A federal appeals court has established a new Fourth Amendment standard for strip searches after ruling that Pennsylvania police went too far when they transported a man arrested over suspected marijuana possession to a station specifically to strip-search him.
In a September 16 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that police generally cannot conduct a strip search simply because someone has been lawfully arrested.
For an arrestee who is not being admitted into the general population of a jail or prison, officers must generally obtain a search warrant supported by probable cause to believe weapons, contraband or evidence will be found beneath the person’s clothing. A warrant is not required if the person consents or if exigent circumstances justify an immediate search.
The ruling applies within the Third Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
The case, Beatty v. Gardner, began when Williamsport police officers Clinton Gardner and Calvin Irvin spotted Kyle Beatty and his girlfriend sitting in a vehicle in an area the court described as known for drug trafficking.
The officers followed the couple to a gas station and waited for them to enter the store. Gardner then approached the vehicle and said he smelled marijuana through an open window, saw a burnt marijuana joint in the ashtray and observed marijuana flakes on the floor.
Gardner entered the store to investigate. According to the court, Beatty put his hands up and asked whether Gardner wanted to search him. Gardner searched Beatty’s waistband, pockets, legs, ankles and groin but found nothing.
After they returned to the vehicle, Gardner told the couple that unless Beatty’s girlfriend, who owned the car, consented to a search, officers would have the vehicle towed and seek a warrant.
She initially consented. Beatty later told her to revoke that consent, after which officers handcuffed Beatty and placed him face-down on the hood of the vehicle.
Irvin then conducted another search, checking Beatty’s waist, pockets, groin and ankles and removing his wallet. Again, police found no contraband.
The Third Circuit concluded that the officers were legally allowed to stop and arrest Beatty and that both of those initial searches were lawful. The panel said the smell and visible traces of marijuana provided probable cause to believe Beatty possessed marijuana, while the first search was consensual and the second was permissible as a search incident to a lawful arrest.
What happened next crossed the constitutional line, the court concluded.
After placing Beatty in a police vehicle, officers attempted to get him to provide his full name. Gardner told him that without it he could be arraigned as John Doe and remain in jail, telling Beatty they could “play that game.”
Police then drove Beatty to the station solely to conduct a strip search.
They found nothing.
The Third Circuit said the ordinary rule allowing police to search someone incident to an arrest does not extend automatically to a strip search.
The court compared the issue to Supreme Court decisions placing limits on what officers may search without a warrant following an arrest. In particular, the panel pointed to the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Riley v. California, which held that police generally need a warrant before searching the digital contents of an arrested person’s cellphone.
Applying similar reasoning to strip searches, the Third Circuit said the government’s interests in officer safety and preventing the destruction of evidence did not justify allowing such searches routinely after an arrest.
Gardner testified that, in his experience, drug users and traffickers commonly conceal narcotics around the groin. But the court said generalized observations about drug suspects were not enough to justify automatically strip-searching them.
The judges noted that officers had already searched Beatty twice and found no weapons or contraband. They had no information indicating he was concealing a gun or knife, and the officers acknowledged that the strip search was conducted to find evidence rather than for officer safety.
The court also emphasized the substantial privacy interests involved in strip searches and noted that Beatty was not being placed into the general population of a jail or prison, where different rules can apply.
The panel concluded that police had no warrant, no consent to the strip search and no exigent circumstances requiring an immediate search. Nor did they have a particularized reason to believe Beatty would destroy concealed evidence before a warrant could be obtained.
The decision also puts the Third Circuit on one side of an existing split among federal appeals courts over what police need before conducting these searches.
The First, Seventh, Eighth and Eleventh circuits have allowed strip searches of arrestees in certain circumstances based on reasonable suspicion.
The Third Circuit rejected that standard and instead joined the Fifth, Ninth and Tenth circuits in requiring a warrant supported by probable cause when consent or exigent circumstances are absent.
That leaves the eight federal appeals courts specifically discussed in the ruling evenly divided, with four applying the warrant-and-probable-cause standard and four allowing some searches under the lower reasonable-suspicion standard.
Despite finding that Beatty’s strip search violated the Fourth Amendment, the Third Circuit upheld the lower court’s judgment in favor of Gardner and Irvin.
The judges found that the officers were protected by qualified immunity because neither the Supreme Court nor the Third Circuit had clearly established the new restriction on strip searches at the time Beatty was searched.
Beatty had sued the officers under federal civil rights law, challenging his stop, arrest and three searches under the Fourth Amendment and raising a First Amendment retaliation claim. He also brought state claims for assault, battery, false arrest and false imprisonment.
The district court granted the officers summary judgment on the federal claims and declined to exercise jurisdiction over the state claims. The Third Circuit affirmed that judgment while establishing the new Fourth Amendment rule for future cases.
The three-judge panel consisted of Judges Stephanos Bibas, Cindy Kyounga Chung and Thomas L. Ambro, with Bibas writing the opinion.
