Justia U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs filed a class action suit for damages against defendant, a former United States Marshal, claiming that they were unconstitutionally strip searched by Deputy U.S. Marshals under defendant's direction after plaintiffs were arrested during a demonstration in September 2002. At issue was whether it was clearly established in September 2002 that strip searching an arrestee before placing him in a detention facility without individualized reasonable suspicion was unconstitutional. The court held that it need not consider whether defendant had individual suspicion as to each of the plaintiffs where there was no clearly established constitutional prohibition in 2002 of strip searching arrestees without individualized, reasonable suspicion and therefore, defendant was entitled to qualified immunity and summary judgment.

Defendant filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus contending that he was not part of al Qaeda and therefore was not properly detained at the United States naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba under the Authorization of Use of Military Force ("AUMF"). At issue was whether a "command structure" test should be used to determine whether an individual was part of al Qaeda. The court held that the facts found by the district court and on the record demonstrated that defendant was more likely than not part of al Qaeda where the determination of whether an individual was part of al Qaeda must be made on a case-by-case basis.