A jury has reached a chilling decision in the civil rights case of a Southampton, N.Y., woman, clearing four police officers in the exclusive resort community of liability for performing a strip search on her after a minor marijuana bust.

As a misdemeanor arrestee, Stacey Hartline had a Fourth Amendment right to be protected from a strip search unless police had an “individualized reasonable suspicion” that she was hiding illegal drugs on her person. She was arrested in January 2003 after Southampton Village Police Officer Anthony Gallo pulled her over and saw marijuana debris on the floor of her pickup truck.

In a verdict announced June 16 after a two-week trial, a jury in Central Islip, N.Y., found Gallo and three other defendants –- Sergeant Darren Gagnon, Officer Marla Donovan, and Police Chief Jim Sherry -- did not violate Hartline's rights by subjecting her to a strip search without reasonable suspicion. She had been seeking close to $6 million in damages.

But one of the jurors was ambivalent to say the least. “We did not vote for the police because we thought that a 'strip search' performed on Stacey was justified,” the juror said in response to an article in the Southampton Press. “We had to vote for the police because of the definition of 'reasonable suspicion' that was given to us.”

“[W]hile many of us thought that the Southampton Police Department deserved to be punished,” the juror continued, “the law is the law and we had to abide by those laws as jurors.”

The verdict also conflicts with an appeals court ruling. In reversing a trial judge who had summarily dismissed the case, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that “it was hard to imagine how the facts of this case could have led a reasonable officer in Officer Gallo’s position to suspect that Hartline was illicitly concealing drugs on her person.”

Among other things, the court noted in Hartline v. Gallo, 546 F.3d 95, Gallo “had no reason to believe that Hartline was under the influence of narcotics at the time of her arrest,” “found no useable narcotics in Hartline’s vehicle” and “did not even ask Hartline if she had any drugs on her person.” The misdemeanor charges against her were dismissed.

Hartline, who was then 21, was stopped by Gallo while running errands for her employer. After being taken to the police station, she was strip searched in a cell by Donovan while “crying hysterically” during the process.

Gallo testified that he pulled Hartline over in part because he had seen her smoking a marijuana pipe. But the juror said the windows of her truck were tinted and that, in Gallo's police report, he stated that he stopped her only for a missing rear license plate.

There was “nothing about seeing her smoking a pipe,” the juror said.

The juror also rejected the defense's argument that the strip search was justified because Hartline was wearing “bulky” clothing, suggesting she might have been hiding drugs. “It was in January and she was wearing her work uniform,” the juror observed.

“Reasonable suspicion” has been defined as “something stronger than a mere hunch, but something weaker than probable cause.” The 2nd Circuit said that if the facts of the Hartline case “amount to reasonable suspicion, then strip searches will become commonplace.”

“Given the uniquely intrusive nature of strip searches, as well as the multitude of less invasive investigative techniques available to officers confronted by misdemeanor offenders, that result would be unacceptable in any society that takes privacy and bodily integrity seriously,” the court warned.

Hartline said after that ruling that she was “so pleased this won't happen to anyone else.” With the jury's decision, it just might.

By Matthew Heller
6/24/09