The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday in favor of expanding the review process for police officers accused of using excessive force to include the circumstances that led up to the incident, not just what was happening the point at which the force was used, in a procedural change that could give accused officers more evidence with which to defend themselves.
The Thursday ruling in Barnes v. Felix stemmed from a deadly 2016 traffic stop between police officer Roberto Felix Jr. and Ashtian Barnes in Texas. Felix pulled over Barnes, who was in a rental car in his girlfriend’s name, over various outstanding toll violations attributed to the car. While Barnes was initially responsive to Felix, the police officer eventually told Barnes to get out of the car, and Barnes attempted to drive away. Felix jumped onto the doorsill and fired two shots from his gun, killing Barnes.
A lower court used the “moment-of-threat rule” to evaluate the claims of possible excessive force by Felix, meaning that the lower court only considered whether the officer was in immediate danger at the time of the shots fired could be evaluated, and events leading up to the incident were considered irrelevant. A unanimous ruling by the high court written by Justice Elena Kagan said that the moment-of-threat rule is “not reconcilable with the fact-dependent and context-sensitive approach this Court has prescribed.”
“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,” Kagan wrote in the high court’s opinion.
She noted that while the moment of the threat would typically be the most important factor, courts should still look at all earlier facts and circumstances in excessive force cases.
“Of course, the situation at the precise time of the shooting will often be what matters most; it is, after all, the officer’s choice in that moment that is under review. But earlier facts and circumstances may bear on how a reasonable officer would have understood and responded to later ones,” Kagan wrote.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh issued a concurrence, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett, agreeing with the idea that the “case should be assessed based on the totality of the circumstances,” but they noted the “dangers of traffic stops for police officers” in discussing the facts of the traffic stop at issue.
“The point here is that when 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,” Kavanaugh wrote in his concurrence.
Cato Institute legal fellow Mike Fox claimed the ruling would “restore public confidence” in policing and was in line with common law protections of human life.
“This decision echoes the common law’s historical protection of human life, which restricted the use of deadly force by officers — particularly in cases of flight from minor offenses. Deadly force was traditionally reserved for instances of forceful resistance against an officer,” Fox said following Thursday’s ruling.
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“Today’s ruling has the potential to help restore public confidence in law enforcement. Moreover, it promotes safer policing practices by underscoring the importance of considering the broader context leading up to the use of deadly force,” Fox added.
The libertarian-leaning think tank had filed amicus briefs to the Supreme Court regarding the case, calling on the high court to mandate that all facts and circumstances be considered in the investigation of alleged police excessive force incidents.