Rule 206 ELECTRONIC CITATION: 2004 FED App. 0264P (6th Cir.) File Name: 04a0264p.06… v. City of Anchorage

*Daniel M. Friedman, Circuit Judge of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sitting by designation.
1
RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206
ELECTRONIC CITATION: 2004 FED App. 0264P (6th Cir.)
File Name: 04a0264p.06
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
_________________
KATHERINE REYNOLDS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CITY OF ANCHORAGE, et al.,
Defendants,
LESLIE WATSON, Jefferson
County Officer,
Defendant-Appellee.
X
-
-
-
->
,
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
N
No. 02-6443
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Kentucky at Louisville.
No. 97-00446—John G. Heyburn II, Chief District Judge.
Argued: March 12, 2004
Decided and Filed: August 9, 2004
Before: NELSON, MOORE, and FRIEDMAN, Circuit
Judges.*
2 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
_________________
COUNSEL
ARGUED: David A. Friedman, FERNANDEZ,
FRIEDMAN, GROSSMAN & KOHN, Louisville, Kentucky,
for Appellant. Suzanne D. Cordery, JEFFERSON COUNTY
ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee.
ON BRIEF: David A. Friedman, FERNANDEZ,
FRIEDMAN, GROSSMAN & KOHN, Louisville, Kentucky,
for Appellant. David L. Leightty, LEIGHTTY &
ASSOCIATES, Louisville, Kentucky, for Appellee.
FRIEDMAN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in
which NELSON, J., joined. MOORE, J. (pp. 17-26),
delivered a separate dissenting opinion.
_________________
OPINION
_________________
FRIEDMAN, Circuit Judge. This appeal challenges a
district court’s summary judgment dismissing a suit under
42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1994) against a female police officer who
made a warrantless strip search of a female resident in a
children’s home. The resident had been placed there
following a juvenile court determination that she had
committed various offenses. The district court dismissed her
suit because it ruled that the police officer had qualified
immunity. We affirm.
I
The “basic underlying facts” are, as the district court stated,
“undisputed.” Mem. Op. at 1.
In 1996, a Kentucky juvenile court found that the appellant
Katherine Reynolds, then sixteen years old, had committed
the offenses of possession of marijuana, forgery, and

-- 1 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 3
fraudulent use of a credit card. As a result, she was removed
from her parents custody and was placed in the Bellewood
Presbyterian Home for Children (“the Bellewood Home”), a
state-approved private facility for juvenile offenders. While
there, she, together with several other girls, lived in Haney
Cottage. Haney Cottage residents, including Reynolds,
“admitted having previously used drugs while living” there.
Id.
On June 8, 1997, Reynolds (then seventeen) and two other
Haney residents walked around the facility’s grounds. Upon
their return, two staff members observed that the girls were
“acting strangely” and suspected drug use might be the
reason. Id. at 2. At that same time, a local police officer of
the city of Anchorage, Kentucky, who was passing Bellewood
in his patrol car, telephoned the staff members to “make sure
everything was alright,” id., and to “say hi.” The staff
members told the officer about their suspicions that the girls
“might be under the influence of drugs and might have drugs
in their possession.” Id. The officer, joined by another local
officer, proceeded to Haney Cottage “to assess the situation.”
Id.
After the girls, including Reynolds, were placed in the
cottage’s living room and instructed to stay there in the
charge of a staff member, the police officers and the other
staff member searched the girls’ rooms. In Reynold’s room
they found “a plastic baggy . . . which the officers believed
may have contained drugs.” Id. In other rooms, the officers
found “a baggy with a plant substance residue the officers
thought might be marijuana, . . . a glass vial which the
officers believed may have been used as a pipe,” and
“prescription pills”– all items the officers “believed to be
associated with drug use.” Id.
“At some point, [Reynolds] insinuated to the staff members
and the officers that she might have drugs hidden in her
undergarments. [Reynolds’] statements coupled with the
suspicious items located in the girls’ rooms and their strange
4 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
behavior convinced the officers that the girls needed to be
searched to ensure that there were no drugs in the cottage.”
Id. Because the officers were all male, they called the county
police department to send a female officer to conduct the
searches. The department sent the appellee, Officer Leslie
Watson, to perform the task. As the district court stated:
Upon her arrival, [Watson] observed the girls running
throughout the cottage, playing loud music, and yelling.
The Anchorage officers said that they had searched the
girls’ rooms and located what they believed to be drug
paraphernalia. She was also informed that the officers
suspected that the girls might be harboring drugs in their
undergarments or other clothing. [Watson] indicated that
she could not perform a body cavity search without a
warrant, but that she would perform a visual strip search
of the girls to look for drugs.
[Watson] conducted the searches one at a time. Each girl
was searched in her own room with a female staff
member present. [Watson] instructed each girl to first to
remove her blouse and bra, put them back on, and then to
remove her bottom clothing and underwear and bend
over to allow a visual inspection of her rectal area.
[Watson] never physically touched any of the girls
during the searches. No drugs were located on any of the
girls during the strip searches.
Id. at 3.
Reynolds then filed in the United States District Court for
the Western District of Kentucky the present suit under
42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the City of Anchorage, its Chief of
Police, and the police officers involved. She sought
injunctive and declaratory relief, and compensatory,
exemplary, and punitive damages. All defendants except
Watson settled.

