CADC: 2002 law of misdemeanor strip searches not well settled, so jailers have qualified immunity

The law of misdemeanor strip searches not well settled in 2002, and so the jailers have qualified immunity from suit. But, there is a biting dissent. Bame v. Dillard, 09-5330 (D.C. Cir. March 25, 2011):

The named plaintiffs filed this class action suit for damages against Todd Walther Dillard, a former United States Marshal for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, claiming that, after being arrested during a demonstration in September 2002, they were unconstitutionally strip searched by Deputy U.S. Marshals under Dillard’s direction. According to the plaintiffs, caselaw had by then clearly established that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibited strip searching a person arrested for a non-violent, non-drug related misdemeanor absent a particularized reason to suspect the arrestee was concealing contraband or weapons about his person. Dillard moved for summary judgment based upon qualified immunity, and when the district court denied that motion, brought this interlocutory appeal. We conclude it was not clearly established in 2002 that the strip search of a person being introduced into a detention facility violated the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, Dillard is entitled to qualified immunity and to summary judgment.

. . .

ROGERS, Circuit Judge, dissenting: Contrary to the principles underlying qualified immunity as a limitation on the occasions when liability for unconstitutional conduct by a public official will be excused, the majority holds the conduct is to be evaluated by recently articulated law and not, as the Supreme Court has instructed, by the clearly established law reflected in the consensus of persuasive authority at the time of the conduct. In so doing, this is the first time a circuit court of appeals has suggested that the protections of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution against unreasonable searches do not extend to an individual arrested for a non-violent minor offense who is awaiting arraignment apart from the general population of detainees, and is subjected to a strip search in the absence of reasonable suspicion he is hiding contraband or weapons. This runs contrary to the consensus of ten circuit courts of appeals at the time of the challenged strip searches. To reach this result the majority tramples over Supreme Court precedent and gives short shrift to the protections of the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

Irony alert: The majority opinion was written by the same judge who wrote the Maynard GPS case.