Full Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS NOV 10 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT NOOR JEHANGIR, No. 25-7755 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 2:24-cv-03030-DJH-DMF v. MEMORANDUM* DANIEL EAST, Officer (Badge #26821) - husband; MARRA GUAJARDO, Officer (Badge #24084) - wife, Defendants - Appellees, UNKNOWN EAST, named as: Jane Doe East - wife, UNKNOWN GUAJARDO, named as: John Doe Guajardo - husband, UNKNOWN PARTIES, named as: John Does I-X and ABC Corporations I-X, Defendants. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona Diane J. Humetewa, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted October 28, 2026 Phoenix, Arizona Before: GRABER, HURWITZ, and BADE, Circuit Judges. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Plaintiff Noor Jehangir timely appeals the district court’s Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of her First Amended Complaint in this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. The district court held that Defendants Marra Guajardo and Daniel East, Tempe police officers, are entitled to qualified immunity. Reviewing de novo, Dahlia v. Rodriguez, 735 F.3d 1060, 1066 (9th Cir. 2013), we affirm. 1. Plaintiff alleges that, after her arrest on a misdemeanor charge, Defendants’ body-worn cameras repeatedly recorded her genitalia, which she unconsciously exposed by thrashing around on a hospital bed and dislodging the blanket draped over her in an examination cubicle at the hospital’s emergency department. We assume, without deciding, that Defendants violated Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights by recording her. See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009) (explaining that courts may address the prongs of the qualified immunity test in any order). Nevertheless, none of the cases that Plaintiff cites would have clearly informed Defendants that their alleged conduct violated the Constitution. See Zorn v. Linton, 607 U.S. 568, 571–72 (2026) (per curiam) (describing the standard for finding a clearly established right). Observing an arrestee from the time of arrest to the time of booking has a legitimate law enforcement purpose. That is particularly so when an arrestee, like Plaintiff, is suffering serious medical problems at the time of the arrest. By contrast, several of the cases on which Plaintiff relies concern observations that 2 25-7755 lacked a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Ioane v. Hodges, 939 F.3d 945, 954– 55 (9th Cir. 2018), as amended (Sep. 19, 2019), and Sepulveda v. Ramirez, 967 F.2d 1413, 1416–17 (9th Cir. 1992), involved law enforcement officers who deliberately observed the plaintiffs while they were urinating, without a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Byrd v. Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, 845 F.3d 919 (9th Cir. 2017), involved allegations that female prison guards viewed male pretrial detainees while they were showering and using the toilet, without a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Id. at 922–23. Plaintiff’s specific claim is that the officers’ recording of their observations violated her Fourth Amendment rights. But the use of body-worn cameras promotes accountability and helps law enforcement agencies preserve evidence and resolve complaints against officers. Plaintiff cites no case, and we have found none, holding that officers who are observing an arrestee with a legitimate law enforcement purpose violate the Constitution if they record, on a body-worn camera, their permissible observations. Nor does Plaintiff allege that Defendants recorded Plaintiff’s genitalia for a prurient or other improper purpose. York v. Story, 324 F.2d 450 (9th Cir. 1963), differs in this and other important aspects. There, the plaintiff was not under arrest. Id. at 452. She reported an assault at a police station, where an officer ordered her to undress and pose in indecent positions; he then photographed her and distributed 3 25-7755 the images to others. Id. Here, Plaintiff was in police custody and therefore enjoyed a reduced expectation of privacy. See Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. 435, 462 (2013) (“The expectations of privacy of an individual taken into police custody ‘necessarily [are] of a diminished scope.’” (alteration in original) (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 557 (1979))). Furthermore, unlike in York, the officers here neither caused Plaintiff’s exposure nor deliberately viewed her while she was undressed. Nor did Defendants allegedly use the recordings for an improper purpose. Indeed, Plaintiff does not allege that anyone other than Defendants and their supervisors has viewed the recordings for any purpose unrelated to this litigation. Additionally, even if Defendants violated state law and a police department policy, as Plaintiff asserts, they did not thereby violate a clearly established constitutional right. See Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 194 (1984) (“Officials sued for constitutional violations do not lose their qualified immunity merely because their conduct violates some statutory or administrative provision.”). Finally, Defendants’ alleged conduct was not so egregious that no reasonable officer would have believed that the conduct was constitutional. See Taylor v. Riojas, 592 U.S. 7, 8–9 (2020) (per curiam) (stating standard). 2. By failing to raise the issue in her opening brief, Plaintiff has forfeited any challenge to the district court’s dismissal of her Fourteenth Amendment claim. 4 25-7755 See Lui v. DeJoy, 129 F.4th 770, 780 (9th Cir. 2025) (holding that a party generally forfeits any argument not raised in the opening brief). AFFIRMED. 5 25-7755