-- 2 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 5
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court
granted Watson’s motion, ruling that she had qualified
immunity. The court
conclude[d] that in 1997 it was not clearly established
that a search warrant supported by probable cause was
required to constitutionally conduct a strip search of a
minor suspected of possessing drugs in a juvenile home
or detention center. Based on the particular facts, and in
light of the then existing case law to guide [Watson], the
Court conclude[d] that the type and scope of the search
performed on [Reynolds] were objectively reasonable.
Therefore, [Watson] [wa]s qualifiedly immune from suit
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Id. at 11-12.
II
In its most recent qualified immunity decision, the Supreme
Court stated that a court determining “a qualified immunity
defense” in “a suit against an officer for an alleged violation
of a constitutional right,” must make two inquiries. Saucier
v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 200 (2001). First, the “court . . . must
consider . . . this threshold question: Taken in the light most
favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged
show the officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right?”
Id. at 201. “[S]econd, assuming the violation is established,
the question whether the right was clearly established must be
considered . . . . ” Id. at 200. “If no constitutional right
would have been violated were the allegations established,
there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified
immunity. On the other hand, if a violation could be made
out on a favorable view of the parties’ submissions, the next,
sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly
established.” Id. at 201.
We therefore shall consider whether Officer Watson’s strip
search of Reynolds violated the Fourth Amendment and
6 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
whether Officer Watson had qualified immunity in making
the search. See, e.g., Akers v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 1030, 1042
(6th Cir. 2003); Greene v. Barber, 310 F.3d 889, 894 (6th Cir.
2002). In Virgili v. Gilbert, 272 F.3d 391, 394 (6th Cir.
2001), however, decided after Saucier, this court, after
holding that state prison employees had qualified immunity
for strip searching another prison employee, stated: “We need
not and do not, opine on the Fourth Amendment standards to
be applied to strip-searches of prison employees.”
A. The application of the Fourth Amendment to
warrantless strip searches has been developed largely in cases
involving such searches in prisons and in schools. In Bell v.
Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979), the Supreme Court held that
visual body cavity inspections during strip searches of pre-
trial detainees and convicted prisoners after they had contact
with outsiders were not “unreasonable” searches under the
Fourth Amendment. The searches were conducted at the
“federally operated short-term custodial facility in New York
City designed primarily to house pretrial detainees.” Id. at
523. The Court stated that applying “[t]he test of
reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment . . . [i]n each
case . . . requires a balancing of the need for the particular
search against the invasion of personal rights that the search
entails. Courts must consider the scope of the particular
intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the
justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is
conducted.” Id. at 559. It pointed out that a “detention
facility is a unique place fraught with serious security
dangers. Smuggling of money, drugs, weapons, and other
contraband is all too common an occurrence.” Id.
In Dobrowolskyj v. Jefferson County, 823 F.2d 955 (6th
Cir. 1987), this court held that under Wolfish‘s balancing
analysis, the strip search of a detainee in a local jail pursuant
to a policy of so searching detainees before moving them into
an area of the jail where they would have contact with the
general prison population, was not an unreasonable search
and therefore did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The

-- 3 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 7
court stated: “The security interests of the jail in conducting
a search at this point were strong. Dobrowolskyj was about
to come into direct contact with the general jail population,
including prisoners who would then be moved into all
sections of the jail. The jail had legitimate interests in
preventing the flow of contraband into the other sections of
the jail.” Id. at 959.
Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868 (1987), although
involving a different issue, provides further guidance. The
question there was whether a probation officer’s warrantless
search of a probationer’s home, pursuant to a state regulation
authorizing such search if there were “reasonable grounds” to
believe that contraband was present there, violated the Fourth
Amendment. Id. at 870-71. The search was made after the
police had told the probation department that “there were or
might be guns” in the probationer’s apartment. Id. at 871.
The search uncovered a handgun in the apartment. The Court
held that “[t]he search of [the probationer’s] residence was
‘reasonable’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment
because it was conducted pursuant to a valid regulation
governing probationers.” Id. at 880.
The Court indicated that “[a] warrant requirement would
interfere to an appreciable degree with the probation system,”
id. at 876, and that “the probation regime would also be
unduly disrupted by a requirement of probable cause,” id. at
878. It stated: “In such circumstances it is both unrealistic
and destructive of the whole object of the continuing
probation relationship to insist upon the same degree of
demonstrable reliability of particular items of supporting data,
and upon the same degree of certainty of violation, as is
required in other contexts. In some cases – especially those
involving drugs or illegal weapons – the probation agency
must be able to act based upon a lesser degree of certainty
than the Fourth Amendment would otherwise require in order
to intervene before a probationer does damage to himself or
society.” Id. at 879.
8 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
Cases involving searches of students by school authorities
also are instructive. In New Jersey v. T. L. O., a school
principal searched a student’s purse after a teacher found the
student smoking in the restroom, in violation of school rules.
469 U.S. 325, 328 (1985). The Court held that the search was
reasonable. After noting that the Fourth Amendment “applies
to searches conducted by public school officials,” id. at 333,
the Court stated that “school officials need not obtain a
warrant before searching a student who is under their
authority,” id. at 340. It stated that “the accommodation of
the privacy interests of schoolchildren with the substantial
need of teachers and administrators for freedom to maintain
order in the schools does not require strict adherence to the
requirement that searches be based on probable cause to
believe that the subject of the search has violated or is
violating the law. Rather, the legality of a search of a student
should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the
circumstances, of the search. . . . Under ordinary
circumstances, a search of a student by a teacher or other
school official will be ‘justified at its inception’ when there
are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn
up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either
the law or the rules of the school. Such a search will be
permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are
reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not
excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student
and the nature of the infraction.” Id. at 341-42 (footnotes
omitted).
This court applied the T.L.O. resonableness analysis to a
warrantless strip search for drugs conducted by school
officials in Williams v. Ellington, 936 F.2d 881 (6th Cir.
1991). There a female student reported to the principal
(Ellington) that Williams and another girl had used drugs at
school; there was other evidence that supported that
conclusion. After a search of William’s locker, books and
purse produced no evidence of drugs, the principal asked a
female assistant principal to strip search Williams, which she
did. Id. at 883. No drugs were found.

