SCOTT v. HARRIS
No. 05-1631
Supreme Court of the United States
April 30, 2007
550 U.S. 372
Philip W. Savrin argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Sun S. Choy and Orin S. Kerr.
Deputy Solicitor General Garre argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Keisler, Jonathan L. Marcus, and Barbara L. Herwig.
Craig T. Jones argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Andrew C. Clarke.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Illinois et al. by Lisa Madigan, Attorney General of Illinois, Gary Feinerman, Solicitor General, and Michael Scodro, Deputy Solicitor General, by Craig J. Tillery, Acting Attorney General of Alaska, by Roberto J. Sanchez-Ramos, Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Terry Goddard of Arizona, Mike Beebe of Arkansas, Bill Lockyer of California, John W. Suthers of Colorado, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Steve Carter of Indiana, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Michael A. Cox of Michigan, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Mike McGrath of Montana, Kelly A. Ayotte of New Hampshire, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Patrick Lynch of Rhode Island, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Robert E. Cooper, Jr., of Tennessee, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming; and for the National Association of Counties et al. by Richard Ruda, Charles A. Rothfeld, Andrew J. Pincus, and Dan Kahan.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by Hamilton P. Fox III, Steven R. Shapiro, and Gerald R. Weber; for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers by Jonathan D. Hacker, Nicole A. Saharsky, and Pamela Harris; and for the National Police Accountability Project by Karen Blum, Howard Friedman, and Myong J. Joun.
A brief of amicus curiae was filed for the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, Inc., by Michael A. Caldwell.
We consider whether a law enforcement official can, consistent with the
I
In March 2001, a Georgia county deputy clocked respondent‘s vehicle traveling at 73 miles per hour on a road with a 55-mile-per-hour speed limit. The deputy activated his blue flashing lights indicating that respondent should pull over. Instead, respondent sped away, initiating a chase down what
Following respondent‘s shopping center maneuvering, which resulted in slight damage to Scott‘s police car, Scott took over as the lead pursuit vehicle. Six minutes and nearly 10 miles after the chase had begun, Scott decided to attempt to terminate the episode by employing a “Precision Intervention Technique (‘PIT‘) maneuver, which causes the fleeing vehicle to spin to a stop.” Brief for Petitioner 4. Having radioed his supervisor for permission, Scott was told to “[g]o ahead and take him out.” Harris v. Coweta Cty., 433 F. 3d 807, 811 (CA11 2005). Instead, Scott applied his push bumper to the rear of respondent‘s vehicle.1 As a result, respondent lost control of his vehicle, which left the roadway, ran down an embankment, overturned, and crashed. Respondent was badly injured and was rendered a quadriplegic.
Respondent filed suit against Deputy Scott and others under
In resolving questions of qualified immunity, courts are required to resolve a “threshold question: Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer‘s conduct violated a constitutional right? This must be the initial inquiry.” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 201 (2001). If, and only if, the court finds a violation of a constitutional right, “the next, sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly established . . . in light of the specific context of the case.” Ibid. Although this ordering contradicts “[o]ur policy of avoiding unnecessary adjudication of constitutional issues,” United States v. Treasury Employees, 513 U. S. 454, 478 (1995) (citing Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 346-347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring)), we have said that such a departure from practice is “necessary to set forth principles which will become the basis for a [future] holding that a right is clearly established,” Saucier, supra, at 201.4 We therefore turn to the
III
A
The first step in assessing the constitutionality of Scott‘s actions is to determine the relevant facts. As this case was decided on summary judgment, there have not yet been factual findings by a judge or jury, and respondent‘s version of events (unsurprisingly) differs substantially from Scott‘s version. When things are in such a posture, courts are required to view the facts and draw reasonable inferences “in the light most favorable to the party opposing the [summary judgment] motion.” United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U. S. 654, 655 (1962) (per curiam); Saucier, supra, at 201. In qualified immunity cases, this usually means adopting (as the Court of Appeals did here) the plaintiff‘s version of the facts.
