DC Court of Appeals Utilizes, But Does Not Endorse, the ‘Automatic Companion’ Rule
On September 2, 2013, Ronald and Sharon Jenkins went to buy crabs at the Warf in Washington, DC. Mr. Jenkins operated their vehicle and got into an altercation with another driver in the parking lot after the other driver “stole” a parking spot that Mr. Jenkins was waiting for. The Jenkinses found another spot, and went on to purchase crabs. Before they returned to their vehicle, a police radio reported “a traffic dispute that possibly resulted in some type of assault” in which “a knife had been pulled.” Officer Michael Davis responded to the scene and spoke with other officers there.
The officers interviewed witnesses, and the other vehicle driver’s nephew, a minor child, told the officers that Mr. Jenkins wielded a folding pocketknife. The other driver initially told the officers Mr. Jenkins held a set of keys and never saw a knife. His story changed an hour later when he said Mr. Jenkins approached him with a small pocket knife. An unidentified witness said he saw the argument but did not see Mr. Jenkins with a weapon.
The Jenkinses returned to their car and put their purchases in their vehicle. Two officers stopped them before they drove off and asked Mr. Jenkins whether he had a knife and pulled it on the aforementioned driver. Mr. Jenkins denied this occurred, and Mrs. Jenkins corroborated his account. The officers asked Mr. Jenkins to step out of his car, which he did. Mr. Jenkins then allowed the officers to search the vehicle for a knife. The officers did not find one.
Officer Davis then arrested Mr. Jenkins for assault with a dangerous weapon. A female officer then searched Mrs. Jenkins, including her braided hair, for a knife. No knife was found. She was not arrested. Mr. Jenkins was then transported to the station for booking and spent the night in jail. At an initial appearance the next day, the government declined to prosecute Mr. Jenkins, and he was released.
The Jenkinses filed a claim against the District of Columbia (DC) and Officer Davis under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. DC and Officer Davis moved for summary judgment, which the Superior Court granted. They appealed the Superior Court’s decision to the DC Court of Appeals.
The court first addressed Mr. Jenkins’s claims. The court of appeals stated that the “overarching issue” in this case was whether Mr. Jenkins was entitled to have a jury decide whether there was probable cause for his arrest. The court stated that where the facts that might establish probable cause are in dispute, their existence is for the determination of the jury.
The court stated that the bar for probable cause is “low,” and even if this case is “a very close call” as to what occurred during the encounter, the facts show that the officers did have probable cause that Mr. Jenkins committed a criminal offense. They responded to a radio report that a knife was pulled out following a traffic dispute at the Wharf. The officers spoke to the other driver and his nephew, who reported Mr. Jenkins held a pocketknife. The officers also spoke to Mr. Jenkins who corroborated that there was an altercation.
The court next considered Mrs. Jenkins’s claims. Mrs. Jenkins claimed that even though Officer Davis was not the officer who performed the pat down on her, he was still vicariously liable under the theory of bystander liability. As explained by the court, bystander liability has been adopted by several federal circuit courts of appeal. Under that theory, an officer may be held liable under § 1983 for another officer’s constitutional violation if he or she “(1) knows that a fellow officer is violating and individual’s constitutional rights; (2) has a reasonable opportunity to prevent the harm; and (3) chooses not to act.” The court agreed with Officer Davis that he was entitled to summary judgment on this claim because Mrs. Jenkins could not demonstrate that Officer Davis knew the female officer was conducting a pat down of Mrs. Jenkins.
The court also considered Mrs. Jenkins’s assault and battery claim against DC. She contended the pat down search was unconstitutional, and the female officer could not have reasonably believed it was lawful. She cited United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581 (1948) holding that a passenger’s mere presence in a car believed to contain contraband does not give rise to probable cause to search the suspect for contraband.
The court explained that it could decide this case on privilege and need not definitively decide whether the pat down was lawful. The court said that its analysis rests on the fact that “some courts have adopted the so-called automatic companion rule, under which officers may conduct a patdown search of the companion of a lawfully detained suspect even though the officers lack a reasonable suspicion to believe that the companion is armed and dangerous.”
Applied here, the court stated that the automatic companion rule dictates that having lawfully detained Mr. Jenkins upon the statements of others, the police could also lawfully frisk Mr. Jenkins’s companion, Mrs. Jenkins, to be sure that she was not armed. Still, the court of appeals then stated “[w]e need not endorse an ‘automatic companion’ rule any further than our case law already has, to conclude that on the undisputed facts of this case there was no clear rule prohibiting police from frisking Mrs. Jenkins, and that the officers could reasonably have believed that the frisk of Mrs. Jenkins was lawful.”
Because Mrs. Jenkins presented no evidence that the female officer frisked her in bad faith, the court of appeals concluded that whether or not the frisk of Mrs. Jenkins was legal, the conduct of the officer who frisked her was protected by privilege. The court of appeals affirmed the decision of the Superior Court.
Read the full case: Jenkins v. District of Columbia
This case law update was written by Michael J. Sgarlat, Associate Attorney, Shaw Bransford & Roth, PC.
For thirty years, Shaw Bransford & Roth P.C. has provided superior representation on a wide range of federal employment law issues, from representing federal employees nationwide in administrative investigations, disciplinary and performance actions, and Bivens lawsuits, to handling security clearance adjudications and employment discrimination cases.