CA2: Not clearly established for QI that a warrantless body cavity search required exigency and a particularized suspicion

A police officer was entitled to qualified immunity because the right to be free from a warrantless manual body cavity search in the absence of exigent circumstances and a particularized suspicion that evidence of a crime was secreted inside the body cavity was not clearly established. Sanchez v. Bonacchi, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 31970 (2d Cir. Oct. 25, 2019).

“At the time that defendants investigated Wilkinson and obtained a search warrant, it was not clearly established for purposes of qualified immunity that it violated Wilkinson’s double jeopardy rights to prosecute him for perjury for allegedly testifying falsely in traffic court. See id. Based on then existing precedent, defendants were not ‘plainly incompetent’ to believe that Wilkinson’s acquittal of the speeding charge did not necessarily decide that Wilkinson was telling the truth when he denied being the driver of the speeding car. White v. Pauly, 137 S. Ct. 548, 551, 196 L. Ed. 2d 463 (2017) (citation omitted); ….” Wilkinson v. Magrann, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 31844 (9th Cir. Oct. 24, 2019).*