There is, however, an added wrinkle in this case: existence in the record of a videotape capturing the events in question. There are no allegations or indications that this videotape was doctored or altered in any way, nor any contention that what it depicts differs from what actually happened. The videotape quite clearly contradicts the version of the story told by respondent and adopted by the Court of Appeals.5 For example, the Court of Appeals adopted respondent‘s assertions that, during the chase, “there was little, if any, actual threat to pedestrians or other motorists, as the roads were mostly empty and [respondent] remained in control of his vehicle.” 433 F. 3d, at 815. Indeed, reading the lower court‘s opinion, one gets the impression that respondent,
“[T]aking the facts from the non-movant‘s viewpoint, [respondent] remained in control of his vehicle, slowed for turns and intersections, and typically used his indicators for turns. He did not run any motorists off the road. Nor was he a threat to pedestrians in the shopping center parking lot, which was free from pedestrian and vehicular traffic as the center was closed. Significantly, by the time the parties were back on the highway and Scott rammed [respondent], the motorway had been cleared of motorists and pedestrians allegedly because of police blockades of the nearby intersections.” Id., at 815-816 (citations omitted).
The videotape tells quite a different story. There we see respondent‘s vehicle racing down narrow, two-lane roads in the dead of night at speeds that are shockingly fast. We see it swerve around more than a dozen other cars, cross the double-yellow line, and force cars traveling in both directions to their respective shoulders to avoid being hit.6 We see it run multiple red lights and travel for considerable periods of time in the occasional center left-turn-only lane, chased by numerous police cars forced to engage in the same hazardous
At the summary judgment stage, facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party only if there is a “genuine” dispute as to those facts.
That was the case here with regard to the factual issue whether respondent was driving in such fashion as to endanger human life. Respondent‘s version of events is so utterly discredited by the record that no reasonable jury could have believed him. The Court of Appeals should not have relied
B
Judging the matter on that basis, we think it is quite clear that Deputy Scott did not violate the
1
Respondent urges us to analyze this case as we analyzed Garner, 471 U. S. 1. See Brief for Respondent 16-29. We must first decide, he says, whether the actions Scott took
Respondent‘s argument falters at its first step; Garner did not establish a magical on/off switch that triggers rigid preconditions whenever an officer‘s actions constitute “deadly force.” Garner was simply an application of the Fourth Amendment‘s “reasonableness” test, Graham, supra, at 388, to the use of a particular type of force in a particular situation. Garner held that it was unreasonable to kill a “young, slight, and unarmed” burglary suspect, 471 U. S., at 21, by shooting him “in the back of the head” while he was running away on foot, id., at 4, and when the officer “could not reason-
2
In determining the reasonableness of the manner in which a seizure is effected, “[w]e must balance the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual‘s Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion.” United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 703 (1983). Scott defends his actions by pointing to the paramount governmental interest in ensuring public safety, and respondent nowhere suggests this was not the purpose motivating Scott‘s behavior. Thus, in judging whether Scott‘s actions were reasonable, we must consider the risk of bodily harm that Scott‘s actions posed to respondent in light of the threat to the public that Scott was trying to eliminate. Although there is no obvious way to quantify
But wait, says respondent: Couldn‘t the innocent public equally have been protected, and the tragic accident entirely avoided, if the police had simply ceased their pursuit? We think the police need not have taken that chance and hoped for the best. Whereas Scott‘s action — ramming respondent off the road — was certain to eliminate the risk that respondent posed to the public, ceasing pursuit was not. First of all, there would have been no way to convey convincingly to respondent that the chase was off, and that he was free to go. Had respondent looked in his rearview mirror and seen the police cars deactivate their flashing lights and turn around, he would have had no idea whether they were truly letting him get away, or simply devising a new strategy for capture. Perhaps the police knew a shortcut he didn‘t know, and would reappear down the road to intercept him; or perhaps they were setting up a roadblock in his path. Cf. Brower, 489 U. S., at 594. Given such uncertainty, respondent might have been just as likely to respond by continuing to drive recklessly as by slowing down and wiping his brow.11
Second, we are loath to lay down a rule requiring the police to allow fleeing suspects to get away whenever they drive so recklessly that they put other people‘s lives in danger. It is obvious the perverse incentives such a rule would create: Every fleeing motorist would know that escape is within his grasp, if only he accelerates to 90 miles per hour, crosses the double-yellow line a few times, and runs a few red lights. The Constitution assuredly does not impose this
*
*
*
The car chase that respondent initiated in this case posed a substantial and immediate risk of serious physical injury to others; no reasonable jury could conclude otherwise. Scott‘s attempt to terminate the chase by forcing respondent off the road was reasonable, and Scott is entitled to summary judgment. The Court of Appeals’ judgment to the contrary is reversed.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE GINSBURG, concurring.
