42 USC § 1983 action; Qualified immunity; Fourth Amendment claims; Probable cause for a traffic stop; Heien v North Carolina; Inventory search exception to the warrant requirement; United States v Hockenberry; United States v Snoddy; Scope of a policy requiring search of a vehicle’s contents; Opening closed containers

Holding that defendant-Officer Lawless was entitled to qualified immunity in this § 1983 action asserting Fourth Amendment violations, the court reversed the district court’s denial of summary judgment for him on that ground. Lawless and another officer (P) stopped plaintiff-Henderson’s car and issued citations for, among other things, speeding and driving with an expired vehicle registration (the 9/13 stop). Days later, they stopped him again (the 9/22 stop) after seeing him driving the same car with the same expired tags. They told him “that they would have to impound his car until he renewed its registration, and” began an inventory search of the car. He objected, yelled at them, and walked toward them. They then arrested him. “The inventory search revealed a large black tote locked with a padlock[,]” which they forced open. On appeal, the court first held that they had probable cause for the 9/13 stop. “Based on his own visual observations and [P’s] radar-gun confirmation, Officer Lawless reasonably found that Henderson violated the town’s speed limit. Even if . . . an error occurred in measuring the speed of Henderson’s decelerating vehicle, that mistake does not fall on the unreasonable side of the line. That means that no Fourth Amendment violation occurred either way.” The court next held that the 9/22 “inventory search satisfied the Fourth Amendment.” The car was lawfully impounded under an ordinance permitting “officers to impound ‘[a]ny vehicle . . . connected with[] the commission of a crime.’” Driving with an expired registration is a misdemeanor under Ohio law. Further, the Police Department’s inventory policy provides that officers are to conduct an inventory search when they impound a vehicle, and are to “always do a COMPLETE physical inventory of its contents.” They followed those requirements. The court rejected Henderson’s argument that “the policy gave insufficient direction over how to conduct an inventory search.” It noted it has interpreted “a policy requiring officers to inventory all ‘articles and property’ contained in a car . . . to ‘include closed containers’ and their contents.” This is in line with the other circuits, which “interpret policies that require a comprehensive inventory of all property to apply to the opening of closed containers.” The court found that the officers “fairly construed the policy to require them to open the black tote and inventory its contents.”