Bartz, Justin v. Columbia County et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
JUSTIN BARTZ,
Plaintiff,
v.
COLUMBIA COUNTY, ROBIN MESSER,
NOAH HOLLANDER, SCOUT BAHR,
JILL OSTRANDER, MITCHELL WOLFGRAM, and
JORDAN HAUETER,
Defendants.
OPINION and ORDER
24-cv-671-jdp
Defendant Robin Messer, a deputy and canine handler with the Columbia County
Sheriff’s Office, stopped a truck for a minor traffic violation. Plaintiff Justin Bartz was a
passenger in the truck. Messer’s drug-sniffing K-9 alerted to the presence of a controlled
substance at the truck. But Messer didn’t find any drugs after patting down Bartz and searching
the truck. Messer handcuffed Bartz, put him in his squad car, and drove him to the Columbia
County Jail. There, Bartz was patted down and a scan of his body was taken using the jail’s
body scanner. Bartz was released after the scan showed he didn’t have drugs in his clothing or
body cavities. Bartz contends that defendants violated his Fourth Amendment rights by
detaining him to conduct additional searches at the jail.
Both sides move for summary judgment. Bartz moves for summary judgment against
the individual defendants. Dkt. 26. Defendants move for summary judgment on all claims.
Dkt. 32. Bartz contends that he was detained so that law enforcement officers could develop
evidence that would justify his detention. But the undisputed facts show that defendants had
probable cause to detain Bartz based on evidence acquired during the traffic stop, and the
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search for additional evidence did not violate Bartz’s Fourth Amendment rights. The court will
grant summary judgment to defendants and dismiss this case.
BACKGROUND
The court draws the following facts from the officers’ body camera footage and from
the parties’ proposed findings of fact. These facts are undisputed.
This case arises from a traffic stop, the legitimacy of which Bartz does not contest. The
material facts begin when defendant deputy Robin Messer’s K-9 alerted to the odor of a
controlled substance. After Messer’s K-9 alerted, Messer spoke with plaintiff Justin Bartz, who
said that there was nothing in the truck and that he doesn’t even smoke marijuana. Messer
asked Bartz to exit the truck and, with Bartz’s permission, patted him down. Messer found no
drugs on Bartz. Messer put Bartz in his squad car while he searched the truck. Messer found
no drugs inside the truck either. Messer’s K-9 did not alert when he sniffed inside the truck.
Messer went back to his squad car and asked Bartz when he last used drugs. Bartz at
first said he couldn’t remember. Messer asked Bartz if Bartz and the truck’s driver had used
drugs earlier that evening, and Bartz admitted that they had smoked marijuana about 30 to
45 minutes before the traffic stop. Messer put Bartz back in his squad car, and then he called
his supervisor, defendant Jordan Haueter, a lieutenant with the Sheriff’s Office. Messer asked
Haueter if he could bring Bartz and the truck’s driver to the Columbia County Jail and scan
their bodies using the jail’s body scanner. Haueter agreed that Messer could do so.
Messer went back to his squad car and told Bartz he was being taken to the jail. Messer
had Bartz step out of his squad car so that he could put him in handcuffs. Bartz said: “So,
you’re placing me under arrest.” Dkt. 35, Ex. 3 (Messer Body Cam, at 01:06:49–01:06:50).
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Messer responded: “Nope. You’re just detained.” Id. at 01:06:50–01:06:51. Messer also said:
“And if you don’t have anything on you, then you get released.” Id. at 01:07:04–01:07:07.
Then, Messer handcuffed Bartz, put him back in his squad car, and drove him to the jail.
Upon Bartz’s arrival at the jail, defendant Mitchell Wolfgram, a deputy with the
Sheriff’s Office who worked as a jailer, patted Bartz down. Wolfgram didn’t find any drugs.
Defendant Jill Ostrander, also a deputy and jailer, told Messer that the buttons on Bartz’s jeans
would show up on the body scanner, so she had Wolfgram put Bartz in jail uniform pants.
