Penis Squeezing Not Protected by Qualified Immunity

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ELIZABETH NOLAN BROWN

Indeed, “squeezing a detainee’s penis hard is not a ‘proper part of a search,'” a federal appeals court has held.

The case, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, was brought by Wilbert Glover against Minnesota corrections officer Richard Paul. Paul strip-searched Glover while Glover was jailed at the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center in St. Paul in 2015.

Paul responded by claiming that he “never touched [Glover’s] genitals or otherwise touched him inappropriately” and that even if he had, he was protected by qualified immunity.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota rejected Paul’s argument, concluding “that Paul’s alleged actions violated Glover’s clearly established constitutional right to be free from excessive force in the form of sexual assault or abuse,” as the appeals court describes it. In an August 24 ruling, the court affirmed the district court’s ruling.

“On appeal, Paul maintains that he is entitled to qualified immunity,” noted the 8th Circuit judges in their decision:

Paul argues that he did not violate Glover’s clearly established right under the
Fourteenth Amendment. He maintains that no constitutional violation occurred because “manual contact with a detainee’s genitals may be necessary as part of a search.” And he says that there is no evidence that the strip search or his actions during the search were performed for an improper purpose.

In determining whether Paul is entitled to qualified immunity, we must accept
facts that the district court assumed were supported by sufficient evidence….In the order denying qualified immunity, the district court stated that squeezing a detainee’s penis hard is not a “proper part of a search,” and that the “action does not seem inadvertent nor does Paul assert it was.” The court explained that a “jury could find that squeezing a prisoner’s penis hard during a strip search is not penologically necessary.” We infer from these statements that the court assumed that a jury could find that Paul intentionally squeezed Glover’s penis hard in a manner that was not related to a legitimate penological purpose….

Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Glover, a jury could find that the alleged conduct constituted sexual abuse or assault. We accept that some contact with a detainee’s genitals may be necessary and proper during a legitimate strip search, but Paul’s alleged conduct was intentional and gratuitous, and thus exceeded the legitimate purpose of a search….A reasonable official would have understood that the conduct alleged in Glover’s verified complaint constituted an unreasonable use of force that violated a detainee’s right under the Fourteenth Amendment.

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• Paper and bamboo straws were supposed to be better for the environment, but they’re full of potentially toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a new study finds. “PFAS were more frequently detected in plant-based materials, such as paper and bamboo,” than in plastic straws, note the study authors. “The presence of PFAS in plant-based straws shows that they are not necessarily biodegradable.”

• Three men who say they were coerced into confessing to a murder they didn’t commit had their convictions thrown out on Thursday. The men—Earl Walters, Armond McCloud, and Reginald Cameron—were between the ages of 17 and 20 at the time of their initial interrogations. Each spent between nine and 29 years in prison.

• A federal court has partially dismissed pharmaceutical company GenBioPro’s lawsuit against the state of West Virginia over its restrictions on abortion pills, rejecting GenBioPro’s claim that the state’s ban on abortion pills is preempted by federal law. The court said “GenBioPro could challenge West Virginia’s prohibition on telehealth access to the drug because it’s still up to the FDA to decide how a drug can be provided to patients,” reports ABC News.

• Coming soon to porn in Texas:

So I asked the Texas Health Dept., and…: https://t.co/muZihmmVNE

— Gustavo Turner (@GustavoTurnerX) August 24, 2023

• South Carolina’s Supreme Court has upheld a six-week ban on abortion, after voting down a similar ban back in January.

• A ballot initiative that “would limit the size of pot farms and severely restrict any modifications to existing ones” has qualified for California’s March 2024 election, notes SFGATE. “The local farmers are warning that passing the initiative would destroy the local commercial cannabis industry.”

• “The principal and a teacher at a Florida Elementary school have been placed on paid administrative leave after staff singled out Black fourth- and fifth-graders and pulled them into assemblies about low test scores,” reports USA Today.

Since starting at Reason in 2014, Brown has won multiple awards for her writing on the U.S. government’s war on sex. Brown’s writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, Playboy, Fox News, Politico, The Week, and numerous other publications. You can follow her on Twitter @ENBrown.

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