SCOTUS rejects ‘moment-of-threat’ rule in deadly force cases

A civil rights claim alleging a police officer used excessive force in fatally shooting a driver who suddenly attempted to flee a traffic stop should not have been dismissed on summary judgment on the ground that the officer was in danger at the moment of the threat that resulted in his use of deadly force, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in reversing a decision from the 5th Circuit.

Click here to read the full text of the May 15 decision in Barnes v. Felix.

• “The moment-of-threat rule applied in the courts below … conflicts with this Court’s instruction to analyze the totality of the circumstances. Recall that the District Court and Fifth Circuit limited their view to the two seconds before the shooting, after [the defendant officer] had stepped onto the doorsill of [the decedent’s] car. Those courts believed that, under Fifth Circuit precedent, they could not take into account anything preceding that final moment. So, for example, they could not consider the reasons for the stop or the earlier conduct of, and interactions between, the suspect and officer. And because of that limit, they could not address whether the final two seconds of the encounter would look different if set within a longer timeframe. It is as though the Court in [Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765 (2014)] could consider only the instant when the chased car was at a ‘near standstill,’ and not the earlier time when it zigzagged down a busy roadway at speed. To be sure, historical facts will not often matter as much as they did there to the reasonableness analysis. And some of those facts may not be relevant at all. But no rule that precludes consideration of prior events in assessing a police shooting is reconcilable with the fact-dependent and context-sensitive approach we have prescribed. A court deciding a use-of-force case cannot review the totality of the circumstances if it has put on chronological blinders.”

  — Justice Elena Kagan, majority opinion

• “[W]hen a driver abruptly pulls away during a traffic stop, an officer has no particularly good or safe options. None of the options available to the officer avoids danger to the community, and all of them require life-or-death decisions that must be made in a few seconds in highly stressful and unpredictable circumstances.

  “Of course, when an officer uses force against a fleeing driver, the judiciary still must assess any resulting Fourth Amendment claim under the standard of objective reasonableness. Under this Court’s precedents, that inquiry involves ‘a careful balancing of “the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests” against the countervailing governmental interests at stake.’ In conducting that analysis, judges should keep in mind that it is one thing to dissect and scrutinize an officer’s actions with the ‘20/20 vision of hindsight,’ ‘in the peace of a judge’s chambers.’ It is quite another to make ‘split-second judgments’ on the ground, ‘in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.’ In analyzing the reasonableness of an officer’s conduct at a traffic stop, particularly traffic stops where the driver has suddenly pulled away, courts must appreciate the extraordinary dangers and risks facing police officers and the community at large.”

  — Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Amy Coney Barrett, concurring