-- 4 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 9
Williams then filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against
school officials (including the principal and the assistant
principal who conducted the strip search) and the school
board members. This court affirmed the district court’s
summary judgment for the defendants. Id. at 889. It held that
the defendants had qualified immunity. Id. This court stated:
Ellington’s decision to search Williams and her
possessions for the presence of drugs was based upon the
events that occurred during the week of January 17,
1988. A study of the record leads us to conclude that
Ellington and the remaining Defendants were not
unreasonable in suspecting, based on the information
available at the time, that a search of Williams would
reveal evidence of drugs or drug use. Further,
Defendants were not unreasonable, in light of the item
sought (a small vial containing suspected narcotics), in
conducting a search so personally intrusive in nature.
Id. at 887
In Tarter v. Raybuck, 742 F.2d 977, 983 (6th Cir. 1984),
this court held that school officials had made a reasonable
search of a student’s person (although he did not remove all
of his clothing) where they “had observed activity they
reasonably believed to indicate the use and sale of marijuana,
activity which plainly constituted a violation of a well
established policy.” This court stated that in determining
whether the search was reasonable, “we balance the [F]ourth
[A]mendment rights of individual students with the interest of
the state and the school officials in the maintenance of a
proper educational environment to educate today’s youth.”
Id. at 982. It “h[e]ld that a school official or teacher’s
reasonable search of a student’s person does not violate the
student’s [F]ourth [A]mendment rights, if the school official
has reasonable cause to believe the search is necessary in the
furtherance of maintaining school discipline and order, or his
duty to maintain a safe environment conducive to education.”
Id.
10 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
B. Under the foregoing decisions, the determination of the
reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment of a strip search
of a juvenile delinquent in a detention facility requires us to
balance “the need for the particular search against the
invasion of personal rights that the search entails.” Wolfish,
441 U.S. at 559.
The situation of the juvenile delinquent inmates of the
Bellewood Home lay somewhere between that of prison
inmates and students in school. The Bellewood inmates were
not as closely confined or strictly controlled and supervised
as prison inmates or detainees. Perhaps their expectations of
privacy in that situation were somewhat greater than those of
prisoners, but this slight difference appears insignificant. On
the other hand, they were still subject to substantial restraint;
they were required to live and remain in the Home and they
were not free to leave it as they wished. Their confinement to
the Home, like that of inmates in a prison, was punishment
for prior criminal misdeeds. In comparison to students in
school, whose mandatory attendance is not punishment for
criminal misconduct but a method of insuring their education,
the inmates of the Home were under substantially greater
restraint and had a lesser expectation of privacy than do
students.
Applying this balancing approach, we conclude that Officer
Watson’s strip search of Reynolds was not unreasonable. In
so concluding, we apply Wolfish’s admonition to “consider
the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it
[was] conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the
place in which it [was] conducted.” Id. Wolfish also pointed
out that a “detention facility is a unique place fraught with
serious security dangers. Smuggling of money, drugs,
weapons, and other contraband is all too common an
occurrence.” Id. The Bellewood Home also was “a unique
place fraught with” a variety of problems and dangers,
including the use of drugs by its residents. The need to
“maintain[] . . . discipline and order” there is no less than in
school. Tarter, 742 F.2d at 982.

