CHADRIN LEE MULLENIX v. BEATRICE LUNA, 577 U. S. - (2015)
CHADRIN LEE MULLENIX v. BEATRICE LUNA, 577 U. S. - (2015)
CHADRIN LEE MULLENIX v. BEATRICE LUNA, 577 U. S. - (2015)
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2015
The
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IN RE DONALD L. McDONALD
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IN RE EDWARD D. CURTIS
The petitions for writs of habeas corpus are denied.
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IN RE TERRANCE JAMES-BEY
The motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma
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show cause why he should not be disbarred; and the time to file
a response having expired;
It is ordered that Ricky Lawton is disbarred from the
practice of law in this Court.
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Per Curiam
PER CURIAM.
On the night of March 23, 2010, Sergeant Randy Baker
of the Tulia, Texas Police Department followed Israel
Leija, Jr., to a drive-in restaurant, with a warrant for his
arrest. 773 F. 3d 712, 715716 (CA5 2014). When Baker
approached Leijas car and informed him that he was
under arrest, Leija sped off, headed for Interstate 27.
2013 WL 4017124, *1 (ND Tex., Aug. 7, 2013). Baker gave
chase and was quickly joined by Trooper Gabriel Rodriguez of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). 773
F. 3d, at 716.
Leija entered the interstate and led the officers on an
18-minute chase at speeds between 85 and 110 miles per
hour. Ibid. Twice during the chase, Leija called the Tulia
Police dispatcher, claiming to have a gun and threatening
to shoot at police officers if they did not abandon their
pursuit. The dispatcher relayed Leijas threats, together
with a report that Leija might be intoxicated, to all concerned officers.
As Baker and Rodriguez maintained their pursuit, other
law enforcement officers set up tire spikes at three locations. Officer Troy Ducheneaux of the Canyon Police
Department manned the spike strip at the first location
Leija was expected to reach, beneath the overpass at
Cemetery Road. Ducheneaux and the other officers had
received training on the deployment of spike strips, including on how to take a defensive position so as to minimize
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the median, and rolled two and a half times. It was later
determined that Leija had been killed by Mullenixs shots,
four of which struck his upper body. There was no evidence that any of Mullenixs shots hit the cars radiator,
hood, or engine block. Id., at 716717; 2013 WL 4017124,
*2*3.
Respondents sued Mullenix under Rev. Stat. 1979, 42
U. S. C. 1983, alleging that he had violated the Fourth
Amendment by using excessive force against Leija. Mullenix moved for summary judgment on the ground of
qualified immunity, but the District Court denied his
motion, finding that [t]here are genuine issues of fact as
to whether Trooper Mullenix acted recklessly, or acted as
a reasonable, trained peace officer would have acted in the
same or similar circumstances. 2013 WL 4017124, *6.
Mullenix appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit affirmed. 765 F. 3d 531 (2014). The court
agreed with the District Court that the immediacy of the
risk posed by Leija is a disputed fact that a reasonable
jury could find either in the plaintiffs favor or in the
officers favor, precluding us from concluding that Mullenix acted objectively reasonably as a matter of law. Id.,
at 538.
Judge King dissented. She described the fact issue
referenced by the majority as simply a restatement of
the objective reasonableness test that applies to Fourth
Amendment excessive force claims, which, she noted, the
Supreme Court has held is a pure question of law. Id.,
at 544545 (quoting Scott v. Harris, 550 U. S. 372, 381, n.
8 (2007)). Turning to that legal question, Judge King
concluded that Mullenixs actions were objectively reasonable. When Mullenix fired, she emphasized, he knew not
only that Leija had threatened to shoot the officers involved in his pursuit, but also that Leija was seconds away
from encountering such an officer beneath the overpass.
Judge King also dismissed the notion that Mullenix should
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have given the spike strips a chance to work. She explained that because spike strips are often ineffective, and
because officers operating them are vulnerable to gunfire
from passing cars, Mullenix reasonably feared that the
officers manning them faced a significant risk of harm.
765 F. 3d, at 548549.
Mullenix sought rehearing en banc before the Fifth
Circuit, but the court denied his petition. Judge Jolly
dissented, joined by six other members of the court. Judge
King, who joined Judge Jollys dissent, also filed a separate dissent of her own. 777 F. 3d 221 (2014) ( per curiam).
