The ''Doe v. Groody'',

361 __NOTOC__ Year 361 ( CCCLXI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Taurus and Florentius (or, less frequently, year 1114 ' ...

F.3d The ''Federal Reporter'' () is a case law reporter in the United States that is published by West Publishing and a part of the National Reporter System. It begins with cases decided in 1880; pre-1880 cases were later retroactively compiled by We ...

232 (3d Cir. 2004)

lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

concerned a

strip-search A strip search is a practice of searching a person for weapons or other contraband suspected of being hidden on their body or inside their clothing, and not found by performing a frisk search, but by requiring the person to remove some or al ...

of a 10-year-old girl and her mother despite the fact that neither were

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

suspects nor named in any search warrant. In applying for a search warrant, officers requested the right to search whoever was in the house and were refused that request.

Background

The

Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania Schuylkill County (, ; Pennsylvania Dutch: Schulkill Kaundi) is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in the heart of Pennsylvania's Coal Region and is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the popula ...

Drug Task Force suspected the husband and father of the plaintiffs of selling methamphetamines so they procured a search warrant for him, the house, his car and anyone customers that were present. The wife and daughter were not listed as suspects. When the police were executing the warrant, they had a female

parking enforcement officer A parking enforcement officer (PEO),United S ...

take the wife and daughter to the bathroom and perform a strip search but no drugs were found on them. When the pair sued, the police officers claimed

qualified immunity In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statu ...

Majority opinion

The majority opinion for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found the search unconstitutional. The majority opinion states in its second paragraph: ''" der any reasonable reading, the warrant in this case did not authorize the search of the mother and daughter, and that the search was not otherwise justified. Accordingly, we will affirm the District Court's determination that the officers are not entitled to qualified immunity."''

Alito's dissenting opinion

Judge

Samuel Alito Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. ( ; born April 1, 1950) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on October 31, 2005, and has served ...

wrote a dissenting opinion saying that

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

officers did not violate the Constitution when they strip-searched the mother and her ten-year-old daughter. Alito stated in section I of his dissent that the affidavit accompanying the warrant ''"...seeks permission to search all occupants of the residence..."'' and argues, again in section I, that ''"The warrant indisputably incorporated the affidavit..."'' Judge Michael Chertoff’s majority opinion asserted that Alito’s position would effectively nullify the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement and “transform the judicial officer into little more than the cliché rubber stamp.” Media attention on the case and Alito's opinion grew when he was nominated by

President George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

to the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

in 2005. Opponents pointed to his opinion to support claims that Alito would try to overturn Fourth Amendment precedents if confirmed to the Court.

Sources

* *{{caselaw source , case = ''Doe v. Groody'',

232 (3d Cir. 2004) , courtlistener =https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/785423/john-doe-parent-and-natural-guardian-of-mary-doe-a-minor-jane-doe-parent/ , justia =https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/361/232/582011/ , other_source1 = OpenJurist , other_url1 =https://openjurist.org/361/f3d/232 , other_source2 = Google Scholar , other_url2 =https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=217238514071578680 United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit cases History of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania United States Fourth Amendment case law 1990 in United States case law United States controlled substances case law Strip search