The Supreme Court has issued a plaintiff-friendly ruling on the excessive use of police force, holding that courts have to consider the totality of the circumstances and not a narrow time window in determining whether a police officer had an objective basis to shoot someone in the course of a traffic stop or arrest.
The case is Barnes v. Felix, issued on May 15. The ruling is 9-0, but four Justices issue a concurrence that reminds us how difficult it can be for officers who make traffic stops.
Here is the sequence of events. Officer Felix pulled over Barnes because he had outstanding toll violations. Barnes rummage around the car's interior for his papers, and the officer smelled marijuana in the car. At Felix's direction, Barnes opened the trunk from his seat, and then the officer ordered Barnes to exit the car. At this point, Barnes started up the car again and began to drive. As the car began to move forward, Felix jumped onto the doorsill and fired his gun at Barnes, killing him. On these facts, the Fifth Circuit held, under its "moment of threat" doctrine guiding excessive force claims, Barnes' estate could not sue Felix because, at the precise moment that Felix pulled the trigger, objectively speaking, Felix could have reasonably believed his life was in danger.
The Supreme Court reverses, revising its precedents governing the excessive use of police force. In Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1985), the Supreme Court held that courts must evaluate these cases under the "totality of the circumstances" test in determining if the use of force was objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The problem with the Fifth Circuit's "moment of threat" analysis is that it views the interaction from a narrow perspective -- the moments leading up to the use of force -- without considering what took place prior to that. The moment of threat test, especially here, where the lower courts focused on the few seconds prior to the police shooting, conflicts with the totality of the evidence test, the Supreme Court holds.
The case returns to the Fifth Circuit to re-evaluate the case under the totality of the circumstances. Justice Kagan writes,
In looking at only the two seconds before the shot, they excluded from view any actions of the officer that allegedly created the danger necessitating deadly force. So, to use the obvious example, the courts below did not address the relevance, if any, of Felix stepping onto the doorsill of Barnes’s car. And because they never considered that issue, it was not the basis of the petition for certiorari. The question presented to us was one of timing alone: whether to look only at the encounter’s final two seconds, or also to consider earlier events serving to put those seconds in context.
What it all means is that, under the Fifth Circuit's narrow focus, that court may have had a basis to rule in the officer's favor, as Barnes was trying to drive away when Felix was in the doorsill; shooting Barnes may have been necessary to protect Felix. But we cannot look at the case so narrowly. It may be that, in the minute or so prior to the shooting, Felix knew he was not facing any risk of serious harm that would justify the shooting. The lower court may instead find, on remand, that Felix knew, prior to stepping into the doorsill, there was no such risk since Barnes was only allegedly guilty of a toll violation and had not done anything prior to driving away to suggest that Felix was at risk of serious harm. In other words, maybe Felix created a dangerous situation by stepping into the doorsill, and creation of such a situation would tilt the case in Barnes' favor.