Walton v. Wall

Filing 6

MERIT REVIEW ORDER & OPINION entered by Judge Joe Billy McDade on 5/18/2017. Plaintiff's complaint is dismissed for failure to state a claim pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) and 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Any amendment to the Complaint would be futile as the facts are not sufficient to allege Fourth Amendment violations. This case is therefore terminated. The clerk is directed to enter a judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 58. This dismissal shall count as one of the plaintiff's three allotted strikes pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 1915(g). The Clerk of the Court is directed to record Plaintiff's strike in the three-strike log. See full Order & Opinion attached.(RK, ilcd)

E-FILED

Thursday, 18 May, 2017 02:44:21 PM
Clerk, U.S. District Court, ILCD

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
PEORIA DIVISION

STEVEN WALTON, Inmate # R15653,
Plaintiff,
v.
ROBERT WALL,
Defendant.

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Case No. 1:16-cv-1445-JBM
Honorable Joe B. McDade

MERIT REVIEW ORDER & OPINION
Plaintiff Steven Walton, an Illinois state prison inmate, has filed a pro se
Complaint (Doc. 1) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1983 against Lieutenant Robert Wall of the
Bloomington Police Department alleging that Defendant Wall used excessive force
against him during a March 10, 2016 questioning in violation of his Fourth Amendment
rights. The case is before the Court for a merit review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A,
which requires the Court to review each and every complaint in a civil action in which
a prisoner seeks redress from a governmental entity or officer or employee of a
governmental entity as soon as practicable. Plaintiff seeks money damages against
Defendant.
LEGAL STANDARDS
In reviewing a complaint, the Court accepts the factual allegations as true,
liberally construing them in the plaintiff's favor. Turley v. Rednour, 729 F.3d 645,
649-51 (7th Cir. 2013). However, conclusory statements and labels are insufficient.
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Enough facts must be provided to “state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face.”
Alexander v. United States, 721 F.3d 418, 422 (7th Cir. 2013) (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted). As in any other case, a plaintiff can plead himself out of
court by providing enough facts to demonstrate that he has no claim for which relief
nay be granted. Atkins v. City of Chicago, 631 F.3d 823, 832 (7th Cir. 2011). This
includes not only the facts alleged within the complaint, but also facts that come from
documents that were incorporated into the pleadings. In re Wade, 969 F.2d 241, 249
(7th Cir. 1992). Although the court must take all well-pled allegations as true, when
an exhibit incontrovertibly contradicts the allegations in the complaint, then the
exhibit generally controls, even when the court is considering a motion to dismiss.
Bogie v. Rosenberg, 705 F.3d 603, 609 (7th Cir. 2013). Additionally, the court may
independently examine and form its own opinions about a document because it is not
bound by a party’s characterization of it. Forrest v. Universal Sav. Bank, F.A., 507
F.3d 540, 542 (7th Cir. 2007).
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff alleges that on March 10, 2016, he was arrested and questioned in an
interview room of the Bloomington Police Department. He alleges that the Defendant
covered a camera in the room with paper and ordered him to undress. Plaintiff
objected to being strip searched and inquired for what crime was he being charged.
As he got undressed another officer entered the room and the officers began making
racially offensive remarks about Plaintiff and accusing him of being a drug dealer.
Plaintiff was admonished to hurry up and get undressed or he would be harmed. One
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of the officers grabbed Plaintiff’s butt cheeks and pulled them apart then inserted
fingers into his anus. The officer then announced that he had found drugs. Plaintiff
maintains that there were no drugs present. Plaintiff began hollering that this
maltreatment was not right and shouting that the drugs were not his. 1 The officers
then ordered Plaintiff to dress. They then removed the paper from the camera and
began questioning him. He was then escorted to the McLean County Detention
Center, where he wrote grievances.
Plaintiff has attached to his Complaint police reports in the underlying
criminal case that was brought against Plaintiff as a result of being charged with
delivery of a controlled substance. In the reports that Plaintiff attached to the
Complaint, it is clear that Bloomington police officers suspected him of being a drug
dealer and they orchestrated a controlled buy with the use of confidential source with
Plaintiff as the targeted suspect. They observed Plaintiff arrive at a predetermined
location and sell drugs to the confidential source. The officers watched the entire
transaction. Plaintiff was then followed, stopped, and placed under arrest. He was
taken to the Bloomington Police Station and while in custody he was observed placing
his hands inside his pants and underwear. This aroused the suspicion of the
observing officer and Plaintiff was consequently strip searched. Plaintiff has even
provided the internal document Defendant signed that authorized the strip search.
The reports show however, that Defendant did not actually conduct the search; he