-- 5 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 11
Following the determination by the juvenile court that
Reynolds had committed three criminal offenses, including
possession of marijuana, the court removed her from her
parents’ custody and placed her in the Bellewood Home,
which thereby became her new “home.” The Bellewood
Home had the duty and responsibility to insure the safety,
health, and well being of Reynolds and the other inmates.
The use and/or possession of drugs by Reynolds or the other
girls would cause serious problems within the Bellewood
Home and adversely affect its proper functioning. The Home
thus had a strong interest in eliminating and preventing drug
use on the premises by its residents.
Watson and other girls admitted they previously had used
drugs while living in the Home. They had acted “strangely”
after returning from a walk, which led staff members to
suspect the use of drugs. A search of their rooms by the
police officers had uncovered paraphernalia that the officers
“believed to be associated with drugs use.” Mem. Op. at 2.
Reynolds had insinuated that she had drugs hidden in her
underwear. The police officers justifiably concluded that the
only way to assuage these concerns about the girls’
possession of drugs “and to ensure that there were no drugs in
the cottage” was to strip search the girls. Id.
Although the strip search was a highly invasive procedure,
it was no more invasive than necessary to accomplish its
purpose of insuring that Reynolds and the other girls were not
concealing drugs on their persons. It was conducted in a way
designed to minimize its intrusive effect. Officer Watson
made the search in the privacy of the girls’ own rooms and in
the presence of only a single staff member. She did not touch
any of the girls during the search. Considering all the
circumstances, we conclude that Officer Watson’s strip search
of Reynolds was not unreasonable.
Reynolds continues to rely heavily here, as she did in the
district court, on this court’s unpublished opinion in Toles v.
Friedman, No. 99-4031, 2000 WL 1871683 (6th Cir. Dec 11,
12 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
2000). As the district court correctly stated, however, the
“circumstances” in the present case “are significantly
different from those in Toles.” Mem. Op. at 6.
In Toles, three girls had spent some time trying on bathing
suits in a department store but did not purchase any. A clerk,
suspicious because of the length of time the girls were in the
dressing room, called the defendant Friedman, an off-duty
police officer who was doing security work for the store.
When the girls were about to leave the store, Friedman
stopped them. After searching their purses and finding
nothing, he suspected that they might be concealing a bathing
suit under their outer clothing. Friedman arranged for a
female security guard at the mall where the store was located
to strip search the girls. She did so but did not find a bathing
suit.
The girls sued Friedman, who claimed qualified immunity.
The district court refused to grant such immunity, finding
there were disputed factual issues. Friedman appealed to this
court only from the denial of qualified immunity.
We dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction because an
order denying qualified immunity due to the presence of a
disputed issue of material fact is not immediately appealable.
We held that there was such an issue: whether the girls
consented to the strip search. We ruled that “a reasonable law
enforcement officer, in the circumstances presented, could not
believe that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless
strip searches of the young women,” and that “the only
possible exception to the warrant requirement that could have
validated the presumptively unreasonable, warrantless search
was a search undertaken pursuant to the consent of the
plaintiffs.” Id. at **4. We concluded that “[t]he existence of
that unresolved factual dispute preclude[d] this court from
exercising jurisdiction over this appeal at this time.” Id. at
** 5.

-- 6 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 13
In Toles, the defendant sought to justify the strip search on
the basis of exigent circumstances, an exception to the
warrant requirement not involved here. Toles arose in the
commercial context of a suspected theft by customers in a
department store – a situation totally unlike the suspected use
of drugs by a juvenile delinquent in a children’s home.
C. Should the analysis or result be different because the
strip search was conducted by a police officer rather than by
an employee of the Bellewood Home? We think not.
As Reynolds points out, the cases we have discussed in Part
II.A that formulate and apply the balancing test in
determining the Fourth Amendment reasonableness of strip
searches involved searches by persons other than police
officers. It does not follow, however, that those principles
cannot properly be applied where the strip search is made by
a police officer. Those cases do not state that their principles
are inapplicable to strip searches by police officers.
The inquiry in those cases focused on balancing “the need
for the particular [strip] search against the invasion of
personal rights that the search entails,” Wolfish, 441 U.S. at
559, not on the identity of the person conducting the search.
As we have shown, under that balancing test the strip search
of Reynolds would have been reasonable if the staff members
of the Bellewood Home had conducted it. We see no valid
reason why the result should be different because it was a
police officer who conducted the search. In either instance,
the purpose and objective of the search was the same: to help
the Home determine whether the girls possessed drugs, and
thus to aid the Home in uncovering what the facts suggested
may have been the illegal use of drugs by some of the
residents.
The district court concluded that, based on the facts known
to Officer Watson, described above,
14 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
it was not unreasonable for [Watson] to conclude that a
search was necessary both to ensure [Reynolds’] safety
and the safety of the other residents. Thus, it was
objectively reasonable for [Watson] to conclude that
interests apart from those of ordinary law enforcement
permitted her to conduct a warrantless strip search of
[Reynolds].
Mem. Op. at 11.
On this record, we have no reason to disagree with or reject
those conclusions. Under them, the search did not require a
warrant even though conducted by a police officer. It was
reasonable because Officer Watson had a reasonable
suspicion that the girls possessed narcotics. Cf. United States
v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 121 (2001) (“When an officer has
reasonable suspicion that a probationer subject to a search
condition is engaged in criminal activity, there is enough
likelihood that criminal conduct is occurring that an intrusion
on the probationer’s significantly diminished privacy interests
is reasonable.”).
III
Even if our conclusion that the strip search did not violate
the Fourth Amendment were to be rejected, we still would
affirm the district court’s summary judgment for Officer
Watson dismissing the complaint. That is because we agree
with the district court that Officer Watson had qualified
immunity for conducting the search.
The Supreme Court has explained that
[t]he concern of the [qualified] immunity inquiry is to
acknowledge that reasonable mistakes can be made as to
the legal constraints on particular police conduct. It is
sometimes difficult for an officer to determine how the
relevant legal doctrine . . . will apply to the factual
situation the officer confronts. An officer might