On the same day, however, the two members forming the
original panels majority withdrew their previous opinion
and substituted a new one. 773 F. 3d 712. The revised
opinion recognized that objective unreasonableness is a
question of law that can be resolved on summary judgmentas Judge King had explained in her dissentbut
reaffirmed the denial of qualified immunity. Id., at 715,
718. The majority concluded that Mullenixs actions were
objectively unreasonable because several of the factors
that had justified deadly force in previous cases were
absent here: There were no innocent bystanders, Leijas
driving was relatively controlled, Mullenix had not first
given the spike strips a chance to work, and Mullenixs
decision was not a split-second judgment. Id., at 720724.
The court went on to conclude that Mullenix was not
entitled to qualified immunity because the law was clearly
established such that a reasonable officer would have
known that the use of deadly force, absent a sufficiently
substantial and immediate threat, violated the Fourth
Amendment. Id., at 725.
We address only the qualified immunity question, not
whether there was a Fourth Amendment violation in the
first place, and now reverse.
The doctrine of qualified immunity shields officials from
civil liability so long as their conduct does not violate
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in the deputys car, even though at the time of the shooting the individual had not yet operated the cruiser dangerously. The court explained that the law does not
require officers in a tense and dangerous situation to wait
until the moment a suspect uses a deadly weapon to act to
stop the suspect and concluded that the deputy had reason to believe Long was dangerous based on his unstable
state of mind, theft of the cruiser, and failure to heed the
deputys warning to stop. Id., at 581582. The court also
rejected the notion that the deputy should have first tried
less lethal methods, such as spike strips. [C]onsidering
the unpredictability of Longs behavior and his fleeing in a
marked police cruiser, the court held, we think the police
need not have taken that chance and hoped for the best.
Id., at 583 (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted). But see Smith v. Cupp, 430 F. 3d 766, 774777 (CA6
2005) (denying qualified immunity to an officer who shot
an intoxicated suspect who had stolen the officers cruiser
where a reasonable jury could have concluded that the
suspects flight did not immediately threaten the officer or
any other bystander).
Other cases cited by the Fifth Circuit and respondents
are simply too factually distinct to speak clearly to the
specific circumstances here. Several involve suspects who
may have done little more than flee at relatively low
speeds. See, e.g., Walker v. Davis, 649 F. 3d 502, 503 (CA6
2011); Kirby v. Duva, 530 F. 3d 475, 479480 (CA6 2008);
Adams v. Speers, 473 F. 3d 989, 991 (CA9 2007); Vaughan
v. Cox, 343 F. 3d 1323, 13301331, and n. 7 (CA11 2003).
These cases shed little light on whether the far greater
danger of a speeding fugitive threatening to kill police
officers waiting in his path could warrant deadly force.
The court below noted that no weapon was ever seen,
773 F. 3d, at 723, but surely in these circumstances the
police were justified in taking Leija at his word when he
twice told the dispatcher he had a gun and was prepared
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to use it.
Finally, respondents argue that the danger Leija represented was less substantial than the threats that courts
have found sufficient to justify deadly force. But the mere
fact that courts have approved deadly force in more extreme circumstances says little, if anything, about whether
such force was reasonable in the circumstances here.
The fact is that when Mullenix fired, he reasonably understood Leija to be a fugitive fleeing arrest, at speeds over
100 miles per hour, who was armed and possibly intoxicated, who had threatened to kill any officer he saw if the
police did not abandon their pursuit, and who was racing
towards Officer Ducheneauxs position. Even accepting
that these circumstances fall somewhere between the two
sets of cases respondents discuss, qualified immunity
protects actions in the hazy border between excessive
and acceptable force. Brosseau, supra, at 201 (quoting
Saucier, 533 U. S., at 206; some internal quotation marks
omitted).
Because the constitutional rule applied by the Fifth
Circuit was not beyond debate, Stanton v. Sims, 571
U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (per curiam) (slip op., at 8), we grant
Mullenixs petition for certiorari and reverse the Fifth
Circuits determination that Mullenix is not entitled to
qualified immunity.
It is so ordered.
