142 S.Ct. 9
SCOTUS
2021

CITY OF TAHLEQUAH, OKLAHOMA, et al. v. BOND, as special administrator of the ESTATE OF ROLLICE, DECEASED

No. 20–1668

Supreme Court of the United States

October 18, 2021

595 U. S. 9

Syllabus

CITY OF TAHLEQUAH, OKLAHOMA, ET AL. v. BOND, AS SPECIAL ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ESTATE OF ROLLICE, DECEASED

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

No. 20–1668. Decided October 18, 2021

Three police officers responded to a 911 call from Dominic Rollice‘s ex-wife, Joy, who requested assistance because Rollice was in her garage, intoxicated, and would not leave. Joy met the responding officers out front and led them to the side entrance of her garage. There, the officers encountered Rollice and began speaking with him from the doorway. Officer Girdner asked if he could pat Rollice down for weapons; Rollice refused. Police body-camera video captured what happened next. Officer Girdner took a step toward the doorway, causing Rollice to take a step back, turn around, and walk toward the back of the garage where his tools were hanging over a workbench. Officer Girdner followed, with the other officers close behind. The officers stated that they ordered Rollice to stop, but he instead kept walking. He then grabbed a hammer from over the workbench and turned to face the officers. Rollice grasped the hammer as if preparing to swing a baseball bat, and the officers responded by backing up, drawing their guns, and yelling at Rollice to drop the hammer. He did not. Rollice instead took a few steps to his right, coming out from behind a piece of furniture so that he had an unobstructed path to Officer Girdner. He then raised the hammer back behind his head and took a stance as if he was about to throw the hammer or charge at the officers. In response, Officers Girdner and Vick fired their weapons, killing him.

Rollice‘s estate filed suit against, among others, Officers Girdner and Vick, alleging that the officers were liable under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, for violating Rollice‘s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. The District Court granted the officers’ motion for summary judgment, concluding that the officers’ use of force was reasonable and, even if not, that qualified immunity prevented the case from going further. The Tenth Circuit reversed based on the panel majority‘s application of Tenth Circuit precedent.

Held: The officers are entitled to qualified immunity from suit. The doctrine of qualified immunity shields officers from civil liability if their conduct “does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” . Qualified immunity protects “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” (internal quotation marks omitted). A clearly established rule is not one merely suggested by then-existing precedent; the rule‘s contours must be so well defined that a reasonable officer would know that his conduct was unlawful in the situation confronted. Ibid. The Tenth Circuit contravened those settled principles here. None of the decisions on which the Court of Appeals relied comes close to establishing that the officers’ conduct was unlawful. Neither the panel majority nor the respondent has identified a single precedent finding a Fourth Amendment violation under similar circumstances. The officers were thus entitled to qualified immunity. Given that conclusion, the Court need not, and does not, decide whether the officers violated the Fourth Amendment, or whether recklessly creating a situation that requires deadly force can itself violate the Fourth Amendment.

Certiorari granted; 981 F. 3d 808, reversed.

CITY OF TAHLEQUAH, OKLAHOMA, et al. v. BOND, as special administrator of the ESTATE OF ROLLICE, DECEASED

No. 20–1668

Supreme Court of the United States

October 18, 2021

595 U. S. 9

PER CURIAM.

On August 12, 2016, Dominic Rollice‘s ex-wife, Joy, called 911. Rollice was in her garage, she explained, and he was intoxicated and would not leave. Joy requested police assistance; otherwise, “it‘s going to get ugly real quick.” . The dispatcher asked whether Rollice lived at the residence. Joy said he did not but explained that he kept tools in her garage.

Officers Josh Girdner, Chase Reed, and Brandon Vick responded to the call. All three knew that Rollice was Joy‘s ex-husband, was intoxicated, and would not leave her home.

Joy met the officers out front and led them to the side entrance of the garage. There the officers encountered Rollice and began speaking with him in the doorway. Rollice expressed concern that the officers intended to take him to jail; Officer Girdner told him that they were simply trying to get him a ride. Rollice began fidgeting with something in his hands and the officers noticed that he appeared nervous. Officer Girdner asked if he could pat Rollice down for weapons. Rollice refused.