I join the Court‘s opinion and would underscore two points. First, I do not read today‘s decision as articulating a mechanical, per se rule. Cf. post, at 389 (BREYER, J., concurring). The inquiry described by the Court, ante, at 383-385 and this page, is situation specific. Among relevant considerations: Were the lives and well-being of others (motorists, pedestrians, police officers) at risk? Was there a safer way, given the time, place, and circumstances, to stop the fleeing vehicle? “[A]dmirable” as “[an] attempt to craft an easy-to-apply legal test in the Fourth Amendment context [may be],” the Court explains, “in the end we must still slosh our way through the factbound morass of ‘reasonableness.‘” Ante, at 383.
Second, were this case suitable for resolution on qualified immunity grounds, without reaching the constitutional question, JUSTICE BREYER‘S discussion would be engaging. See post, at 387-389 (urging the Court to overrule Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194 (2001)). In joining the Court‘s opinion,
JUSTICE BREYER, concurring.
I join the Court‘s opinion with one suggestion and two qualifications. Because watching the video footage of the car chase made a difference to my own view of the case, I suggest that the interested reader take advantage of the link in the Court‘s opinion, ante, at 378, n. 5, and watch it. Having done so, I do not believe a reasonable jury could, in this instance, find that Officer Timothy Scott (who joined the chase late in the day and did not know the specific reason why the respondent was being pursued) acted in violation of the Constitution.
Second, the video makes clear the highly fact-dependent nature of this constitutional determination. And that fact dependency supports the argument that we should overrule the requirement, announced in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194 (2001), that lower courts must first decide the “constitutional question” before they turn to the “qualified immunity question.” See id., at 200 (“[T]he first inquiry must be whether a constitutional right would have been violated on the facts alleged“). Instead, lower courts should be free to decide the two questions in whatever order makes sense in the context of a particular case. Although I do not object to our deciding the constitutional question in this particular case, I believe that in order to lift the burden from lower courts we can and should reconsider Saucier‘s requirement as well.
Sometimes (e. g., where a defendant is clearly entitled to qualified immunity) Saucier‘s fixed order-of-battle rule wastes judicial resources in that it may require courts to
It is not surprising that commentators, judges, and, in this case, 28 States in an amicus brief have invited us to reconsider Saucier‘s requirement. See Leval, Judging Under the Constitution: Dicta About Dicta, 81 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1249, 1275 (2006) (calling the requirement “a puzzling misadventure in constitutional dictum“); Dirrane v. Brookline Police Dept., 315 F. 3d 65, 69-70 (CA1 2002) (referring to the requirement as “an uncomfortable exercise” when “the answer whether there was a violation may depend on a kaleidoscope of facts not yet fully developed“); Lyons v. Xenia, 417 F. 3d 565, 580-584 (CA6 2005) (Sutton, J., concurring); Brief for State of Illinois et al. as Amici Curiae. I would accept that invitation.