After Bartz changed, defendant Scout Bahr, another deputy and jailer, had him step into the
body scanner and then scanned his body. While Bartz was being scanned, Wolfgram looked
through Bartz’s jeans, sweater, and boots; he didn’t find any drugs. The scan of Bartz’s body
didn’t show any drugs on him or in his body cavities. Bartz was released without charges.
Additional facts will be discussed where pertinent to the analysis.
ANALYSIS
The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The essential
question is whether defendants’ actions were objectively reasonable under the circumstances.
United States v. Cole, 21 F.4th 421, 427 (7th Cir. 2021) (en banc). Bartz contends that
defendants violated the Fourth Amendment in two ways: first by unlawfully arresting him, and
then by conducting unlawful searches at the jail.
Both sides move for summary judgment on the main liability issues. The court will grant
summary judgment if the material facts are undisputed and the moving party is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). When faced with cross-motions, courts
apply the same summary judgment standards, viewing the facts and all reasonable inferences
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from those facts in favor of the non-moving party for the motion under consideration. Blow v.
Bijora, Inc., 855 F.3d 793, 797 (7th Cir. 2017). The question is whether there is admissible
evidence that would support a reasonable jury verdict for the nonmoving party. Anderson v.
Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986).
A. Unlawful arrest
Bartz contends that defendants unlawfully arrested him. Dkt. 27, at 9. 1 Officers violate
the Fourth Amendment if they arrest an individual without probable cause. Gonzalez v. City of
Elgin, 578 F.3d 526, 537 (7th Cir. 2009). The existence of probable cause is an absolute defense
to unlawful arrest claims. Lyberger v. Snider, 42 F.4th 807, 811 (7th Cir. 2022). Probable cause
to arrest exists if a reasonable officer with the same knowledge as the arresting officer would
have believed that the arrestee had probably committed a crime. See Michigan v. DeFillippo,
443 U.S. 31, 37 (1979); Whitlock v. Brown, 596 F.3d 406, 411 (7th Cir. 2010).
Messer had probable cause to arrest Bartz based on two key facts. First, Messer’s K-9
alerted to the presence of a controlled substance. It is undisputed that Messer’s K-9 is certified
to detect the odor of controlled substances and trained to alert upon detection, so the reliability
of the alert is not at issue. See Florida v. Harris, 568 U.S. 237, 246–47 (2013). Messer would
have had probable cause to arrest Bartz based solely on the K-9’s alert. See Florida v. Royer,
460 U.S. 491, 506 (1983). Second, Bartz told Messer that he had smoked marijuana about
30 to 45 minutes before the traffic stop. An officer has probable cause to arrest an individual
when the officer smells marijuana and can localize the odor to that individual because the
officer has reason to believe that person has committed the crime of possession of marijuana.
1 Citations to filings from the docket use the page numbers assigned by CM/ECF, not the page
numbers in the original document.
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United States v. Paige, 870 F.3d 693, 700 (7th Cir. 2017). Messer didn’t need to smell marijuana
to suspect that Bartz had probably possessed marijuana: Bartz admitted that was the case.
Messer did not unlawfully arrest Bartz.
Bartz resists this conclusion with two arguments. First, Bartz argues that, even if Messer
had probable cause to arrest him, the arrest was nevertheless unlawful because Messer didn’t
intend to arrest him. See Dkt. 27, at 9–18. Bartz points out that Messer told him that he was
not under arrest during an exchange immediately before Messer transported Bartz to the jail:
Bartz: So, you’re placing me under arrest.
Messer: Nope. You’re just detained. . . . And if you don’t have
anything on you, then you get released.
Dkt. 35, Ex. 3 (Messer Body Cam, at 01:06:49–01:06:51, 01:07:04–01:07:07). This is just a
semantic quibble: it doesn’t matter whether Messer subjectively intended to “arrest” Bartz or
merely “detain” him, because whether an individual is under arrest is an objective inquiry.