Obviously, Plaintiff is contradicting himself by stating no drugs were present
yet immediately stating that the drugs recovered were not his because this latter
statement would make no sense if no drugs were actually present.
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merely authorized it. The actual search was performed by an officer named Kevin
Raisbeck.
The Court has reviewed the McLean County Criminal Records Access System
and has verified that on October 5, 2016 Plaintiff pled guilty to the offense of
manufacturing or delivering, or possessing with intent to manufacture or deliver,
cocaine. That conviction resulted from the arrest on March 10, 2016 that precipitated
the strip search complained of here.
DISCUSSION
This lawsuit has no merit. The primary reason is that documents the Plaintiff
has provided with the Complaint establish that Defendant Wall did not even perform
the strip search in question, nor did he direct Officer Raisbeck to perform the search.
He merely signed off on Officer Raisbeck’s request to perform the strip search and
was present while Officer Raisbeck performed the search. A district court can
consider police reports a plaintiff attaches to a complaint as well as public records
that are outside the pleadings. El-Bey v. Village of South Holland, 513 F. App’x 603,
605 (7th Cir. 2013). On these facts—supplied by the Plaintiff himself—Defendant
Wall cannot be deemed liable for the strip search. Although this finding disposes of
the case, the Court will nevertheless discuss the constitutional merits of the claims,
lest Plaintiff file an action against Officer Raisbeck or move the Court to substitute
parties in this action.
The Fourth Amendment protects individuals against unreasonable searches.
See U.S. CONST. amend. IV. “ Included within the Amendment’s protection is the
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right to be free from unreasonable searches of one’s unclothed body.” Stanley v.
Henson, 337 F.3d 961, 963 (7th Cir. 2003). “[I]f an arrestee is taken to the police
station, that is no more than a continuation of the custody inherent in the arrest
status. Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 645 (1983). It is well settled law that police
“officers may conduct a strip search of an arrestee entering a jail when they have
reasonable suspicion at the time of the search that he is concealing contraband on his
body.” Kraushaar v. Flanigan, 45 F.3d 1040, 1045 (7th Cir.1995). There is no violation
of the Fourth Amendment when officers can point to a “particularized suspicion that
the arrestee is harboring contraband on his body before conducting a strip search.”
Id.
In United States v. Logan, the Seventh Circuit held that a strip search incident
to an arrest was reasonable. 219 F.App’x 533 (2007). There, the court focused on the
following factors in support of its conclusion: First, Logan was arrested for drug
possession. Id. at 535. Second, the police knew before the strip search that Logan was
a suspected drug dealer who recently had sold drugs to undercover officers. Id. In
another relevant case, Kraushaar, the Seventh Circuit held that a DUI arrestee’s
suspicious hand movements near his waistband justified a strip search. 45 F.3d at
1045.
The circumstances presented in this case are very similar to the facts
presented in Logan and Kraushaar. Officers knew Plaintiff to be a drug dealer. They
set up a controlled buy to catch him in the act of selling drugs. They observed him
complete the illicit drug transaction. They stopped him afterwards and took him into
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custody. While in the station, an officer saw him place his hands inside his
underwear. Officer Raisbeck then sought prior authorization for the strip search.
The Court finds that on these facts, Officer Raisbeck had sufficient reasonable
suspicion to conduct a strip search and thus there was no Fourth Amendment
violation.
Plaintiff claims the officer’s fingers were briefly inserted into his anus. The
insertion of fingers into the anus changes the nature of the search from a strip search
to a body cavity search. However, it was still reasonable under the circumstances.
Having found drugs in the Plaintiff’s underwear, a brief cavity search to verify
whether more drugs were present was not unreasonable. And the Court must take
the fact that the drugs were present as true because Plaintiff was convicted of the
offense of manufacture or delivery, or possession with intent to manufacture or
deliver, a controlled substance, a counterfeit substance, or controlled substance
analog. See 735 Ill. Comp. Stat. § 570/401. Thus, the recovered drugs played a crucial
role in his conviction.
Furthermore, Plaintiff’s assertion that no drugs were present and insinuation
that drugs were planted on him violates the rule of Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477,
487 (1994). “The rule of Heck v. Humphrey is intended to prevent collateral attack on
a criminal conviction through the vehicle of a civil suit. To this end, Heck bars a
plaintiff from maintaining a § 1983 action in situations where ‘a judgment in favor of
the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence...”’
McCann v. Neilsen, 466 F.3d 619, 621 (7th Cir. 2006). The Heck bar applies unless
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“the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been
invalidated.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 487. Plaintiff’s conviction for dealing drugs has not
been invalidated as he is currently serving out an eight year sentence for it. Thus the
Court cannot disturb the conviction nor may the Court rule in a way that disturbs or
contradicts any factual resolutions upon which the conviction rests.
In short, the Court concludes that Plaintiff’s Complaint is without merit and
the legal deficiencies cannot be cured by amendment or supplementation of the
factual allegations.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED:
1) Plaintiff's complaint is dismissed for failure to state a claim pursuant to Fed.
R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) and 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Any amendment to the Complaint would
be futile as the facts are not sufficient to allege Fourth Amendment violations. This
case is therefore terminated. The clerk is directed to enter a judgment pursuant to
Fed. R. Civ. P. 58.
2) This dismissal shall count as one of the plaintiff's three allotted “strikes”
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 1915(g). The Clerk of the Court is directed to record
Plaintiff's strike in the three-strike log.
3) Plaintiff must still pay the full docketing fee of $350 even though his case
has been dismissed. The agency having custody of Plaintiff shall continue to make
monthly payments to the Clerk of Court, as directed in the Court's prior order.
4) If Plaintiff wishes to appeal this dismissal, he must file a notice of appeal
with this Court within 30 days of the entry of judgment. Fed. R. App. P. 4(a). A motion
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for leave to appeal in forma pauperis should set forth the issues Plaintiff plans to
present on appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 24(a)(1)(C). If Plaintiff does choose to appeal,
he will be liable for the $505 appellate filing fee irrespective of the outcome of the
appeal.
SO ORDERED.

Entered this 18th day of May, 2017.
s/ Joe B. McDade
JOE BILLY McDADE
United States Senior District Judge

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