefferson County, Kentucky, filed a motion to dismiss on the basis of qualified immunity and for failure to state a claim. The district court denied the defendants' motion, and this appeal was brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 524-30, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2814-17, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

I.

The facts as stated in the complaint are treated as true. All events occurred in 1986. On July 31 Karen Masters, a resident of Jefferson County, received two traffic tickets--one for operating an automobile with expired registration plates, and the other for failure to maintain auto insurance. As directed by the citation, Mrs. Masters appeared before the Jefferson District Court at a neighborhood government center on August 21 at 7:00 p.m., and pled not guilty. After a second appearance the court directed her to appear before Division 102 of the District Court at the downtown justice center on October 23 at 9:00 a.m. A deputy sheriff in attendance gave the plaintiff a "reminder card" containing this information. However, the plaintiff's name did not appear on the card. By mistake, the judge who presided at the second appearance recorded the plaintiff's next appearance date as October 16 rather than October 23.

On October 21, at about 3:00 p.m. the defendant Barrows, a county police officer, arrested Mrs. Masters at her home for failure to appear in court on October 16. The plaintiff protested that her appearance date was October 23, not October 16, and showed Barrows the reminder card. The officer confirmed the existence of the arrest warrant for Karen Masters and refused the plaintiff's request to call an attorney. Officer Barrows took the plaintiff and her two young children in a squad car to the home of Mrs. Masters' mother, where the children were left. He then took the plaintiff to a public parking lot and delivered her to another officer who handcuffed her before transporting her to the hall of corrections. Throughout these events Mrs. Masters repeatedly advised the officers that there was a mistake, that she was not required to appear in court until October 23.

At the corrections building the plaintiff was required to remove her shoes and empty her pockets and then was "frisked" by a female attendant. While Mrs. Masters was in a "holding room" a different female attendant ordered her to open her blouse. This search occurred in front of a window in the holding room, in plain view of other persons. Approximately four hours after her arrest the plaintiff was handcuffed to another woman and taken to a room on the third floor of the Jefferson County jail. At that point, still another female attendant subjected the plaintiff to a strip search over her continued protestations of mistake. The plaintiff was required "to remove all of her clothing except her underpants and to turn around, drop her underpants, bend over and expose her rectum." After putting on a jail dress, the plaintiff was lodged in a jall cell with other persons. Later in the evening she was released on her own recognizance and ordered to report to court at 9:00 a.m. the next day. The following morning the presiding judge acknowledged the recording error that led to the issuance of the arrest warrant.

II.

In the U.S. District Court the plaintiff sought damages under Sec. 1983 for alleged constitutional violations and under various state laws as pendent claims. She also requested a declaratory judgment and a permanent injunction to prohibit enforcement of the laws and policies under which she was arrested, detained and searched. The defendants' qualified immunity defense was based on their contention that at the time of the events complained of there was no "clearly established law" holding any of the defendants' acts unconstitutional.

The district court recognized that public officials and employees are immune from suits seeking damages under Sec. 1983 for acts performed under color of law unless it has been clearly established that such acts deprive the plaintiff of rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States. Interpreting Supreme Court authority exonerating an officer who executes an arrest warrant from making an independent investigation of every claim of innocence, the district court concluded that there is an implied duty to make an investigation in some cases. The court held that, in this case, because Mrs. Masters had documentary evidence that the warrant had been issued by mistake, the officer had a duty to investigate and verify the validity of the warrant.

The district court found that the strip search was conducted pursuant to provisions of a consent decree previously entered by another division of the court in a class action, Tate v. Frey, W.D.Ky. No. 75-00031-L(A). The consent decree, entered as a "Stipulation for Settlement of Class Action" on October 1, 1985, provided in paragraph XXIII that the defendant Jefferson County authorities agreed to establish policies addressing the search of inmates and inmates' property. It then set forth guidelines for those policies. The particular policy under which Mrs. Masters was searched provides:

All inmates will be thoroughly searched each time an inmate passes from one security area to another, being prepared for transportation both between floors and externally, and upon admission to the Department. All newly admitted inmates to the Department will be frisked searched upon arrival to the Department and strip searched immediately prior to the movement of the inmate to rear security, female section or other areas of the Department.

The district court found that, in applying this policy, the defendants are required to balance the interest of a detainee in remaining free from the serious personal intrusion inherent in a strip search against the interest of the authorities in maintaining security within the jail. Since Mrs. Masters was arrested and detained on minor traffic offenses not normally associated with weapons or other contraband, and no effort was made to determine whether any grounds existed for believing her movement from one area of the jail to another involved a security risk, the complaint stated a claim for relief. Applying objective standards, the court further found that the plaintiff's right not to be subjected to a strip search under the facts of this case was clearly established. Thus, the district court denied the defendants' claims of qualified immunity.

III.

A.

In Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), the Supreme Court held that "government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded 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." The standard to be applied in deciding a claim of qualified immunity is one of "objective reasonableness." Id. The Court reiterated both the rule and the standard in Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 191, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 3017, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984), and added that "[n]o other 'circumstances' are relevant to the issue of qualified immunity." Id. Further refining the scope of inquiry to be conducted by a court in deciding a claim of qualified immunity, the Supreme Court cautioned in Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987), against identifying a clearly established rule of law at a level of broad generality. Rather, the right allegedly violated must have been clearly established in a "more particularized, and hence more relevant, sense." 107 S.Ct. at 3039. The Court explained its "more particularized" requirement as follows:

The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, see Mitchell, 472 U.S., at 535, n. 12, 105 S.Ct., at 2820, n. 12; but it is to say that in the light of preexisting law the unlawfulness must be apparent. See e.g., Malley [v. Briggs ], supra, 475 U.S. , at 344-345, 106 S.Ct. [1092], at [1098, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986) ]; Mitchell, supra, 472 U.S., at 528, 105 S.Ct., at 2816; Davis, supra, 468 U.S., at 191, 195, 104 S.Ct., at 3017, 3019.

Id.

In describing the circumstances under which we will hold that a constitutional right is clearly established, this court has formulated a rule which requires us to look first to decisions of the Supreme Court then to decisions of this court and other courts within this circuit, and finally to decisions of other circuits. Ohio...