West v. Murphy

• Decision Date: 14 November 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–2014.,13–2014.
• Parties: Dana T. WEST, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated; ANthony Haig; Gary Saunders ; Michael Washington, Plaintiffs–Appellants, and Eric Jones; Kevin Adams; Tonia Bowie; David Colyns; Aaron Ross, Plaintiffs, v. Susan MURPHY, former Warden, Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, individually and in her official capacity; William Jednorski, former Warden, Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, individually and in his official capacity, Defendants–Appellees, and City of Baltimore; Baltimore City Police Department; Mayor and City Council of Baltimore ; Mitchell Franks, Warden, Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, individually and in his official capacity, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

771 F.3d 209

Dana T. WEST, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated; ANthony Haig; Gary Saunders ; Michael Washington, Plaintiffs–AppellantsandEric Jones; Kevin Adams; Tonia Bowie; David Colyns; Aaron Ross, Plaintiffs

v. Susan MURPHY, former Warden, Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, individually and in her official capacity; William Jednorski, former Warden, Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, individually and in his official capacity, Defendants–AppelleesandCity of Baltimore; Baltimore City Police Department; Mayor and City Council of Baltimore ; Mitchell Franks, Warden, Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, individually and in his official capacity, Defendants.

No. 13–2014.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: Sept. 17, 2014.

Decided: Nov. 14, 2014.

ARGUED:Barrett Stephen Litt, Kaye McLane Bednarski & Litt, Pasadena, California, for Appellants. William F. Brockman, Office of the Attorney General of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF:Sean R. Day, Greenbelt, Maryland; William Claiborne, Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Douglas F. Gansler, Attorney General, Matthew J. Fader, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees.

Before WILKINSON, SHEDD, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge SHEDD and Judge WYNN joined. Judge WYNN wrote a separate concurring opinion.

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

This 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action involves strip searches of arrestees in the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center. The district court granted defendants' motions for summary judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity. Jones v. Murphy,

2013 WL 822372, at *6 (D.Md. Mar. 5, 2013). We now affirm.

I.

A.

The named plaintiffs are men who went through the booking process at the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center in Baltimore, Maryland (“Central Booking”). They represent a certified class of persons who were arrested between May 12, 2002, and April 30, 2008, “(a) on charges [or in cases] not involving weapons, drugs, or felony violence, and (b) strip searched (c) prior to or without presentment before a court commissioner or other judicial officer.” Jones v. Murphy, 2013 WL 822372, at *3 (D.Md. Mar. 5, 2013). The district court defined a strip search as “the removal, pulling down, or rearrangement of clothing for the visual inspection of a person's genital and/or anal areas, which may also include requiring the person to squat and cough

, in the presence of one or more guards.” Id. The defendants are two former wardens of Central Booking.

Central Booking opened in 1995. The facility has two sections: the booking area and the housing unit. Only activities on the booking floor are at issue in this case.

After an individual is arrested in Baltimore, a transport officer brings him or her to Central Booking. Each arrestee enters the facility through a gender-specific sallyport, where an officer searches the arrestee with a metal detector and a pat-down. The sallyport officer puts a color-coded wristband on the arrestee. Scanning the barcode on the wristband allows an officer to view the arrestee's name, the charge, which officer arrested him, as well as the date, time, and location of the arrest. Some arrestees already have wristbands when they arrive; others come only with a “toe tag,” which is a form listing the information that will be connected to the barcode. The sallyport officer also conducts a brief medical examination of the arrestee.

Following that, arrestees proceed to a search room where officers conduct a more thorough search, bagging and inventorying any personal property. Plaintiffs allege that at this stage of the process correctional officers conducted strip searches of the type described by the class certification order. In order to conduct the search, officers remove arrestees' handcuffs or flex-cuffs, which generally remain off for the remainder of the booking procedure. From the search room, an officer guides the arrestee to an intake window, where an intake officer inputs toe-tag information into the computer system and asks medical questions. An officer then escorts the arrestee to another room to be fingerprinted and photographed. Eventually, the arrestee is either brought before a commissioner or released without charge.

