William R. Shaw v. Terrence Gordon

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted April 4, 2024*
Decided April 5, 2024
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
CANDACE JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge
No. 21-3368
WILLIAM R. SHAW,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
TERRENCE GORDON, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of
Wisconsin.
No. 19-C-1059
William C. Griesbach,
Judge.
O R D E R
William Shaw appeals a jury verdict finding that police officers did not violate
his Fourth Amendment rights when, after believing that he had stuffed cocaine into his
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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pants, they executed a court-ordered warrant for a body-cavity search. Shaw sought
relief from the verdict, but the district court rightly denied the request; thus, we affirm.
Because we are reviewing a judgment upon an adverse jury verdict, we recount
the facts in the light most favorable to that verdict. Matthews v. Wis. Energy Corp.,
642 F.3d 565, 567 (7th Cir. 2011). Shaw was driving with two passengers in
February 2014 in Milwaukee when two officers pulled him over for traffic violations.
He opened the glove box to get his car’s registration, and the officers saw a digital scale
used for drug trafficking, prompting a search of the car and passengers. They found
drug paraphernalia in the purse of one passenger. They also discovered that Shaw was
on probation for drug charges. The officers arrested Shaw and the passenger with the
drug paraphernalia.
At the police station, the passenger said that Shaw had concealed drugs. She told
an officer that, before being pulled over, Shaw had conducted a drug transaction and
stuffed cocaine down his pants. The officer found her credible because she also made
statements against her own interest by admitting to her own drug use. Based on her
statements, a deputy inspector orally authorized a strip search.
The strip search occurred in two phases. The first was a visual inspection. In a
private, windowless room in a police building, two officers ordered Shaw to remove all
his clothes, lift his genitals, and bend over and spread his buttocks. They did not
discover any drugs or contraband. Next was a body-cavity search, for which one of the
arresting officers received a court-issued warrant. With the warrant, he and another
officer drove Shaw to a hospital where a physician’s assistant physically searched
Shaw’s anal cavity and took an X-ray of his abdomen. Shaw was handcuffed to the
hospital bed and the physical search was painful. No drugs were located.
As relevant to this appeal, Shaw sued the arresting officers, the officers involved
in both phases of the strip search, and the deputy who authorized the search, arguing
that they violated his constitutional rights. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court
granted Shaw’s request for recruited counsel for trial. His counsel filed a motion in
limine asking the court to deem admitted any matter that the defendants failed to deny
in response to Shaw’s requests to admit. See FED. R. C IV. P. 36. The court asked Shaw to
specify those facts and deferred resolution until trial. Counsel then amended and
limited his motion to ask the court to deem admitted that an arresting officer told the
physician’s assistant to conduct the anal-cavity search.

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No. 21-3368 Page 3
The trial came next. Before the case was submitted to the jury, the parties agreed
to the jury instructions and submitted stipulations, including that an arresting officer
told the physician’s assistant to conduct the body-cavity search. The judge also told the
parties that, because he might have to be elsewhere when the jury announces the
verdict, another judge would poll the jury if necessary, but he would remain available
for any jury questions or motions in the meantime. No one objected to this procedure.
After trial, the jury exonerated the defendants.
Proceeding pro se again after the adverse verdict, Shaw filed post-judgment
documents. He requested relief from the verdict and argued that he did not consent to
the substitution of the judge and that his attorneys did not properly represent him. The
court denied relief and upheld the jury’s verdict. It ruled that, because the substituted
judge issued no legal decisions and Shaw’s lawyers consented to the substitution,
Shaw’s rights were not violated. The court also found no evidence of attorney
misconduct. After appealing, Shaw filed additional documents to support his post-
judgment requests, but the court explained that his notice of appeal divested it of
jurisdiction.
On appeal, Shaw first argues that the district court wrongly denied him a new
trial or judgment in his favor, but we disagree. We will assume that in the district court
Shaw preserved these arguments for appeal. We review for abuse of discretion a denial
of a request for a new trial, Ewing v. 1645 W. Farragut LLC, 90 F.4th 876, 886 (7th Cir.
2024), or a motion to revise a judgment, Harrington v. City of Chicago, 433 F.3d 542, 546
(7th Cir. 2006). The court here properly denied both requests because the evidence
readily supports the verdict. Under the Fourth Amendment, police officers may
authorize a strip or body-cavity search of an arrestee if they have reason to suspect that
the arrestee is concealing contraband. See Campbell v. Miller, 499 F.3d 711, 716–18
(7th Cir. 2007). The record amply supports the jury’s finding that the police had such
suspicion: An officer testified that after the police saw that Shaw, known to be on
probation for drug charges, kept in his car a digital scale used for illegal drug sales, a
fellow passenger credibly told the officer that she saw Shaw complete a drug sale and
hide cocaine down his pants. The district court reasonably ruled that this evidence,
combined with the judge-issued warrant for a body-cavity search, adequately
supported the jury’s conclusion that the defendants had reasonable grounds for the
searches.
Shaw raises three responses, but they are unavailing. First, he contends that the
officers did not follow Wisconsin and local laws that instruct officers to obtain written

