Hartline v. Gallo

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedOctober 8, 2008
Docket06-5309-cv
StatusPublished

This text of Hartline v. Gallo (Hartline v. Gallo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hartline v. Gallo, (2d Cir. 2008).

Opinion

06-5309-cv Hartline v. Gallo

1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 2 3 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 4 5 6 7 August Term, 2007 8 9 (Argued: April 2, 2008 Decided: October 8, 2008) 10 11 Docket No. 06-5309-cv 12 13 14 STACEY HARTLINE , 15 16 Plaintiff-Appellant, 17 18 –v.– 19 20 ANTHONY GALLO , DARREN GAGNON , MARLA DONOVAN , JIM SHERRY , VILLAGE OF 21 SOUTHAMPTON POLICE DEPARTMENT , INCORPORATED VILLAGE OF SOUTHAMPTON , 22 23 Defendants-Appellees. 24 25 26 27 Before: 28 29 LEVAL, CALABRESI, and WESLEY , Circuit Judges. 30 31 32 33 Appeal from a decision of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New 34 York (Hurley, J.) granting summary judgment to Defendants on Plaintiff’s claims under 42 35 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, and declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s 36 state law claims. Plaintiff alleges that she was subjected by the Southampton Police to an 37 unconstitutional strip search in the absence of individualized suspicion that she was secreting 38 contraband on her person, and that the strip search was telecast throughout the police station. 39 40 VACATED in part, AFFIRMED in part, and REMANDED for further proceedings consistent

-1- 1 with this opinion. 2 3 4 5 WILLIAM E. BETZ, Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C., New York, New York, for 6 Appellant. 7 8 DIANE K. FARRELL, Devitt Spellman Barrett, LLP, Smithtown, New York, for 9 Appellees. 10 11 12 13 WESLEY , Circuit Judge:

14 Stacey Hartline appeals from a decision of the United States District Court for the Eastern

15 District of New York (Hurley, J.) granting summary judgment to Defendants on her claims under

16 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, and declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over her state

17 law claims. On appeal, Hartline argues that the district court erred in granting judgment to the

18 Defendants with regard to her § 1983 claims against the Village of Southampton and various

19 individual officers of the Southampton Police Department. She contends that her Fourth

20 Amendment rights were violated when she was subjected by the Southampton Police to a strip

21 search in the absence of individualized suspicion that she was secreting contraband on her

22 person, and when that search was telecast throughout the police station. She further contends

23 that because the strip search violated clearly established law, the individual officers are not

24 entitled to qualified immunity, and that because the search was conducted pursuant to municipal

25 policy, the Village of Southampton may be held liable for the search. We agree. Accordingly,

26 we vacate the district court’s judgment with regard to those claims, and remand the case to the

27 district court for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.

28 BACKGROUND

-2- 1 I

2 Hartline, a twenty-one-year-old woman, was driving her pick-up truck on the morning of

3 January 6, 2003 in the Village of Southampton, New York.1 She was running errands for her

4 employer, Best Modular Homes, including a stop at her employer’s bank to pick up funds. She

5 was wearing a coat, t-shirt, jeans, long johns, socks, boots, and underwear. At approximately

6 9:30 a.m., she was stopped by Officer Anthony Gallo of the Southampton Village Police because

7 her truck was missing a rear license plate. Because the driver’s side window on the pick-up truck

8 was broken, Hartline needed to open her door to speak to Gallo. Through the open door, Gallo

9 saw a stem of a marijuana plant on the floor of Hartline’s truck. He picked it up and told

10 Hartline that if she showed him all the marijuana in the truck she would not be arrested. Hartline

11 answered that there might be some other unusable bits of marijuana in the truck. Gallo then

12 handcuffed Hartline behind the truck and searched it. Gallo found some unusable bits of

13 marijuana, including a butt of a marijuana cigarette, a container with a few seeds, and a pipe.

14 Gallo never asked Hartline if she was carrying any marijuana (or other contraband) on her

15 person.

16 Gallo took Hartline to the police station. At the police station, Hartline was greeted by

17 Sergeant Darren Gagnon, who told her she would have to wait until a female officer arrived to

18 strip search her. Marla Donovan, a female officer, was then summoned. Donovan took

19 Hartline’s handcuffs off and strip searched her in the cell designated for females. Donovan

20 required Hartline first to remove all of her lower garments and bend over while Donovan made a

1 Because the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Defendants, we must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff, drawing all reasonable inferences in her favor. See, e.g., Scott v. Harris, 127 S. Ct. 1769, 1774-75 (2007).

-3- 1 visual inspection of her orifices, and then to remove her upper garments and lift her bra. Hartline

2 was “crying hysterically” during this process.

3 According to Hartline’s evidence, her strip search was conducted pursuant to the

4 Southampton Police Department’s policy of strip searching all arrested females, regardless of

5 whether there was individualized suspicion sufficient to justify the search. This evidence

6 included an official report of the incident submitted by Officer Donovan in which she described

7 the strip search of Hartline as done “in the same manner that the undersigned conduct[s] searches

8 of all defendants that are female,” and an affidavit of Hartline’s stepfather Stephen Wilson, who

9 was a detective in a neighboring town attesting that when Wilson spoke soon after the incident to

10 Southampton’s Chief of Police, Jim Sherry, Sherry acknowledged that all female prisoners are

11 strip searched. In response to Wilson’s astonishment, Sherry added, “Steve, you are a cop, you

12 should know . . . . [Y]ou know the guys do it.”2

13 After the strip search, Hartline was booked, photographed, and fingerprinted. At that

14 time, her handbag was searched, revealing $1300 in cash, which she had withdrawn from the

15 bank that morning for her employer. She was then returned to the female cell, where she

16 remained for some time. She then noticed a video camera trained on the area in the cell in which

17 she had been strip searched. The camera appeared to her to be turned on. She was eventually

18 released, and given an appearance ticket for misdemeanor possession of marijuana. As she

2 Although the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiff might well support a claim that the policy of strip searching all female arrestees in circumstances where an identically situated male would not have been strip searched violates her rights under the Equal Protection Clause, see Mary Beth G. v. City of Chicago, 723 F.2d 1263, 1274 (7th Cir. 1983), she has not asserted that theory either in the district court or on appeal. As a result, we do not address it. On rehearing, Plaintiff may wish to seek leave of the district court to amend her pleading to assert such a claim.

-4- 1 passed Gallo on her way out, she saw a television monitor near him, showing a cell. She asked

2 him whether the cell shown on the monitor was the one she had been in. He answered that it

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