Oliver Jr., Solomon, United States District Judge
District court determined that defendant police department that posted arrest information via social media posts and updates to websites did not violate plaintiff’s procedural or substantive due process rights.
Plaintiff alleged that the police department violated his privacy rights when it published his mug shot, name, address, date of birth, and all alleged crimes to the iWatch website and Facebook. He also alleged that the police sent out mass text message alerts, emails and social media posts stating that he had been arrested for committing multiple break-ins, and giving the impression that he had been found guilty of the charges. Plaintiff brought his claims under 42 USC § 1983 alleging damage to his reputation and denial of due process.
The court quickly dismissed plaintiff’s procedural due process claims, as plaintiff did prove a stigma was attached to his reputation, but failed to prove that he was deprived of a right previously held under state law. The court also noted that even if his procedural due right claim was valid, the criminal trial system gave plaintiff the opportunity to clear his name of his charges.
On the substantive due process issue, the court looked directly to Supreme Court precedent in Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. at 694-96 (1976) and to the Sixth Circuit in Lambert v. Hartman, 517 F.3d 433, 440 (6th Cir. 2008), which applied Davis. In Davis, the plaintiff alleged his constitutional rights were violated after police distributed flyers alerting merchants to possible shoplifters. The Supreme Court rejected his constitutional substantive due process privacy claim as “far afield” from the Court’s privacy decisions. The Court explained that it was “based, not upon any challenge to the State’s ability to restrict his freedom action in a sphere contended to be ‘private,’ but instead on a claim that the State may not publicize a record of an official act such as an arrest."
The Sixth Circuit in Lambert also found lack of a constitutional privacy when it comes to criminal records. The district court reasoned that:
Disseminating arrest information through social media is not significantly different from posting flyers in stores or making the information available electronically on a website.
Following precedent, the court dismissed plaintiff’s claim and held that Facebook is an acceptable medium for police departments to distribute information about arrests and crimes.
v.
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS POLICE DEPARTMENT, Defendant.