Victim of Dog-Authorized Anal Assault Receives $1.6 Million Settlement

The
Associated Press
reports that the city of Deming, New Mexico, where David Eckert
was pulled over for a rolling stop last January, and nearby Hidalgo
County, where he was taken for the ensuing
exploration of his digestive tract, have agreed to settle his
civil rights lawsuit for $1.6 million. That amounts to about
$200,000 for each of the increasingly intrusive searches Eckert was
forced to undergo: two X-rays, two digital probes of his anus,
three enemas, and a colonoscopy, none of which discovered the
slightest trace of the drugs that police claim to have thought he
was hiding inside himself. Eckert, whose case was first
noted here by Brian Doherty, also sued various Deming and
Hidalgo County police officers; Gila Regional Medical Center, the
Hidalgo County hospital where these indignities occurred (and which
billed him more than $6,000 for the procedures); and two
physicians, Robert Wilcox and Okay Odocha, who executed
the elaborate assault under the cover of medicine. 

“It was medically unethical and unconstitutional,” Shannon
Kennedy, Eckert’s attorney, told A.P. “He feels relieved that this
part is over and believes this litigation might make sure this
doesn’t happen to anyone else.” Eckert added:

I feel that I got some justice as I think the settlement shows
they were wrong to do what they did to me. I truly hope that no one
will be treated like this ever again. I felt very helpless and
alone on that night.

Although this measure of justice is welcome, it is too bad we
may never get a definitive ruling on the
legality of Eckert’s humiliating ordeal, which was inflicted
based on a search warrant that police obtained by claiming a
drug-detecting dog “alerted” to the driver’s seat of Eckert’s
pickup truck. They also said he seemed nervous and was standing
with his legs together, which suggested to them that he was
concealing contraband up his butt. That last detail received a lot
of attention, but it seems clear that the warrant would not have
been issued without the alleged
dog alert. The Supreme Court has said such evidence by itself
provides probable cause for a search unless the suspect can show
the dog is unreliable—an opportunity that does not arise until long
after the search is carried out.