The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled this week that a body cavity search that involved strapping down and sedating a Minneapolis man believed to be in possession of illegal drugs violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The decision, which reversed the findings of two lower courts, means the drugs that authorities uncovered when they forced Guntallwon Karloyea Brown to submit to the anoscopy must be suppressed and that Brown will be granted a new trial in district court.
Brown was taken into custody Aug. 8, 2015, after Minneapolis police watched a confidential informant buy suspected crack cocaine from him, court documents say.
During his arrest, an officer reportedly saw the 30-year-old shove something down his pants and got approval from a supervisor to conduct a strip search on him.
The officer reportedly found a clear plastic baggie hanging out of Brown’s rectum, and subsequently secured a search warrant that granted a medical facility to remove it from his body.
A doctor at North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale performed an external search of Brown but couldn’t see the baggie, according to the opinion.
The doctor refused to force Brown to submit to a body cavity search, telling the police officer that he didn’t believe the search warrant specifically granted that measure.
So the officer got a second warrant that gave medical staff wider legal latitude to obtain the baggie, and took Brown to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
After seeking legal advice from an attorney, a doctor there agreed to perform the procedure, but first offered Brown the opportunity to remove the baggie himself, either on his own or with the help of a laxative.
When Brown refused, hospital staff strapped him down, administered a sedative to him, and performed the anoscopy, the opinion said.
That doctor later testified in court that authorities could have relied on “normal elimination” to eventually obtain the baggie, and that no medical emergency existed when the procedure was performed.
Test results showed the bag contained 2.9 grams of cocaine, according to legal documents.
Brown argued during his first trial that prosecutors shouldn’t be allowed to use the drugs as evidence against him because it was obtained via unlawful means. But the district court disagreed, ruling at the time that given the circumstances, the search was reasonable, court documents say.
Brown was subsequently convicted of fifth-degree drug possession, and he appealed his case to the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which wound up siding with the lower court.
The Supreme Court found otherwise in its reversal, writing:
“The extreme and substantial intrusion of appellant’s dignitary rights by a coerced anoscopy and the risks that the procedure posed to appellant’s health and safety outweigh the community’s interest in retrieving potential evidence that appellant possessed a controlled substance,” the opinion said.
It was not clear when Brown’s new trial will take place.