OLSON V. GRANT COUNTY, 2025 WL 440851 (9th Cir. 2025)
Haley Olson was in a romantic relationship with Tyler Smith, a Grant County (Oregon) sheriff’s deputy, although this fact was not publicly known. Olson was arrested by the Idaho State Police for marijuana possession. She consented to a search of her phone by the state police based on a promise that the material extracted from the device would be used for no purpose other than the state patrol investigation. Olson’s phone contained nude photographs of her, including images taken when she was a minor, as well as “sexual images, and personal romantic images.”
A customer at Olson’s Oregon marijuana dispensary commented on her arrest in Idaho, saying he had learned of her arrest from the Grant County Sheriff. The customer told Olson he had “heard something about contents on her phone.” A couple of months later, a male stranger approached Olson in a grocery store and told her, “I heard there are some pretty smokin’ pictures of you going around the Sheriff’s Office.” One of Olson’s friends also told her the Grant County undersheriff and his wife had said there were “photos on Haley’s phone you gotta see,” and that the undersheriff had inquired about Olson’s relationship with Deputy Smith in crude and vulgar terms. Another person told Olson they “heard there was a video of Olson in a specific sexual position.” Another person pointed at Olson and referred to her as “the drug dealer who likes to fuck cops.”
Olson made a public records request asking whether the sheriff had received her phone contents from the Idaho State Patrol. The county attorney provided a letter to Olson stating he had requested and received the contents of Olson’s cell phone at the sheriff’s request. Olson sued, claiming the sheriff and county attorney violated her Fourth Amendment rights by unlawfully circulating intimate photos of her and the deputy.
The trial court granted summary judgment for Sheriff Glenn Palmer for lack of supervisory liability over the county attorney and lack of evidence he had personally viewed the phone contents. The court did the same for County Attorney Jim Carpenter on grounds of qualified immunity because his actions did not violate clearly established law. Olson appealed, and the court of appeals affirmed the grant of qualified immunity to both Sheriff Palmer and County Attorney Carpenter.
However, the court then issued a lengthy opinion beginning with an unequivocal statement that Olson was the victim of a constitutional violation, although not one that had been clearly established. Based on the court’s opinion, there can now be no doubt the improper viewing and distribution of the phone contents violated the Fourth Amendment. This is important because similar cases in the future may result in liability for offenders.
In the recent past, an LAPD officer was criminally charged for improperly sharing intimate images of his wife with his fellow officers. Another LAPD officer was awarded $4,000,000 after a nude photo was altered to look like it was her and then was shared around the police department. In a similar case, another LAPD officer received $1,500,000 after an officer threatened to spread explicit images of her if she ended their relationship. In Utah, an officer was criminally investigated for sharing nude photos of a deceased victim. In Missouri, an officer was sued for surreptitiously copying intimate photos from a woman’s cell phone during a traffic stop. And the list goes on.
Common sense and decency dictate officers do not share or keep intimate images for their own purposes. And now it is “clearly established law” for the purposes of civil liability.
Read more Ken Wallentine case reviews here.
This article was featured in Lexipol’s Xiphos newsletter, a monthly legal-focused law enforcement newsletter authored by Ken Wallentine. Subscriptions are free for public safety officers, educators and public attorneys. Subscribe here!