Tebbens v. Mushol, 692 F.3d 807, 816 (7th Cir. 2012); United States v. Garcia, 376 F.3d 648,
651 (7th Cir. 2004); Abbott v. Sangamon Cnty., 705 F.3d 706, 719 (7th Cir. 2013). All that
matters is whether a reasonable person in Bartz’s position would have thought he was free to
leave. See Ochana v. Flores, 347 F.3d 266, 270 (7th Cir. 2003). If an individual is “handcuffed,
read his rights, and transported to the police station in a police car,” then he has been arrested.
Adams v. Szczerbinski, 329 F. App’x 19, 24 (7th Cir. 2009). Bartz wasn’t read his rights, but he
was handcuffed, placed in the back of a squad car, and driven to a jail—classic hallmarks of
being arrested. That Messner referred to this as “detention” doesn’t make it unlawful.
Second, Bartz contends that his arrest was unlawful because Messer arrested him solely
to conduct a body scan to justify his arrest. See Dkt. 27, at 11–18. To support his contention,
Bartz points to a line of cases addressing the need for a probable cause hearing promptly
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following a warrantless arrest. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 113–14 (1975). Officers violate
the Fourth Amendment when they unreasonably delay the probable cause hearing to gather
evidence to justify the arrest. Cnty. of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 56 (1991). Bartz
also points to an Eastern District of Wisconsin case, which held that detaining an individual
for any period of time with no intention of charging her with a crime was unreasonable under
Gerstein and Riverside. Farr v. Paikowski, No. 11-C-789, 2013 WL 1288041, at *1 (E.D. Wis.
Mar. 25, 2013); see also id., 2013 WL 160268, at *7 (E.D. Wis. Jan. 14, 2013).
Bartz analogizes his case to Farr and argues that defendants violated the Fourth
Amendment by detaining him solely to take a scan of his body. See Dkt. 27, at 18. But the
Seventh Circuit rejected the argument Bartz makes here in United States v. Daniels, 64 F.3d
311 (7th Cir. 1995). The plaintiff in Daniels argued that officers unreasonably delayed his
probable cause hearing because they put him in a line-up while he was in custody. See id. at 314.
The Seventh Circuit held that the line-up was lawful because it was done to collect more
evidence against the plaintiff rather than to justify his arrest. Id. The Seventh Circuit reasoned:
Daniels’ argument seems to interpret Riverside to preclude law
enforcement from bolstering its case against a defendant while he
awaits his Gerstein hearing; that is a ludicrous position. Gerstein
and its progeny simply prohibit law enforcement from detaining
a defendant to gather evidence to justify his arrest, which is a
wholly different matter. Probable cause to arrest Daniels already
existed and that is what Ewer's affidavit reported. We therefore
reject Daniels’ contention that he did not receive a prompt
Gerstein hearing.
Id. In this case, Messer had probable cause to arrest Bartz before transporting him to the jail,
so conducting further searches of Bartz at the jail to bolster the case against him was not
unlawful under Gerstein and Riverside. Farr didn’t address Daniels, and for that reason, its
reasoning is not persuasive. Bartz’s arrest was lawful.
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B. Unlawful searches
Bartz contends that the searches of him at the jail were unlawful because they were
excessive and repetitive. See Dkt. 27, at 21–24. At the jail, Wolfgram patted down Bartz twice,
Bahr took a scan of Bartz’s body using the jail’s body scanner, and Wolfgram looked through
the pieces of clothing Bartz had removed for the body scan. Bartz argues that the searches were
unnecessary because Messer had already searched him at the scene of the traffic stop and didn’t
find anything. See id. at 22.
Bartz is essentially arguing that the jail searches were unreasonable because defendants
no longer had reason to suspect that he was concealing contraband. Bartz is correct that
searches typically require individualized suspicion. United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S.
543, 560 (1976). But jails are “unique place[s] fraught with serious security dangers,” including
the smuggling of drugs or other contraband. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559 (1979).
Consequently, the Supreme Court has recognized that jails may enforce generally applicable
suspicionless search policies. See id. at 558–60; Florence v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders of Cnty. of
Burlington, 566 U.S. 318, 330 (2012). But suspicionless searches still must be reasonable to
satisfy the Fourth Amendment. See Haro v. Porter Cnty., 129 F.4th 992, 996–97 (7th Cir. 2025).