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SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment
death. Here, however, it is conceded that Trooper Mullenix did not shoot to wound or kill the fleeing Leija, nor
even to drive Leijas car off the road, but only to cause the
car to stop by destroying its engine. That was a risky
enterprise, as the outcome demonstrated; but determining
whether it violated the Fourth Amendment requires us to
ask, not whether it was reasonable to kill Leija, but
whether it was reasonable to shoot at the engine in light of
the risk to Leija. It distorts that inquiry, I think, to make
the question whether it was reasonable for Mullenix to
apply deadly force.
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SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
MULLENIX v. LUNA
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
existed whether the car was stopped by a shot to the engine block or by the spike strips.
Nor was there any evidence that shooting at the car was
more reliable than the spike strips. The majority notes
that spike strips are fallible. Ante, at 89. But Mullenix
had no information to suggest that shooting to disable a
car had a higher success rate, much less that doing so with
no training and at night was more likely to succeed.
Moreover, not only did officers have training in setting up
the spike strips, but they had also placed two backup
strips further north along the highway in case the first set
failed. A reasonable officer could not have thought that
shooting would stop the car with less danger or greater
certainty than waiting.
The majority cites Long v. Slaton, 508 F. 3d 576 (CA11
2007), for the proposition that Mullenix need not have
first tried less lethal methods, such as spike strips.
Ante, at 11. But in that case, there was a clear reason to
prefer deadly force over the alternatives. In Long, an
officer fired to stop a suspect from fleeing in a stolen police
cruiser. 508 F. 3d, at 583. When the officer fired, there
were no alternative means of stopping the car in place.
The Eleventh Circuit held that the governmental interest
against waiting for a future deployment of spike strips
that may never materialize justified the use of deadly
force. Ibid.
In this case, by contrast, neither petitioner nor the
majority can point to any possible marginal gain in shooting at the car over using the spike strips already in place.
It is clearly established that there must be some governmental interest that necessitates deadly force, even if it is
not always clearly established what level of governmental
interest is sufficient.
Under the circumstances known to him at the time,
Mullenix puts forth no plausible reason to choose shooting
at Leijas engine block over waiting for the results of the
* The majority describes the choice between spike strips and shooting
as the choice between one dangerous alternative and another, noting
that spike strips can pose a danger to drivers that encounter them.
Ante, at 89. But Mullenix could not have thought that awaiting the
spikes was anywhere near as dangerous as shooting immediately before
Leija hit the spikes. For one thing, Mullenix had no training in shooting to disable the vehicle and so no idea of the relative danger that
shooting posed to a driver. For another, Leija would be subjected to the
danger posed by the spike strips whether Mullenix shot or not. And, in
fact, that is what happened: Leijas car hit the spike strips and then
rolled two and a half times.
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SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
Leija was a reportedly intoxicated fugitive, set on avoiding capture through high-speed vehicular flight, who twice
during his flight had threatened to shoot police officers,
and who was moments away from encountering an officer
at Cemetery Road. Ante, at 7. But not one of those facts
goes to the governmental interest in shooting over awaiting the spike strips. The majority also claims that established law does not make clear that Mullenixs reasons
were insufficient to justify his choice of shooting over
following his superiors orders to wait for the spikes. Ante,
at 910. But Mullenix seemed to have no reasons to prefer
shooting to following orders.
Instead of dealing with the question whether Mullenix
could constitutionally fire on Leijas car rather than waiting for the spike strips, the majority dwells on the imminence of the threat posed by Leija. The majority recharacterizes Mullenixs decision to shoot at Leijas engine block
as a split-second, heat-of-the-moment choice, made when
the suspect was moments away. Ante, at 7. Indeed,
reading the majority opinion, one would scarcely believe
that Mullenix arrived at the overpass several minutes
before he took his shot, or that the rural road where the
car chase occurred had few cars and no bystanders or
businesses. 773 F. 3d, at 717, 720. The majority also
glosses over the facts that Mullenix had time to ask Byrd
for permission to fire upon Leija and that Byrd
Mullenixs superior officertold Mullenix to stand by.
Id., at 717. There was no reason to believe that Byrd did
not have all the same information Mullenix did, including
the knowledge that an officer was stationed beneath the
overpass. Even after receiving Byrds response, Mullenix
spent minutes in shooting position discussing his next step
with a fellow officer, minutes during which he received no
information that would have made his plan more suitable
or his superiors orders less so. Ibid.
An appropriate reading of the record on summary judg-