In its unanimous 8-0 decision, SCOTUS ditched politically correct America and sided with police officers…
In light of the recent spate of cops getting arrested for doing police work, it’s reinvigorating to read the favorable ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) overturning the US District Court’s “Provocation Doctrine” findings, which found the police were liable in certain self-defense scenarios.
The “Provocation Doctrine” was delineated by the Ninth Circuit District Court in Billington v. Smith which held: “Where an officer intentionally or recklessly provokes a violent confrontation, if the provocation is an independent Fourth Amendment violation,” the law enforcement officer “may be held liable for his otherwise defensive use of deadly force.”
In its unanimous 8-0 decision, SCOTUS effectively analyzed dubious implications regarding law enforcement officers’ rights to self-defense whereby circumstances indicate warrantless entry was made. In that regard, it canned the “Provocation Doctrine” and gave the police the ball.
In 2010, two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office (LASO) deputies entered a shack where, it was subsequently established, they had no legal right to be (warrantless entry) and no knock-and-announce was given. In context, the deputies’ investigative purpose was initiated when they were summoned to help search for a fugitive parolee at an address provided by a confidential informant. Upon checking a rear-yard shack (a potential hiding spot), the deputies encountered Angel Mendez and Jennifer Lynn Garcia, a homeless couple squatting modestly in their make-shift abode with a sheet as its door.
Seeking a parolee who was known to be armed and dangerous, LASO deputies Christopher Conley and Jennifer Pederson drew back the curtain, saw Mendez pointing his BB gun, and bellowed “Gun!”
Between both deputies, 15 rounds were fired.
Mendez and Garcia (also pregnant at the time) were shot by the sheriff’s deputies. Stemming from this officer-involved shooting, Mendez lost a leg to amputation. He filed a lawsuit against both law enforcement officers and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office.
After a lower court heard the case and awarded Mendez $4 million in damages, the case entangled and was appealed.
Angel Mendez v. County of Los Angeles et al. ultimately wound up before the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals, which ruled the Los Angeles sheriff and the two deputies involved in the shooting were “not entitled to qualified immunity for a warrantless entry and were liable for the damages arising from the shooting that followed.” The court cited that neither deputy had any right to be present in the shack and thus promulgated culpability for the shooting incident leading to amputation of Mendez’s leg. Garcia was shot in the back and survived the injury.
It would behoove us to visit “qualified immunity” as defined by SCOTUS in 1982, so as to clearly understand the judicial scrutiny pertinent to this case. In short, qualified immunity recognizes that “government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
In Mendez, the argument engenders the Fourth Amendment prohibiting illegal search and seizure and, minus a properly vetted/obtained warrant, unlawful entry upon premises where probable cause was not established. These variables became the thrust behind Mendez’s litigation.
In reversing the decision rendered by the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals in Angel Mendez v. County of Los Angeles, law enforcement was bestowed a major pillar in use-of-force cases whereby SCOTUS bifurcated “Provocation Doctrine” and “qualified immunity.”
In County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, the Supreme Court ruling holds that, despite being present where they had no legal jurisdiction to be, the compelling right for the police to defend themselves does rise to the level of qualified immunity, bumping the “Provocation Doctrine.” Thus the deputies shooting Mendez (and Garcia) amounted to a self-defense case and not an unprovoked injury to Mendez.
Discarding the “Provocation Doctrine” asserted by the Court of Appeals, SCOTUS effectively reasoned that no cop is expected to stand defenseless while staring down the barrel of a rifle (articulation of simulated or BB gun is not a prescribed legal requirement). The ruling specified the BB gun’s context in this case as one which “closely resembled a small caliber rifle.”
Opining for the Court, Justice Samuel Alito wrote the provocation doctrine “is incompatible with our excessive force jurisprudence.” Justice Alito affirmed, “The rule’s fundamental flaw is that it uses another constitutional violation to manufacture an excessive force where one would not otherwise exist.” Underscoring the reversal, Justice Alito explained, “…the Court of Appeals’ proximate cause analysis, like the provocation rule, conflated distinct Fourth Amendment claims and required only a murky causal link between the warrantless entry and the injuries attributed to it.”
In a rebuttal to SCOTUS decision, some feel the court erred and handed over the reins to police, should similar circumstances recur. The National Review telegraphed the “need for smarter Second Amendment jurisprudence.”
Pointedly, Reason.com articulated, “Of course, if the police had not violated the Constitution to begin with in this case, the police would not have had the opportunity to use any sort of force at all. The indisputable fact is that Angel Mendez would still have the use of his right leg if the detectives had not disobeyed the Fourth Amendment, illegally entered his home, and shot him.”
In absolute fairness, the SCOTUS decision included the judicial heads-up, as follows: “On remand, the court should revisit the question whether proximate cause permits respondents to recover damages for their injuries based on the deputies’ failure to secure a warrant at the outset.” That detail circles back to procedural principles, safeguarding rule of law, and precluding liability.
At the beginning of this piece we mentioned that the SCOTUS decision was unanimous, with a tally of 8-0. The ninth judiciary authority comprising SCOTUS, Judge Neil Gorsuch, “took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.”
Despite the SCOTUS ruling protecting the police, did law enforcement get a black eye or a trump card? Both?