To evaluate whether a search is reasonable, courts weigh the need for the search against how
invasive the search is, considering the search’s scope, the manner in which it is conducted, and
where the search is conducted. Id. at 997.
Bartz was searched at the jail pursuant to generally applicable jail policies, so
individualized suspicion was unnecessary. It is undisputed that Columbia County Jail requires
officers to pat down every arrested individual arriving at the jail, even if that individual was
already searched by other officers. It is also undisputed that jail policy requires officers to look
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through an individual’s clothing in case something was missed during the pat-down search.
And it is undisputed that jail training requires officers to scan the body of every person entering
the jail. However, Bartz’s situation can’t fully be justified by general jail policies, because he
was brought to the jail for the purpose of conducting the body scan.
But even if Bartz had been singled out for the searches, such that the policies were
applied on an individual rather than general basis, defendants had reasonable suspicion to
support the searches. A reasonable officer could have believed that Bartz was concealing drugs
in a body cavity given that: (1) Messer’s K-9 alerted to the truck; (2) Hollander saw Bartz grab
something out of the truck’s center console; (3) Messer didn’t find any drugs after patting
down Bartz outside the truck; (4) Messer didn’t find any drugs inside the truck; and (5) the
K-9 didn’t alert after searching the truck without Bartz inside of it. The drugs weren’t in the
truck and they weren’t on Bartz’s person, so a reasonable officer could have deduced that they
might be in Bartz’s person, meaning in one of his body cavities.
Bartz contends that even if there had been individualized suspicion, the body scan was
unreasonably invasive. Body scans are images of the inside of an individual’s body; they “reveal
concealed objects that are of a different density than human tissue.” Id. at 995. Defendants
used the jail’s body scanner to produce three X-ray images of Bartz’s body. See Dkt. 30, Ex. 5.
It is undisputed that Bartz had to change into jail uniform pants, but he did not need to remove
his shirt or underwear. See Dkt. 48, ¶¶ 119, 120. The body scan took just under a minute,
measured from the time Bartz stepped into the machine to the time he stepped out of it.
Dkt. 35, Ex. 3 (Messer Body Cam, at 01:56:39–01:57:37).
Bartz’s body scan was far less intrusive than searches the Seventh Circuit has found to
be reasonable. Consider a pair of recent cases. In Brown v. Polk County, 965 F.3d 534 (7th Cir.
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2020), the court held that visually and physically inspecting an inmate’s genitals was
reasonable because the search was conducted according to a written policy, in a private setting,
by licensed medical professionals, and within a reasonable timeframe. See Brown, 965 F.3d
at 541. In Haro v. Porter County, the court held that instructing an arrestee to take off her
clothing, bend over, and spread her buttocks for a visual inspection of her body was reasonable
because the search was conducted in a private area, and the inspection lasted only 10 to
20 seconds. Haro, 129 F.4th at 995, 999. In this case, Bartz’s body was briefly X-rayed in a
private area of the jail while he was fully clothed. The body scan was not unreasonable.
The undisputed facts in this case establish that defendants did not violate the Fourth
Amendment by transporting Bartz to the jail, briefly detaining him there, and conducting
additional searches, including a body scan. Defendants’ actions were not unconstitutional, so
the court need not address qualified immunity. Nor does the court need to address Bartz’s
failure-to-intervene claims or his claim that Columbia County is liable under Monell, because
these claims would require an underlying constitutional violation by an individual defendant.
ORDER
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. 	Plaintiff Justin Bartz’s motion for partial summary judgment, Dkt. 26, is DENIED.
2. 	Defendants 	Columbia 	County, 	Robin 	Messer, 	Noah 	Hollander, 	Scout 	Bahr,
Jill Ostrander, Mitchell Wolfgram, and Jordan Haueter’s motion for summary
judgment, Dkt. 32, is GRANTED.
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3. 	The clerk of court is directed to enter judgment in favor of defendants and close this
case.
Entered March 2, 2026.
BY THE COURT:
/s/
________________________________________
JAMES D. PETERSON
District Judge
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