-- 7 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 15
correctly perceive all of the relevant facts but have a
mistaken understanding as to whether a particular
amount of force is legal in those circumstances. If the
officer’s mistake as to what the law requires is
reasonable, however, the officer is entitled to the
immunity defense.
Saucier, 533 U.S. at 205.
Under qualified immunity, “government officials
performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded
from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does
not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional
rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). See also
Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985) (In damage suit
against former Attorney General Mitchell for authorizing a
wiretap, “[u]nder Harlow v. Fitzgerald, Mitchell [was]
immune unless his actions violated clearly established law.”).
This court has stated that “[t]o determine what rights are
‘clearly established,’ we must look to decisions from the
Supreme Court and from courts within this circuit,” although
“[i]n rare instances, where authority is lacking from these
sources, we may also review decisions of other courts.”
Williams v. Ellington, 936 F.2d at 885.
“The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether
a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a
reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the
situation he confronted.” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202. The
district court correctly concluded that when Officer Watson
conducted the strip searches in 1997, it was not clearly
established that those searches were unlawful and that it
would not have been clear to her that her conduct was
unlawful.
There has been no decision of the Supreme Court, this court
or any courts within this circuit – or, as far as we know, of
any other court – that has addressed the application of the
16 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
Fourth Amendment to strip searches of juvenile delinquents
in an institutional home in which they are confined.
Moreover, as is shown by the analysis, in Part II above, of
existing precedent that deals with the Fourth Amendment
status of strip searches in other contexts, the question is close
and difficult. It involves subtle legal distinctions and
inferences that a reasonable police officer would not and
could not be expected to make.
In these circumstances, any mistake that Officer Watson
may have made about her authority to conduct the strip
searches was reasonable. It cannot be said that at that time it
was clearly established that Reynolds had a constitutional
right not to be so searched except pursuant to a valid search
warrant.
Officer Watson was aware of and sensitive to the existing
settled limits upon her authority to make strip searches. As
the district court noted, upon arriving at the Bellewood Home,
she “indicated that she could not perform a body cavity search
without a warrant, but that she would perform a visual strip
search of the girls to look for drugs.” Mem. Op. at 3. Even
if she were mistaken in concluding that she could make a
warrantless visual strip search, such mistake was reasonable.
CONCLUSION
The summary judgment of the district court in favor of
Officer Watson is affirmed.

-- 8 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 17
_______________
DISSENT
_______________
KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge, dissenting. In
holding that Officer Watson’s warrantless strip-search of a
seventeen-year-old girl was “reasonable” under the Fourth
Amendment, the district court relied on the “special needs”
exception to the rule that all warrantless searches are
presumptively unreasonable. In affirming that dubious
holding, the majority untethers the district court’s language
from its reasoning, and in a single paragraph of analysis,
relies on United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 121 (2001),
to conclude that “reasonable suspicion” is all that is necessary
to justify a strip-search of a juvenile in a private group home
by police acting without authorization from that home’s staff.
I believe the district court was wrong to conclude that this
was a valid “special needs” search, I believe the majority is
wrong to rely on Knights rather than the general rule that a
warrantless search is presumptively unreasonable unless
falling into an enumerated exception, and I believe that even
under the balancing test used in Knights, this search was
unreasonable.
The majority relies upon the district court’s recitation of
facts, and in doing so amplifies the district court’s errors. The
“basic underlying facts” are not “undisputed”; a thorough
review of the record reveals that the version of events given
by the police officers in their deposition testimony and
written reports and that of the staff of the Bellewood home
and its residents are wildly divergent. Compare Dep. of
Officer Watson, R. 119, at 32 (“I tried to do it [the strip-
searches] as gently as possible and considerate as possible”)
with Dep. of Katherine Reynolds, R. 92, at 157 (“And then
[Watson] said, “If you don’t take off the f***ing bra, I’m
going to take it off for you.”) and Dep. of Sarah Lynette
Holman, R. 101, at 44-45 (describing Watson as “rude” and
“cocky”). This divergence is most acute at what I believe to
18 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
1Melissa Adamchik is the staff member’s married name; in the
record, she is sometimes identified by her maiden name, M elissa
W ambaugh.
be a key juncture: whether or not the strip-searches of the
residents of Haney Cottage were authorized by staff members
or instead were initiated by police. It is of course the facts as
asserted by Katherine Reynolds (“Reynolds”), the non-
moving party, that we must follow. Bellewood Presbyterian
Home for Children (“Bellewood”) is a private group home for
abused and at-risk children, with an explicitly religious
mission, which is under contract to the Kentucky Cabinet for
Human Resources. Reynolds was sent to Bellewood after
being adjudicated delinquent for marijuana possession,
second-degree forgery, and fraudulent use of a credit card.
Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) at 84. While Reynolds and others
were sent to Bellewood after juvenile delinquency
proceedings, this is not true of all of Bellewood’s residents.
Reynolds was seventeen at the time of the incident, and lived
at Haney Cottage with other juveniles and staff members.
J.A. at 207, 213, 218.
On June 8, 1997, Reynolds and two other residents of
Haney Cottage took a walk on the Bellewood grounds. When
they returned, they were acting “strange” and two Bellewood
staff members, Melissa Adamchik (“Adamchik”)1 and
Stephanie Jacob (“Jacob”), suspected the girls of using drugs.
J.A. at 89. At roughly the same time, Anchorage Police
Officer Toby Lewis (“Lewis”), whose beat included
Bellewood, called the cottage from his cell phone as he drove
by. Lewis testified that he called “just to say hi.” J.A. at 157.
During the course of the friendly conversation, Adamchik and
Jacob informed Lewis of their suspicions of drug use. J.A. at
86, 143-44, 158-62. Lewis then entered the cottage, and the
decision was made to search the girls’ rooms. J.A. at 158-62.
Lewis’s deposition testimony was that Adamchik and Jacob
had asked him to search the girls, and when he informed them
that he could not, and offered to search the rooms, they then

