A federal appeals court decided to reverse the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by comedians Eric André and Clayton English in 2022 in which they claim their Forth Amendment rights were violated.
André and English alleged in their lawsuit that Clayton County officers stopped them in two separate incidents at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport while inside the jet bridge as they were about to board flights. The Black celebrities say they were told to hand over their boarding passes and IDs, and asked if they were carrying illegal drugs.
The pair allege the officers violated their Fourth Amendment rights “to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures,” according to the federal appellant court opinion published on Friday. They also claimed that the officers stopped them based on their race.
Their lawsuit was eventually dismissed in 2023 by the district court, citing the plaintiff’s “failure to plausibly allege any constitutional violations,” and all defendants, including Clayton County and the police department’s chief, were protected by immunity. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said in its opinion that it found that André and English “plausibly alleged that Clayton County subjected them to unreasonable searches and seizures” and reversed the dismissal “after careful review.”
The court affirmed the remainder of the district court’s dismissal, which includes the celebrities’ claim that they were stopped by the officers based on their race.
The Clayton County Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NBC News has reached out to representatives for André and English for comment.
Two separate incidents, months apart
English was traveling from Atlanta to Los Angeles for work in 2020 when he says Clayton County officers stopped him on the jet bridge after he had cleared TSA security and a boarding pass check by a gate agent, according to his and André’s 2022 lawsuit.
“The officers flashed their badges and asked English whether he was carrying any illegal drugs,” the lawsuit said. “English denied carrying illegal drugs. English ‘understood that he was not free to leave and continue his travel while the officers were questioning him.'”
Officers stood on either side of English, blocking his path to the plane, and asked him for his boarding pass and ID, which he handed over because he felt he had no choice but to comply, according to the lawsuit. An officer also asked to search English’s carry-on, which he allowed them to do, “believing he had no choice.”
The officers let English go after checking his bag, per the lawsuit.
“Throughout the encounter, Mr. English was worried that if he said anything the officers perceived as ‘out of line,’ he would not be allowed to board the plane or reach his destination,” the lawsuit stated.
In 2021, André was traveling from Charleston, South Carolina, to Atlanta before heading home to Los Angeles. He was stopped on the jet bridge while trying to board his flight in Atlanta. André was also stopped on the jet bridge after clearing multiple security points, according to the lawsuit.
Officers also asked the comedian if he was carrying any illegal drugs, like cocaine or methamphetamine, which he denied, the lawsuit said. He was also allegedly asked to hand over his ID and boarding pass and complied, believing he could not refuse.
“After approximately five minutes of standing in the narrow jet bridge and being questioned, Mr. André was told by the officers that he was free to leave and board the plane,” according to the lawsuit.
The stops were part of the Clayton County Police Department’s “drug interdiction program,” which aims to selectively stop passengers on the jet bridge before they board flights to ask them if they are carrying drugs and request to search their luggage. The department claims the stops are random and consensual.
André and English claim that the stops are not random or consensual, and that the Clayton County police program specifically targets Black passengers and other passengers of color, according to the court opinion.
There were 402 jet bridge stops from Aug. 30, 2020, to April 30, 2021, according to police records, and passengers’ races were listed for 378 of those stops. Of those 378 passengers, 211, or 56%, were Black, and people of color accounted for 258 total stops, or 68%, the celebrities’ lawsuit states, The Associated Press reported.
André called the experience “dehumanizing and demoralizing.”
“People were gawking at me, and I looked suspicious when I had done nothing wrong,” André said in an interview at the time of the lawsuit filing.
The court’s decision
In its decision, the federal appeals court held that the complaint sufficiently alleged that the coercive nature of the defendants’ actions during their stops of André and English made them feel that they were not free to leave, or that they were “seized” by the officers, meaning they plausibly alleged that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
English “plausibly alleged that the officers stopped him and began asking questions without telling him he could leave until after they finished questioning him,” the court said, adding that they came to the same conclusion with André.
Barry Friedman, the director of the Policing Project at New York University’s School of Law, who gave an oral argument this year in support of the appeal, said he is glad the federal court “recognized the validity” of André and English’s Fourth Amendment claims.
“In the United States, you may not be seized or have your belongings searched unless you truly voluntarily consent or the government has at least reasonable suspicion to justify the seizure,” Friedman said in a statement. “Never has that basic constitutional principle been more important.”
Friedman said he is looking forward to returning to trial court on behalf of the comedians.
However, the court did not find that the comedians were able to plausibly allege that the officers were acting with discriminatory purpose when they stopped them, citing that André and English “do not allege that the individual defendants knew of any racially discriminatory complaint or saw the County’s logs or that the County directed the individual defendants to single out Black passengers for interdictions.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that plaintiffs plausibly alleged that defendants violated their Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures,” the court said. “The individual defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, but Clayton County is not. Accordingly, we reverse the dismissal of plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claims against Clayton County. We affirm the dismissal of plaintiffs’ remaining claims.”