Police body-camera video captured what happened next. As the conversation continued, Officer Girdner gestured with his hands and took one step toward the doorway, causing Rollice to take one step back. Rollice, still conversing with the officers, turned around and walked toward the back of the garage where his tools were hanging over a workbench. Officer Girdner followed, the others close behind. No officer was within six feet of Rollice. The video is silent, but the officers stated that they ordered Rollice to stop. Rollice kept walking. He then grabbed a hammer from the back wall over the workbench and turned around to face the officers. Rollice grasped the handle of the hammer with both hands, as if preparing to swing a baseball bat, and pulled it up to shoulder level. The officers backed up, drawing their guns. At this point the video is no longer silent, and the officers can be heard yelling at Rollice to drop the hammer.

He did not. Instead, Rollice took a few steps to his right, coming out from behind a piece of furniture so that he had an unobstructed path to Officer Girdner. He then raised the hammer higher back behind his head and took a stance as if he was about to throw the hammer or charge at the officers. In response, Officers Girdner and Vick fired their weapons, killing Rollice.

Rollice‘s estate filed suit against, among others, Officers Girdner and Vick, alleging that the officers were liable under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, for violating Rollice‘s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. The officers moved for summary judgment, both on the merits and on qualified immunity grounds. The District Court granted their motion. . The officers’ use of force was reasonable, it concluded, and even if not, qualified immunity prevented the case from going further. Ibid.

A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed. . The Court began by explaining that Tenth Circuit precedent allows an officer to be held liable for a shooting that is itself objectively reasonable if the officer‘s reckless or deliberate conduct created a situation requiring deadly force. Id., at 816. Applying that rule, the Court concluded that a jury could find that Officer Girdner‘s initial step toward Rollice and the officers’ subsequent “cornering” of him in the back of the garage recklessly created the situation that led to the fatal shooting, such that their ultimate use of deadly force was unconstitutional. Id., at 823. As to qualified immunity, the Court concluded that several cases, most notably , clearly established that the officers’ conduct was unlawful. . This petition followed.

We need not, and do not, decide whether the officers violated the Fourth Amendment in the first place, or whether recklessly creating a situation that requires deadly force can itself violate the Fourth Amendment. On this record, the officers plainly did not violate any clearly established law.

The doctrine of qualified immunity shields officers from civil liability so long as their conduct “does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” . As we have explained, qualified immunity protects “‘all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.‘” (quoting ).

We have repeatedly told courts not to define clearly established law at too high a level of generality. See, e.g., . It is not enough that a rule be suggested by then-existing precedent; the “rule‘s contours must be so well defined that it is ‘clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.‘” (quoting ). Such specificity is “especially important in the Fourth Amendment context,” where it is “sometimes difficult for an officer to determine how the relevant legal doctrine, here excessive force, will apply to the factual situation the officer confronts.” (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Tenth Circuit contravened those settled principles here. Not one of the decisions relied upon by the Court of Appeals—, , , and —comes close to establishing that the officers’ conduct was unlawful. The Court relied most heavily on . But the facts of are dramatically different from the facts here. The officers in responded to a potential suicide call by sprinting toward a parked car, screaming at the suspect, and attempting to physically wrest a gun from his hands. . Officers Girdner and Vick, by contrast, engaged in a conversation with Rollice, followed him into a garage at a distance of 6 to 10 feet, and did not yell until after he picked up a hammer. We cannot conclude that “clearly established” that their conduct was reckless or that their ultimate use of force was unlawful.

The other decisions relied upon by the Court of Appeals are even less relevant. As for , that decision merely noted in dicta that deliberate or reckless preseizure conduct can render a later use of force excessive before dismissing the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. See . To state the obvious, a decision where the court did not even have jurisdiction cannot clearly establish substantive constitutional law. Regardless, that formulation of the rule is much too general to bear on whether the officers’ particular conduct here violated the Fourth Amendment. See . , decided after the shooting at issue, is of no use in the clearly established inquiry. See (per curiam). And , an unpublished decision, involved officers initiating an encounter with a potentially suicidal individual by chasing him into his bedroom, screaming at him, and pepper-spraying him. . Suffice it to say, a reasonable officer could miss the connection between that case and this one.

Neither the panel majority nor the respondent has identified a single precedent finding a Fourth Amendment violation under similar circumstances. The officers were thus entitled to qualified immunity.

The petition for certiorari and the motions for leave to file briefs amici curiae are granted, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Reporter‘s Note

The attached opinion has been revised to reflect the usual publication and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination makes available the official United States Reports citation in advance of publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court. Other revisions may include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant punctuation. The following additional edits were made:

p. 14, line 6, “have” is replaced with “has”