-- 9 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 19
asked him to do that. J.A. at 161-63. Adamchik testified that
they did not ask Lewis to perform a search, which conforms
to her account of events in written incident reports, but that a
call was placed to Carol Wochenko, head therapist for Haney
Cottage, who indicated her approval of the room searches.
J.A. at 80, 89, 121-22; Dep. of Melissa Adamchik, R. 162, at
37. Lewis called in for backup, and Officer James Ennis
(“Ennis”) arrived at the scene. A search of all five rooms at
Haney Cottage ensued, during which time a third Anchorage
police officer, Officer Timothy Young (“Young”) arrived.
J.A. at 86. In Reynolds’s room, two packs of cigarettes and
an empty plastic bag (the “plastic baggy . . . which the
officers believe may have contained drugs” noted by the
majority) were found; in other residents’ rooms, seven
lawfully-prescribed Depakote tablets, a clear vial with a white
powder residue, and a small baggie with trace amounts of an
unidentified brown substance were found. J.A. at 86. The
latter two items were later sent to be tested, and the powder
turned out to be non-drug related, while the brown substance
was not substantial enough to be tested. J.A. at 186. The
district court stated that Reynolds and other Haney Cottage
residents “admitted having previously used drugs while
living” at the cottage, J.A. at 29. Presumably this is meant to
have relevance in determining the reasonableness of
subsequent events; this statement may refer to Officer
Lewis’s testimony that at a prior talk he had given to the
residents of Haney Cottage, Reynolds had stated “that she has
used drugs in the past and she will continue to use drugs.”
Dep. of Toby Lewis at 93-94. Whatever the reliability of this
hearsay, such adolescent bravado has limited value in
determining whether Reynolds had contraband on her person
at some future time.
At this point, the majority repeats the district court’s
description of a statement by Reynolds to the supposed effect
“that she might have drugs hidden in her undergarments.” In
fact, frustrated by what she no doubt saw as an intrusive and
ultimately fruitless search of her residence, Reynolds pointed
out to Jacob that room searches were useless, because the
20 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
girls could have contraband on their persons. “[I]t just
seemed kind of pointless to me.” J.A. at 261 (Dep. of
Katherine Reynolds). The decision was then made to perform
a strip-search on the girls. According to Lewis, it was Ennis
who made the instant decision to search the girls, but
consistent with his earlier testimony that the entire incident
was prompted by a staff request to search the girls, Lewis also
testified that when Watson arrived, he informed Watson that
the staff had requested that the girls be searched. J.A. at 189-
90, 199-200. Watson testified that when she arrived, both
staff members and her three fellow officers individually
requested that she perform the search. J.A. at 274-75, Dep. of
Leslie Watson at 15-19. Adamchik, on the other hand,
testified that the first mention of strip-searches came from the
officers, that she did not request the strip-searches, and that
she never heard Jacob request the strip-searches. J.A. at 128-
29, 134-35, 137-38. No further phone call was placed to
Carol Wochenko. Reynolds testified that Adamchik or Jacob
informed her that the police had decided to strip-search the
girls, and other Haney Cottage residents described Adamchik
as visibly physically distressed at the strip-searches. Dep. of
Katherine Reynolds at 143-44, 180 (“[S]he said that they [the
police] were the ones that initiated it, the strip search”); Dep.
of Carla Dana Hudson at 184-85; Dep. of Shatonya Lanyce
Elam at 136-37. At that point, each girl was taken into her
own room by Watson and strip-searched with Adamchik
present. Although Watson testified that each girl was first
instructed to remove her shirt and bra, and then put them back
on, and then remove her pants and underwear and bend over,
and then put her clothing back on, at least one of the girls
testified that to the contrary, she was entirely naked during the
search. J.A. at 283-84 (Dep. of Leslie Watson); Dep. of Sarah
Lynette Holman, R. 101, at 45. Each girl was also made to
bend over and spread her buttocks. No drugs were
discovered.
“Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable under the
fourth amendment, except in a few carefully delineated
instances.” United States v. Radka, 904 F.2d 357, 360 (6th