While this Court should generally be reluctant to overturn precedents, stare decisis concerns are at their weakest here. See, e. g., Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 828 (1991) (“Considerations in favor of stare decisis” are at their weakest in cases “involving procedural and evidentiary rules“). The
Third, I disagree with the Court insofar as it articulates a per se rule. The majority states: “A police officer‘s attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
Today, the Court asks whether an officer may “take actions that place a fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death in order to stop the motorist‘s flight from endangering the lives of innocent bystanders.” Ante, at 374. Depending on the circumstances, the answer may be an obvious “yes,” an obvious “no,” or sufficiently doubtful that the question of the reasonableness of the officer‘s actions should be decided by a jury, after a review of the degree of danger and the alternatives available to the officer. A high-speed chase in a desert in Nevada is, after all, quite different from one that travels through the heart of Las Vegas.
Relying on a de novo review of a videotape of a portion of a nighttime chase on a lightly traveled road in Georgia where no pedestrians or other “bystanders” were present, buttressed by uninformed speculation about the possible consequences of discontinuing the chase, eight of the jurors on this Court reach a verdict that differs from the views of the judges on both the District Court and the Court of Appeals who are surely more familiar with the hazards of driving on Georgia roads than we are. The Court‘s justification for this unprecedented departure from our well-settled standard of
Rather than supporting the conclusion that what we see on the video “resembles a Hollywood-style car chase of the most frightening sort,” ibid.,1 the tape actually confirms, rather than contradicts, the lower courts’ appraisal of the factual questions at issue. More importantly, it surely does not provide a principled basis for depriving the respondent of his right to have a jury evaluate the question whether the police officers’ decision to use deadly force to bring the chase to an end was reasonable.
Omitted from the Court‘s description of the initial speeding violation is the fact that respondent was on a four-lane portion of Highway 34 when the officer clocked his speed at 73 miles per hour and initiated the chase.2 More significantly — and contrary to the Court‘s assumption that respondent‘s vehicle “force[d] cars traveling in both directions
The police sirens also minimized any risk that may have arisen from running “multiple red lights,” ibid. In fact, respondent and his pursuers went through only two intersections with stop lights and in both cases all other vehicles in sight were stationary, presumably because they had been warned of the approaching speeders. Incidentally, the videos do show that the lights were red when the police cars passed through them but, because the cameras were farther away when respondent did so and it is difficult to discern the color of the signal at that point, it is not entirely clear that
My colleagues on the jury saw respondent “swerve around more than a dozen other cars,” and “force cars traveling in both directions to their respective shoulders,” ibid., but they apparently discounted the possibility that those cars were already out of the pursuit‘s path as a result of hearing the sirens. Even if that were not so, passing a slower vehicle on a two-lane road always involves some degree of swerving and is not especially dangerous if there are no cars coming from the opposite direction. At no point during the chase did respondent pull into the opposite lane other than to pass a car in front of him; he did the latter no more than five times and, on most of those occasions, used his turn signal. On none of these occasions was there a car traveling in the opposite direction. In fact, at one point, when respondent found himself behind a car in his own lane and there were cars traveling in the other direction, he slowed and waited for the cars traveling in the other direction to pass before overtaking the car in front of him while using his turn signal to do so. This is hardly the stuff of Hollywood. To the contrary, the video does not reveal any incidents that could even be remotely characterized as “close calls.”
In sum, the factual statements by the Court of Appeals quoted by the Court, ante, at 378-379, were entirely accurate. That court did not describe respondent as a “cautious” driver as my colleagues imply, ante, at 380, but it did correctly conclude that there is no evidence that he ever lost control of his vehicle. That court also correctly pointed out that the incident in the shopping center parking lot did not create any risk to pedestrians or other vehicles because the chase occurred just before 11 p. m. on a weekday night and the center was closed. It is apparent from the record (in-
I recognize, of course, that even though respondent‘s original speeding violation on a four-lane highway was rather ordinary, his refusal to stop and subsequent flight was a serious offense that merited severe punishment. It was not, however, a capital offense, or even an offense that justified the use of deadly force rather than an abandonment of the chase. The Court‘s concern about the “imminent threat to the lives of any pedestrians who might have been present,” ante, at 384, while surely valid in an appropriate case, should be discounted in a case involving a nighttime chase in an area where no pedestrians were present.
