Williams v. Kernan

Background

James David Williams, a state prisoner at the Correctional Training Facility, filed this self-represented civil-rights case under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the federal law allowing claims against state officials for constitutional violations. He alleged that prison officials violated his rights during an unclothed body search on June 29, 2016. He also alleged that Defendant S. Patterson took sexually suggestive photographs while he was partially nude and that Defendant Z. Brown laughed during the search.

The remaining defendants were Z. Brown, S. Patterson, R. Salas, and Rodriguez. The court had previously granted dismissal or summary judgment to other defendants and had given Williams an opportunity to amend claims against Scott Kernan and S. Hatton. Williams did not amend those claims, so the court stated that they remained dismissed without leave to amend.

According to the defendants’ evidence, officials received a tip that Williams and his cellmate might possess cellular phones. After a clothed search produced no contraband, Brown and Salas conducted a visual, no-touch unclothed body search in a shower area. The search lasted about one minute. The defendants said the later cell search found two cellular phones and two chargers. Patterson stated that she photographed Williams’s tattoos to document his possible security-threat-group status. The court reviewed the photographs and found that Williams was wearing boxer shorts in the photographs showing his lower body and that none showed his genitalia.

Rulings on the Motions

The defendants filed a motion for partial dismissal and a motion for summary judgment. The court granted the motion for partial dismissal as to Williams’s claims against the remaining defendants in their official capacities. It ruled that the Eleventh Amendment barred claims for monetary damages against state agencies and state officials sued in their official capacities. Those claims were dismissed without leave to amend.

The court also granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss Williams’s Fourteenth Amendment claim. It reasoned that, because Williams was an incarcerated prisoner and his claim arose from an alleged unlawful strip-search, the Fourth Amendment—not substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment—provided the relevant constitutional analysis.

Fourth Amendment Analysis

The court applied the prison-search standards requiring it to consider whether the search was reasonably related to legitimate prison-security interests. It examined the search’s scope and manner, its justification, and its location.

The court found no genuine dispute of material fact concerning the search’s scope and manner. It was visual, involved no touching, and lasted approximately one minute. The court also found that Patterson’s position outside the shower area did not make the search unreasonable because the evidence indicated that she did not have a direct line of sight or an opportunity to closely observe Williams while he was nude. The photographs, which showed Williams in boxer shorts and were taken to document tattoos, also did not make the search unreasonable.

The court found the search justified by the tip that Williams possessed a cellular phone and by the prison’s security interest in finding contraband. The discovery of two phones and two chargers in the cell supported the credibility of the tip. The court separately found that photographing tattoos served a legitimate purpose of documenting security-threat-group status.

The court also found the shower location reasonable because such searches were routinely conducted there and the evidence indicated that other inmates did not have a direct line of sight into the area. It concluded that Williams failed to identify specific evidence creating a genuine dispute for trial. The court therefore granted summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment claim against Brown, Salas, and Patterson.

As to Rodriguez, the court granted summary judgment on the supervisory-liability claim. It found that Rodriguez was not present during the unclothed body search, there was no allegation that he directed the other defendants’ conduct, and the search itself did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Without an underlying constitutional violation, the court ruled that Rodriguez could not be liable as a supervisor.

Disposition

The court ordered that the claims against Kernan and Hatton remain dismissed without leave to amend. It granted Brown’s, Patterson’s, Rodriguez’s, and Salas’s motion for partial dismissal and motion for summary judgment. The clerk was directed to terminate all pending motions and close the file.