CA3: False arrest by officer of rape victim for false report violated Fourth Amendment; she had a reasonable expectation of her blood draw in the rape kit
A sexual assault victim who worked at a convenience store and was robbed and sexually attacked there was later arrested by the police for a false police report. The officer inexplicably believed that she made a false report to cover up her own theft, after the police were on notice that she was the victim of a serial rapist. The court held that the district court erred in concluding there was no fact question for trial. There was a fact question whether the officer could reasonably believe that she committed a crime of making a false statement in the face of later information that she was attacked by a serial rapist. The officer also lacked qualified immunity. Reedy v. Evanson, 615 F.3d 197 (3d Cir. 2010):
For the reasons described above, it must be said that, viewing the evidence from Reedy’s perspective, “no reasonably competent officer would have concluded that a warrant should issue” when it did for her arrest for making a false report of the rape, for theft, and for receiving stolen property. See Grant v. City of Pittsburgh, 98 F.3d 116, 122 (3d Cir. 1996) (“[Crucial to the resolution of any assertion of qualified immunity is a careful examination of the record … to establish, for purposes of summary judgment, a detailed factual description of the actions of each individual defendant viewed in a light most favorable to the plaintiff.”) (internal punctuation omitted). The District Court thus erred in granting summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity.
She also consented only to a blood draw for the rape kit, and the officer violated the Fourth Amendment by getting a search warrant for the blood. She tested positive for diazepam and marijuana, and the officer considered that illegal drug use. She had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the blood draw violated by the officer:
As in Ferguson I and Ferguson II, an important inquiry about the blood samples at issue here is whether Reedy understood that her blood was being tested for the law enforcement purpose of obtaining incriminating evidence against her. The answer seems plainly to be no. She consented to having her blood drawn in the context of a rape kit examination. She had just been sexually assaulted and was being tested for sexually transmitted diseases and for potential evidence concerning her assailant. She indisputably had a reasonable expectation of privacy in her blood when it was drawn, and she did nothing to forfeit that expectation. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable government intrusion into the personal and private aspects of life. There is little that is more personal than an individual’s bodily integrity. See Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 772 (“The integrity of an individual’s person is a cherished value of our society.”) Consequently, Evanson’s warrantless search of Reedy’s blood for drug use, without Reedy’s consent, violated the Fourth Amendment. The District Court’s conclusion to the contrary was error.
This case belongs in the annals of the “adding insult to injury” category of Fourth Amendment cases.
Hat tip to Litigation and Trial‘s Third Circuit Reinstates Civil Rights Suit Of Rape Victim Arrested For Telling The Truth which also discusses amicus briefs in the case.
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"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime." —Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
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