Between the various stages of the booking process, arrestees may be held in holding rooms with other arrestees. They remain in holding rooms while they wait to see a court commissioner, which under Maryland law must occur within 24 hours of the arrest. Md. Rule 4–212(f). Officers do not separate arrestees by crime of arrest or criminal history. In fact, officers often know only what is on the toe-tag, and even the name given on the toe-tag (and in the computer system) may be an alias. It is not until after the fingerprinting stage that officers have access to the arrestee's criminal history and any outstanding warrants. The holding rooms may contain up to 25 arrestees at a time, but over the course of his stay in Central Booking an arrestee may share a room with many more than 25 others because of the ingress and egress of people in any given holding room. The four named plaintiffs shared rooms with 55, 36, 35, and 20 different persons, respectively, who had been arrested for a variety of crimes, including firearm violations, drug crimes, assault, burglary, automobile theft, and armed robbery.

All told, Central Booking processed an average of 229 arrestees per day during the class period. Each arrestee inevitably interacted with many other arrestees during his stay, including those charged with both minor and serious offenses. Roughly three-quarters of class members were not committed to the housing unit, but in total only 51% of all arrestees were released either before or after seeing a court commissioner. Therefore, plaintiffs had “substantial contact with other detainees, including some who were later admitted to general population” of the housing unit. Jones, 2013 WL 822372, at *5.

As the district court noted, contraband poses significant security risks and dangers inside detention facilities. Weapons or other items may be used to attack officers or other arrestees. Id. at *2. Arrestees may overdose on drugs, or their intoxication may create additional burdens for officers. Id. Arrestees arriving at Central Booking have been found to have firearms, razor blades, knives, drugs, cigarettes, cell phones, and other items on their persons. Id.; J.A. at 193, 328, 335, 340–43, 567–68, 601–03, 611, 715–16, 1007–08, 1077–78, 1232–35, 1244–45, 1381–82, 1478–79, 1502–04, 1717, 1750–52. The more thorough searches in the search room have turned up drugs, cigarettes, lighters, money, cell phones, razor blades, and knives. Jones, 2013 WL 822372, at *2 ; J.A. at 193, 335, 340–43, 601–03, 1077, 1478–79, 1502–04, 1750–52. Even so, contraband has made its way into the holding rooms. According to the testimony of correctional officers, one arrestee was wounded

by box cutters, and another attempted to commit suicide with a razor blade. Jones, 2013 WL 822372, at *2 ; J.A. at 716, 1007. Plaintiffs acknowledge arrestees used drugs while in holding rooms. Jones, 2013 WL 822372, at *2 ; J.A. at 1342, 1812–13.

B.

This litigation has been ongoing since arrestees filed their initial complaint in 2005. The Fourth Amended Complaint consisted of twelve counts and sought certification of five separate class actions. This appeal concerns only Count 1, which the district court certified under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). In 2007, the district court initially denied defendants' motions to dismiss, holding that the wardens were not entitled to qualified immunity because “the right of those arrested for offenses not likely to involve weapons or contraband to be free from strip searches without any individualized finding of reasonable suspicion appears to be clearly established” in the Fourth Circuit. Jones v. Murphy, 470 F.Supp.2d 537, 547 (D.Md.2007) (citing Amaechi v. West, 237 F.3d 356, 365 (4th Cir.2001) ; Abshire v. Walls, 830 F.2d 1277, 1279–80 (4th Cir.1987) ; Logan v. Shealy, 660 F.2d 1007, 1013 (4th Cir.1981) ). However, the court reversed course in its 2013 summary judgment opinion, highlighting “the present lack of a clear test applicable to the specific circumstances of detention practices at [Central Booking] during the years at issue in this litigation.” Jones, 2013 WL 822372, at *6. This more recent decision is the subject of this appeal.

The Supreme Court's intervening decision in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 1510, 182 L.Ed.2d 566 (2012), prompted the district court to change direction. The Supreme Court held that “every detainee who will be admitted to the general population [of a jail] may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed.” Id. at 1513. The district court determined that Florence “overruled some aspects of Fourth Circuit law” on which the 2007 decision had “relied,” and “left the contours of any ‘exception’ that would apply to the plaintiffs in this case unclear and open to debate.” Jones, 2013 WL 822372, at *6.

II.

A.

Plaintiffs claim that the district court erred in holding that the wardens were entitled to qualified immunity. Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, a government official is not personally liable for damages resulting from his actions if his “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, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Determining whether qualified immunity applies involves a two-prong inquiry: “whether the facts ... make out a violation of a constitutional right” and “whether the right at issue was ‘clearly established’ at the time of defendant's alleged...