Ninth Circuit probes arrestee bodily privacy

Two Tempe, Arizona, police officers recorded a woman’s nude genitalia for three hours while she lay in a hospital bed in 2022.PHOENIX (CN) — Ninth Circuit judges seemed unconvinced Wednesday that two Tempe police officers violated a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights when they recorded her genitals inside a hospital room.Noor Jehangir, arrested by the two officers on misdemeanor shoplifting charges, told the panel the officers had no legitimate law enforcement purpose to record for more than three hours while she was treated for a drug overdose.“It’s one thing to say there is no expectation of privacy in a hospital setting,” Jehangir’s attorney Robert Campos said in a Phoenix courtroom. “It’s another for an officer to knowingly direct the camera to record somebody’s private parts and create a public record.”Defending the city of Tempe, Sarah Anchors said the recording was unavoidable given the circumstances, but both officers repeatedly covered Jehangir with a sheet to respect her privacy.Jehangir sued in November 2024, two years after police recorded her for more than three hours in a hospital room. A male officer, Daniel East, placed his camera down first so he could turn his back to respect Jehangir’s privacy, according to the city of Tempe. Soon after, a female officer, Marra Guajardo, followed suit so she could move in and out of the room without interrupting the footage.Both cameras, where placed, recorded direct angles to Jehangir’s genitalia, which repeatedly became exposed as she writhed on the bed.“There was no legitimate need to take the body camera off and put it in a place that was going to maximize the violation of my client,” Campos said.U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa dismissed the case in November 2025, granting the officers qualified immunity.On appeal, Campos cited similar Ninth Circuit cases, including a California case in which a police officer forced a female assault victim to pose nude for photographs of her bruises and distributed the photos to other officers. U.S. Circuit Judge Bridget S. Bade defended the officers in this case, contrasting it with a clear voyeuristic gratification seen in previous cases.“That doesn’t seem to be here at all,” she said.“I think this case is actually more horrible than the cases we’ve cited,” Campos said.“That’s a pretty remarkable statement considering that they took her to a hospital for her own safety,” the Trump appointee retorted, slightly raising her voice. “The hospital staff undressed her, not the officers. And they tried to protect her privacy. How is that worse?”Campos said the officers were fully aware of the camera angles and placed them where they did intentionally in violation of Tempe Police policy discouraging recording in medical facilities and of exposed genitalia or private parts.“You don’t contend that they intended to film her genitalia?” U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz asked.“At this point, I don’t know,” Campos answered.Hurwitz, a Barack Obama appointee, called the Tempe Police policy “gobbledygook.”The policy discourages recording in medical facilities but also requires police to record from arrest to detention.“I don’t know how a reasonable officer is to know what he’s supposed to do,” Hurwitz said.Similarly, Campos argued they shouldn’t have removed their cameras in the first place. Bade again countered that the male officer did so only to turn his back on the scene.Even though the officers needed to record, Hurwitz asked Anchors whether her clients should have found a different angle to film from.The Tempe assistant attorney said there wasn’t any other option in the cramped public exam room. She said there was no other free surface to place the cameras, and any other angle would likely show her naked from the waist down anyway.“You can see that it’s a very small cubicle area,” she said.Anchors told the court Campos’ argument that they should have moved the cameras runs contrary to his parallel argument that they shouldn’t have removed them at all. She added that no egregious harm had occurred, and no evidence suggested anyone in city or police staff, other than a single supervising officer, saw the videos after they were recorded.Campos said whether anyone else saw the videos is a red herring because the video now exists as a public record in the city’s databases.The panel didn’t indicate when it will rule.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads