Body Cavity Search Case Remanded After Judge Botched Instruction

A federal trial judge incorrectly told a jury that a search incident to arrest was valid if the police officer had a reasonable suspicion the suspect had drugs “on or in” his person, the Second Circuit said Friday.

This was the second time the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard the civil rights case against the officer, Eric VanBramer, who conducted the body cavity search of Maxmillian Sloley because he had a “hunch,” the court previously said, Sloley was secreting drugs in his anal cavity.

In a December 2019 opinion, the Second Circuit said that body ...