May 15 (UPI) — In a case making it easier to challenge police unreasonable force in court, the Supreme Court Thursday unanimously permitted the mother of a Houston man killed in a traffic stop to continue an excessive force court claim.
The court ruled that the totality of the circumstances and not just the “moment of threat doctrine” must be used to assess whether the use of police force was “objectively reasonable.”
Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the opinion, “The question here is whether that framework permits courts, in evaluating a police shooting (or other use of force), to apply the so-called moment-of-threat rule … Under that rule, a court looks only to the circumstances existing at the precise time an officer perceived the threat inducing him to shoot.”
She added, “Today, we reject that approach as improperly narrowing the requisite Fourth Amendment analysis. To assess whether an officer acted reasonably in using force, a court must consider all the relevant circumstances, including facts and events leading up to the climactic moment.”
Janice Hughes Barnes sued Houston Police officer Robert Felix Jr. for shooting Ashtian Barnes to death during a traffic stop as Barnes drove off April 28, 2016.
Barnes was stopped for toll road violations.
Felix was sued for use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Lower courts using the “moment of threat doctrine” upheld the police action as reasonable use of force because they only looked at the seconds when the officer fired the shots.
They did not consider the totality of the circumstances leading up to those critical seconds.
After Barnes stopped, Officer Felix commented he smelled marijuana as Barnes rummaged through papers looking for his license and insurance proof.
Barnes said he may have identification in the car trunk so Felix told him to open the trunk while seated inside the car.
The officer then told Barnes to get out of his car, but instead Barnes turned the car ignition back on.
The officer jumped onto the door sill of the car as it moved forward yelling at Barnes not to move.
Within two seconds, according to the Supreme Court account, Felix fired two shots inside the car, fatally wounding Barnes.
The Supreme Court opinion said of the lower court decisions, “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.”
The Supreme Court ruling said, “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.”
With that matter resolved, the court said, it will return the case to lower courts.
“It is for them now to consider the reasonableness of the shooting, using the lengthier timeframe we have prescribed,” the Supreme Court opinion said.
Circuit Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote in a concurring opinion that the justices should overturn his court’s finding that the police force was reasonable, because it relied on the “moment of threat” doctrine.
“Here, given the rapid sequence of events and Officer Felix’s role in drawing his weapon and jumping on the running board, the totality of the circumstances merits finding that Officer Felix violated Barnes’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force,” Higginbotham wrote.
Felix can still use the qualified immunity defense as the Barnes lawsuit continues. It protects police if it wasn’t clearly established their actions were unlawful at the time of the use of force.
