Byrd v. Maricopa County Sheriff's Department

Procedural entryThis page is a short order in Byrd v. Maricopa County Sheriff's Department. Read the opinion of the Court — 629 F.3d 1135
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit·Decided May 18, 2009·No. 07-16640·Published

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CHARLES EDWARD BYRD,  Plaintiff-Appellant, v. No. 07-16640 MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF’S  D.C. No. CV-04-02701-NVW DEPARTMENT; JOSEPH M. ARPAIO; KATHLEEN O’CONNELL; AUSTIN OPINION PETERSON; DURANGO JAIL, Defendants-Appellees.  Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona Neil V. Wake, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted October 2, 2008—Pasadena, California

Filed May 18, 2009

Before: Ferdinand F. Fernandez, Consuelo M. Callahan, and Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Ikuta; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge Fernandez

5903 BYRD v. MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEP’T 5907

COUNSEL

Jarrett A. Green, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Los Angeles, California, pro bono counsel for the appel- lant.

Maria R. Brandon, Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Phoe- nix, Arizona, counsel for the appellee. 5908 BYRD v. MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEP’T OPINION

IKUTA, Circuit Judge:

Charles Byrd, a former pretrial detainee in the minimum- security Durango Jail in Maricopa County, Arizona, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio in his personal and official capacities, Kathleen O’Connell, a former cadet at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Training Academy, and Captain Austin Peter- son, O’Connell’s supervisor.1 Byrd contends that a search of his housing unit, during which a partial strip search and pat down of his groin area was conducted by a female training cadet despite the availability of male detention officers nearby, violated his constitutional rights. The district court dismissed Byrd’s equal protection claim and granted judg- ment as a matter of law against Byrd on aspects of his Four- teenth and Fourth Amendment claims. After a jury resolved certain factual disputes relating to the search, the district court entered judgment in favor of all defendants. Given the facts and procedural posture of this case, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I

A

Byrd was a pretrial detainee at minimum-security Durango Jail in Maricopa County, Arizona. In October 2004, there had been multiple fights in Byrd’s housing unit, and officials sus- pected that contraband was circulating in the jail. In order to 1 We construe Byrd’s complaint against Arpaio in his official capacity as a suit against Maricopa County. See, e.g., Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 165-66 (1985); see also Ctr. for Bio-Ethical Reform v. Los Angeles County Sheriff Dept., 533 F.3d 780, 786 (9th Cir. 2008) (official capacity suit against county sheriff was equivalent to suit against county). We refer to individual defendants by name when appropriate, and other- wise refer to defendants collectively as “County.” BYRD v. MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEP’T 5909 conduct a coordinated search of Byrd’s entire housing unit, jail supervisors requested assistance from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Training Academy (Academy) cadets. On October 28, jail officers carrying taser and pepper guns entered Byrd’s cell and ordered him to remove all his clothing except his boxer shorts, which were made of thin material. The officers ordered Byrd to walk into an open com- mon area known as the “day room,” where 25 to 30 Academy cadets and 10 to 15 uniformed detention officers were present. The cadets wore jeans and white T-shirts with their last names printed on the back in black lettering. Approximately one third of both the cadets and officers in the room were female. At least one person with a hand-held camera was present in the day room.

Jail officials directed five or six inmates at a time to stand in front of a row of waiting cadets in order to be searched. When it was Byrd’s turn, the officers ordered Byrd to walk over to the cadets, stand facing away from them, raise his arms above his head, and spread his legs. O’Connell approached Byrd from behind and conducted the search as follows: She ran her hands across the waistband of Byrd’s boxer shorts and pulled the waistband out a few inches to check for anything hidden or taped inside; she did not look into his boxer shorts. She lightly frisked over his boxer shorts and down the outside of his thigh, stopping at the bottom of the shorts. Through the boxer shorts, O’Connell moved Byrd’s scrotum and penis with the back of her hand in order to frisk his groin, applying light pressure to feel for contra- band. She then placed her hand at the bottom of his buttocks, ran it upward over his boxers, and separated the cheeks to search for any contraband taped, placed, or hidden inside.2 2 Although the parties dispute whether this search constituted a “strip search,” we have referred to a search as a “pat down and partial strip search,” and simply as a “strip search,” when a suspect was stripped to her underwear and officers felt the suspect’s groin area through the under- wear. United States v. Gonzalez-Rincon, 36 F.3d 859, 861 (9th Cir. 1994). Because Byrd was not completely unclothed, but was in his boxer shorts and the search physically explored his genital region, we will refer to the search as a “pat down and partial strip search” or, for the sake of brevity and convenience, a “strip search.” 5910 BYRD v. MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEP’T The record indicates the search of Byrd was brief. O’Connell demonstrated the search to the jury and testified that it lasted between 10 and 20 seconds, while Byrd testified that it lasted 60 seconds.

Under the County’s policies and customs, female officers and cadets are not permitted to observe or conduct cross- gender strip searches if all of an inmate’s clothing has been removed. They are, however, permitted to observe and con- duct searches, whether visual or tactile, if an inmate is wear- ing underwear, which at Maricopa County’s detention facilities are standard-issue boxer shorts. Females are not per- mitted to look into a male inmate’s underwear when conduct- ing a pat down and partial strip search.

B

After the search, Byrd filed an inmate grievance form with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office. He subsequently filed additional grievances with the County, none of which resulted in remedial action. Byrd filed a pro se complaint in district court on November 26, 2004, and amended it June 14, 2005, alleging that the search violated: (1) his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches; (2) his substan- tive due process right to be free from punishment;3 and (3) his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the laws. 3 Byrd’s pro se complaint alleged that his Eighth Amendment rights had been violated. Because at the time of the search Byrd was a pretrial detainee, the district court correctly recharacterized this claim as one alleging that the County violated Byrd’s substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 537 n.16 (1979) (“The Court of Appeals properly relied on the Due Process Clause rather than the Eighth Amendment in considering the claims of pretrial detainees. Due process requires that a pretrial detainee not be pun- ished. A sentenced inmate, on the other hand, may be punished, although that punishment may not be “cruel and unusual” under the Eighth Amend- ment.”). We refer to this claim as a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claim throughout. BYRD v.

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