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authorization from a supervisor before a strip search. But a violation of state law or
local policy is not itself a constitutional violation. See Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 176
(2008). Second, Shaw argues that the search was improper because it was based on
statements from his passenger that were false. But the constitutionality of the officers’
actions “does not depend on the witness turning out to have been right.” Gramenos v.
Jewel Cos., 797 F.2d 432, 439 (7th Cir. 1986). As long as reliance on the witness was
reasonable, as it was here, it does not matter if the witness was wrong. See Askew v. City
of Chicago, 440 F.3d 894, 895 (7th Cir. 2006). Third, Shaw contends that, after the visual
strip search revealed no drugs, a body-cavity search was unnecessarily intrusive. But
the police had a warrant for the body-cavity search, and that warrant was based on
reliable grounds to suspect that Shaw hid drugs in his body after a visual search did not
reveal them. Thus, the body-cavity search, which occurred in a private, secure setting,
was reasonable in order to preserve potential evidence of a crime and protect public
safety. See Campbell, 499 F.3d at 716–18.
Shaw argues that he is entitled to a new trial for other reasons. First, in his view,
the district court failed to rule on his motion in limine asking the court to deem certain
facts admitted. But the amended motion that his counsel filed contained only one
proposed admission—that an arresting officer told the physician’s assistant to conduct
the body-cavity search. The officer’s trial testimony conformed to this admission, and it
was included in the stipulations to the jury. Thus, the court did not err.
Second, Shaw maintains that the judicial substitution warrants a new trial. He
cites Rule 63 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which governs cases where a new
judge rules on a case after the original judge has heard some evidence and can no
longer preside. See UWM Student Ass’n v. Lovell, 888 F.3d 854, 857 (7th Cir. 2018). But
that rule does not apply here because the substituted judge did not make any legal
rulings. Instead, the substituted judge merely accepted the verdict and polled the jury.
And in any case, Shaw’s lawyers consented to another judge accepting the verdict and
polling the jury. Shaw denies that he authorized them to do so, but in this suit, he is
bound by their actions. See Lombardo v. United States, 860 F.3d 547, 552 (7th Cir. 2017).
Next, Shaw argues that the district court erred by failing to offer various jury
instructions, including one on state-law requirements for strip searches and on the
nature of strip searches. But nothing in the record suggests that Shaw requested these
instructions, nor did he object to the issued jury instructions on these grounds. As a
result, he did not preserve this argument. See Ewing, 90 F.4th at 886–87. And Shaw
presents no plausible argument of plain error, see F ED. R. C IV. P. 51(d)(2), because he

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does not show how, with his desired instructions, the jury might have decided the
Fourth Amendment claim differently.
Finally, Shaw argues that the conduct of the defendants’ lawyers warrants a new
trial. He accuses them of using fraudulent evidence, soliciting perjury, and improperly
arguing at trial. But these contentions are waived because Shaw raises them for the first
time on appeal. See Bradley v. Vill. of Univ. Park, 59 F.4th 887, 897 (7th Cir. 2023).
Shaw’s other arguments are subsumed in the above discussion and do not
warrant further comment.
AFFIRMED

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