What would have happened if the police had decided to abandon the chase? We now know that they could have apprehended respondent later because they had his license plate number. Even if that were not true, and even if he would have escaped any punishment at all, the use of deadly force in this case was no more appropriate than the use of a deadly weapon against a fleeing felon in Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1 (1985). In any event, any uncertainty about the result of abandoning the pursuit has not prevented the Court from basing its conclusions on its own factual assumptions.5
The Court attempts to avoid the conclusion that deadly force was unnecessary by speculating that if the officers had let him go, respondent might have been “just as likely” to continue to drive recklessly as to slow down and wipe his brow. Ante, at 385. That speculation is unconvincing as a matter of common sense and improper as a matter of law. Our duty to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party would foreclose such speculation if the Court had not used its observation of the video as an excuse for replacing the rule of law with its ad hoc judgment. There is no evidentiary basis for an assumption that dangers caused by flight from a police pursuit will continue after the pursuit ends. Indeed, rules adopted by countless police departments throughout the country are based on a judgment that differs from the Court‘s. See, e. g., App. to Brief for Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, Inc., as Amicus Curiae A-52 (“During a pursuit, the need to apprehend the suspect should always outweigh the level of danger created by the pursuit. When the immediate danger to the public created by the pursuit is greater than the immediate or potential danger to the public should the suspect remain at large, then the pursuit should be discontinued or terminated. . . . [P]ursuits should usually be discontinued when the violator‘s identity has been established to the point that later apprehension can be accomplished without danger to the public“).
Although Garner may not, as the Court suggests, “estab-
“Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force. Thus, if the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if, where feasible, some warning has been given.” 471 U. S., at 11-12.
Whether a person‘s actions have risen to a level warranting deadly force is a question of fact best reserved for a jury.6 Here, the Court has usurped the jury‘s factfinding function and, in doing so, implicitly labeled the four other judges to review the case unreasonable. It chastises the Court of Appeals for failing to “vie[w] the facts in the light depicted by the videotape” and implies that no reasonable person could view the videotape and come to the conclusion that deadly force was unjustified. Ante, at 380-381. However, the three judges on the Court of Appeals panel apparently did view the videotapes entered into evidence7 and described a very different version of events:
“At the time of the ramming, apart from speeding and running two red lights, Harris was driving in a non-
aggressive fashion (i. e., without trying to ram or run into the officers). Moreover, . . . Scott‘s path on the open highway was largely clear. The videos introduced into evidence show little to no vehicular (or pedestrian) traffic, allegedly because of the late hour and the police blockade of the nearby intersections. Finally, Scott issued absolutely no warning (e. g., over the loudspeaker or otherwise) prior to using deadly force.” 433 F. 3d 807, 819, n. 14 (CA11 2005).
If two groups of judges can disagree so vehemently about the nature of the pursuit and the circumstances surrounding that pursuit, it seems eminently likely that a reasonable juror could disagree with this Court‘s characterization of events. Moreover, under the standard set forth in Garner, it is certainly possible that “a jury could conclude that Scott unreasonably used deadly force to seize Harris by ramming him off the road under the instant circumstances.” 433 F. 3d, at 821.
The Court today sets forth a per se rule that presumes its own version of the facts: “A police officer‘s attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death.” Ante, at 386 (emphasis added). Not only does that rule fly in the face of the flexible and case-by-case “reasonableness” approach applied in Garner and Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386 (1989), but it is also arguably inapplicable to the case at hand, given that it is not clear that this chase threatened the life of any “innocent bystande[r].”8 In my view, the risks inherent in justifying unwarranted police conduct on the basis of unfounded as-
I respectfully dissent.