Reynolds v. City of Anchorage

• Decision Date: 09 August 2004
• Docket Number: No. 02-6443.,02-6443.
• Citation: 379 F.3d 358
• Parties: Katherine REYNOLDS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF ANCHORAGE, et al., Defendants, Leslie Watson, Jefferson County Officer, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

379 F.3d 358

Katherine REYNOLDS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF ANCHORAGE, et al., Defendants Leslie Watson, Jefferson County Officer, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 02-6443.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: March 12, 2004.

Decided and Filed: August 9, 2004.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, John G. Heyburn II, Chief Judge.

David A. Friedman (argued and briefed), Fernandez, Friedman, Grossman & Kohn, Louisville, KY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Suzanne D. Cordery (argued), Jefferson County Attorney's, Louisville, KY, Mr. David L. Leightty (briefed), Leighty & Associates, Louisville, KY, for Defendants-Appellees

Before: NELSON, MOORE, and FRIEDMAN, Circuit Judges.^*

FRIEDMAN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which NELSON, J., joined. MOORE, J. (pp. 367-373), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

FRIEDMAN, Circuit Judge.

This appeal challenges a district court's summary judgment dismissing a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1994) against a female police officer who made a warrantless strip search of a female resident in a children's home. The resident had been placed there following a juvenile court determination that she had committed various offenses. The district court dismissed her suit because it ruled that the police officer had qualified immunity. We affirm.

I

The "basic underlying facts" are, as the district court stated, "undisputed." Mem. Op. at 1.

In 1996, a Kentucky juvenile court found that the appellant Katherine Reynolds, then sixteen years old, had committed the offenses of possession of marijuana, forgery, and fraudulent use of a credit card. As a result, she was removed from her parents custody and was placed in the Bellewood Presbyterian Home for Children ("the Bellewood Home"), a state-approved private facility for juvenile offenders. While there, she, together with several other girls, lived in Haney Cottage. Haney Cottage residents, including Reynolds, "admitted having previously used drugs while living" there. Id.

On June 8, 1997, Reynolds (then seventeen) and two other Haney residents walked around the facility's grounds. Upon their return, two staff members observed that the girls were "acting strangely" and suspected drug use might be the reason. Id. at 2. At that same time, a local police officer of the city of Anchorage, Kentucky, who was passing Bellewood in his patrol car, telephoned the staff members to "make sure everything was alright," id., and to "say hi." The staff members told the officer about their suspicions that the girls "might be under the influence of drugs and might have drugs in their possession." Id. The officer, joined by another local officer, proceeded to Haney Cottage "to assess the situation." Id.

After the girls, including Reynolds, were placed in the cottage's living room and instructed to stay there in the charge of a staff member, the police officers and the other staff member searched the girls' rooms. In Reynold's room they found "a plastic baggy ... which the officers believed may have contained drugs." Id. In other rooms, the officers found "a baggy with a plant substance residue the officers thought might be marijuana, ... a glass vial which the officers believed may have been used as a pipe," and "prescription pills" — all items the officers "believed to be associated with drug use." Id.

"At some point, [Reynolds] insinuated to the staff members and the officers that she might have drugs hidden in her undergarments. [Reynolds'] statements coupled with the suspicious items located in the girls' rooms and their strange behavior convinced the officers that the girls needed to be searched to ensure that there were no drugs in the cottage." Id. Because the officers were all male, they called the county police department to send a female officer to conduct the searches. The department sent the appellee, Officer Leslie Watson, to perform the task. As the district court stated:

Upon her arrival, [Watson] observed the girls running throughout the cottage, playing loud music, and yelling. The Anchorage officers said that they had searched the girls' rooms and located what they believed to be drug paraphernalia. She was also informed that the officers suspected that the girls might be harboring drugs in their undergarments or other clothing. [Watson] indicated that she could not perform a body cavity search without a warrant, but that she would perform a visual strip search of the girls to look for drugs.

[Watson] conducted the searches one at a time. Each girl was searched in her own room with a female staff member present. [Watson] instructed each girl to first to remove her blouse and bra, put them back on, and then to remove her bottom clothing and underwear and bend over to allow a visual inspection of her rectal area. [Watson] never physically touched any of the girls during the searches. No drugs were located on any of the girls during the strip searches.

Id. at 3.

Reynolds then filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky the present suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City of Anchorage, its Chief of Police, and the police officers involved. She sought injunctive and declaratory relief, and compensatory, exemplary, and punitive damages. All defendants except Watson settled.

On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court granted Watson's motion, ruling that she had qualified immunity. The court

conclude[d] that in 1997 it was not clearly established that a search warrant supported by probable cause was required to constitutionally conduct a strip search of a minor suspected of possessing drugs in a juvenile home or detention center. Based on the particular facts, and in light of the then existing case law to guide [Watson], the Court conclude[d] that the type and scope of the search performed on [Reynolds] were objectively reasonable. Therefore, [Watson] [wa]s qualifiedly immune from suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Id. at 11-12.

II

In its most recent qualified immunity decision, the Supreme Court stated that a court determining "a qualified immunity defense" in "a suit against an officer for an alleged violation of a constitutional right," must make two inquiries. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). First, the "court ... must consider ... this threshold question: Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right?" Id. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. "[S]econd, assuming the violation is established, the question whether the right was clearly established must be considered...." Id. at 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151. "If no constitutional right would have been violated were the allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified immunity. On the other hand, if a violation could be made out on a favorable view of the parties' submissions, the next, sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly established." Id. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151.

We therefore shall consider whether Officer Watson's strip search of Reynolds violated the Fourth Amendment and whether Officer Watson had qualified immunity in making the search. See, e.g., Akers v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 1030, 1042 (6th Cir.2003); Greene v. Barber, 310 F.3d 889, 894 (6th Cir.2002). In Virgili v. Gilbert, 272 F.3d 391, 394 (6th Cir.2001), however, decided after Saucier, this court, after holding that state prison employees had qualified immunity for strip searching another prison employee, stated: "We need not and do not, opine on the Fourth Amendment standards to be applied to strip-searches of prison employees."

A. The application of the Fourth Amendment to warrantless strip searches has been developed largely in cases involving such searches in prisons and in schools. In Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), the Supreme Court held that visual body cavity inspections during strip searches of pre-trial detainees and convicted prisoners after they had contact with outsiders were not "unreasonable" searches under the Fourth Amendment. The searches were conducted at the "federally operated short-term custodial facility in New York City designed primarily to house pretrial detainees." Id. at 523, 99 S.Ct. 1861. The Court stated that applying "[t]he test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment... [i]n each case ... 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, 99 S.Ct. 1861. It pointed out that a "detention facility is a unique place fraught with serious security dangers. Smuggling of money, drugs, weapons, and other contraband is all too common an occurrence." Id.

In Dobrowolskyj v. Jefferson County, 823 F.2d 955 (6th Cir.1987), this court held that under Wolfish's balancing analysis, the strip search of a detainee in a local jail pursuant to a policy of so searching detainees before moving them into an area of the jail where they would have contact with the general prison population, was not an unreasonable search and therefore did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The court stated: "The security interests of the jail in conducting a search at this point were strong. Dobrowolskyj was about to come into direct contact with the general jail population, including prisoners who would then be moved into all sections of the jail. The jail had legitimate interests in preventing the flow of contraband into the other sections of the jail." Id. at 959.

Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987), although involving a different issue, provides further guidance. The question there was...