-- 10 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 21
Cir. 1990); see also Groh v. Ramirez, 124 S. Ct. 1284, 1290-
91 (2004) (reaffirming presumption that warrantless searches
are unreasonable in context of search of home). Those
exceptions include automobile searches, consented-to
searches, searches incident to arrest, seizures of items in plain
view, Terry stops, the hot-pursuit rule, and searches in order
to prevent the loss or destruction of evidence. The district
court relied upon the “special needs” doctrine in granting
qualified immunity to Watson. J.A. at 29, 34-35. The
“special needs” doctrine, first articulated by Justice Blackmun
in his concurring opinion in New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S.
325, 351 (1985), constitutes an exception to the rule that all
searches must be pursuant to a search warrant obtained by the
demonstration of probable cause in those cases where “special
needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the
warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable.” Id.
T.L.O. involved a search of a public-school student by school
officials on the basis of particularized suspicion, but the
“special needs” doctrine has since been extended by the
Supreme Court to allow suspicionless drug testing of public-
school students involved in after-school activities, see Bd. of
Educ. of Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 92 v. Earls, 536 U.S. 822
(1990), and workers in sensitive industries, see Skinner v. Ry.
Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989) (railway
employees who violate safety rules or who are involved in
accidents); Nat’l Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab,
489 U.S. 656 (1989) (customs officials who carry a firearm or
work in drug interdiction), sobriety checkpoints, see Mich.
Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990), and
warrantless searches of probationers’ private residences, see
Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868 (1987). The Court has
made clear, however, that searches whose primary purpose is
law enforcement are not “special needs” searches. See
Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67 (2001); City of
Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32 (2000). Although Bell
v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979), predates T.L.O., its holding
that pretrial detainees can be subject to body-cavity searches
after every contact visit consonant with the Fourth
Amendment has been later contextualized by the Supreme
22 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
Court as part of the “special needs” doctrine. See Skinner,
489 U.S. at 619-20. Each case cited by the majority in the
first part of its analysis is thus part of the “special needs”
exception to the warrantless search per se rule.
Under the “special needs” doctrine, a search of a particular
student, with the exception of drug testing, must be supported
by reasonable suspicion, which Reynolds concedes exists in
this case. Reynolds’s Reply Brief at 1; T.L.O., 469 U.S. at
341-42. We have relied upon this holding to extend qualified
immunity to officials performing strip-searches of public-
school students for drugs. See Williams v. Ellington, 936
F.2d 881, 887-89 (6th Cir. 1991). The majority therefore is
likely correct to conclude that Bellewood Home “had a strong
interest in eliminating and preventing drug use on the
premises by its residents” that could support a warrantless
strip-search of Reynolds by Bellewood’s staff upon
reasonable suspicion that she was concealing contraband on
her person. The majority in the next paragraph then reveals
its logical misstep in stating, “The police officers justifiably
concluded that the only way to assuage these concerns . . .
was to strip-search the girls.” This marriage between the
needs of the Bellewood Home and the conclusions and
actions of the police officers is not merely a question of the
identity of the searcher, but of the object of the search.
Whether a warrantless strip-search initiated and authorized by
Bellewood staff, but conducted by police, would have been a
valid “special needs” search was a question expressly left
open by T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 342 n.7 (reserving question of
“searches conducted by school officials in conjunction with
or at the behest of law enforcement agencies”). This question
is thus perhaps deserving of more than a page of analysis in
its answer, but that answer is entirely academic in this case:
taking Reynolds’s version of facts as correct, we must assume
that police initiated and performed the strip-searches on their
own. Under those facts, it becomes clear that a constitutional
violation did, in fact, occur. Police officers, invited onto
private property, cannot initiate a warrantless strip-search of
citizens merely because some other authority has the right to

-- 11 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 23
search those citizens to maintain order in its facility. That
result is clearly contrary to the sharp line drawn by the
Supreme Court between valid “special needs” searches and
those that are unlawful because they serve ordinary law
enforcement goals as well as special needs. See Ferguson,
532 U.S. at 79-80.
The majority in its ultimate conclusion that no
constitutional violation occurred relies on United States v.
Knights, 534 U.S. 112 (2001). To the extent that Knights
eschewed reliance on the “special needs” exception to the
general rule that a warrantless search is unconstitutional in
favor of a more general balancing approach, that case is
necessarily limited to its facts by subsequent cases which
have reaffirmed the per se rule/carefully delineated exceptions
approach to warrantless searches of the home. See Groh, 124
S. Ct. at 1290-91. In fact, Knights has not been cited again
by the Supreme Court in deciding nearly a dozen cases
involving Fourth Amendment reasonableness. Nonetheless,
even assessing the search under Knights’s general
reasonableness equation, I believe this search was still
unreasonable, because the key problem with this search is that
the government had no interest in it beyond a generalized
interest in law enforcement, and that interest cannot justify
the strip-search, particularly of a minor, based merely on
reasonable suspicion. See Knights, 534 U.S. at 118-19
(“reasonableness of a search is determined ‘by assessing, on
the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an
individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it
is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental
interests.’” (quoting Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295,
300 (1999)). While Bellewood had an interest in maintaining
order in its facility, one that may have been served by the
search of Reynolds, Bellewood was not the entity searching
Reynolds, nor is it necessarily a governmental entity at all; it
is a private religious home for children. Whether or not that
private institution can “deputize” police officers to search its
residents, surely police officers cannot of their own initiative
do so without being subject to the normal rules governing
24 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
2United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 121 (2001), can of course
offer Watson no help at this stage of the inquiry, as it was decided after
the events in question too k place; add itionally, there is no indication
anywhere in the record that W atson knew that R eynolds was herself a
delinquent or that Haney Cottage was home o nly to delinquents.
such searches. If Reynolds had been home on a weekend
visit, as was regular, and her parents had invited Watson into
the home to speak to Reynolds about the dangers of drug use,
would the majority hold that Watson could then proceed to
strip-search Reynolds without her parents’ permission
because their interests in keeping their daughter away from
drugs justified the intrusion on Reynolds’s right to be free
from unreasonable searches? I see little logical distinction
between such obviously excessive police behavior and the
actions of police we must assume took place here.
Finally, I disagree that Watson is entitled to qualified
immunity. Because the general rule that a warrantless search
is unreasonable was clearly established in 1997, I believe that
the majority inverts the proper inquiry when it notes that no
court has addressed the application of the Fourth Amendment
to the situation before us today in support of qualified
immunity; instead, if no case suggests that a police officer is
entitled to rely on similar administrative “special needs” in
initiating a strip-search herself, Watson is not immune from
suit. No cases in our circuit, nor indeed any court addressing
the related issue of when searches on school grounds are
appropriate, suggest that Watson’s actions were justified.2
Since T.L.O., courts have generally held that T.L.O.’s
reasonable-suspicion standard applies to searches conducted
by law enforcement officials at the behest of school officials.
See Shade v. City of Farmington, 309 F.3d 1054, 1060 (8th
Cir. 2002) (search constitutional where “school officials, not
law enforcement officers, initiated the investigation and the
search”); Cason v. Cook, 810 F.2d 188, 192 (8th Cir. 1987)
(no violation where “no indication that but for the deputy’s
involvement, the plaintiff would not have been searched”);

-- 12 of 13 --

No. 02-6443 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. 25
State v. N.G.B., 806 So. 2d 567, 568-69 (Fl. Dist. Ct. App.
2002) (“reasonable suspicion was the appropriate standard”
where search of student by police officer was initiated and
directed by school official); In re Josue T., 989 P.2d 431, 437
(N.M. Ct. App. 1999) (reasonable suspicion applies where
police officer “merely assisted the school official, during the
school day, at the school official’s request, to protect student
welfare and the educational milieu”); In re Angelia D.B., 564
N.W. 2d 682, 688, 690 (Wisc. 1997) (reasonable suspicion
standard applies where school liasion officer “became
involved in th[e] investigation only after school officials
requested his assistance” and worked in conjunction with
school officials). But see In re A.J.M., 617 So. 2d 1137, 1138
(Fl. Dist. Ct. App. 1993) (where police officer “directed,
participated in or acquiesced in the search,” probable cause is
required). Other courts have also held that where a police
officer is employed by the school or school district and the
search is consonant with the “special needs” of school
discipline, the T.L.O. standard also applies. See People v.
Dilworth, 661 N.E.2d 310, 317 (Ill. 1996). But when
confronted with a search like that at issue here, initiated by
law enforcement officers not under the supervisory control of
school authorities, courts have uniformly held that probable
cause is required. See In re F.P., 528 So. 2d 1253, 1254 (Fl.
Dist. Ct. App. 1988) (exception to probable cause requirement
“does not apply when the search is carried out at the behest of
the police”); State v. Tywayne H., 933 P.2d 251, 254 (N.M.
Ct. App. 1997) (T.L.O. standard inapplicable where search
“conducted completely at the discretion of the police
officers”); In re Thomas B.D., 486 S.E.2d 498, 500, 504-506
(S.C. Ct. App. 1997) (while search was of student and took
place on school property, T.L.O. standard inapplicable
because police were acting on their own authority and not as
agents of the school). See generally Wayne R. LaFave,
Search and Seizure § 10.11 (discussing three categories of
cases). These cases demonstrate once again that the “special
needs” doctrine is wholly inapplicable on Reynolds’s version
of the facts, where police, unconnected to the institution
whose “special needs” are said to justify the search,
26 Reynolds v. City of Anchorage, et al. No. 02-6443
conducted searches on their own initiative. See also Tarter v.
Raybuck, 742 F.2d 977, 983 (6th Cir. 1984) (pre-T.L.O. case
noting that “[t]he presence of the police officers does take this
case purely out of the context of school officials seeking to
maintain an environment conducive to the educational
process” but concluding that “involvement of the police with
respect to the plaintiff is marginal” in case where plaintiff was
searched only by school officials acting on their own). The
consensus of all prior courts is that when police act on their
own initiative, they cannot rely on the “special needs” of
school officials. See F.P., 528 So. 2d at 1254; Tywayne H.,
933 P.2d at 254; Thomas B.D., 486 S.E.2d at 500, 504-506.
I would therefore reverse the district court’s decision and
remand the case for trial.

-- 13 of 13 --