The Supreme Court overturned the 9th Circuit’s “provocation rule,” which allowed law enforcement officers to be held responsible for provoking a violent confrontation even if they had a reasonable reason to use force.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the unanimous opinion of the court in County of Los Angeles v. Mendez in deciding the Fourth Amendment affords no basis for the “provocation rule.” The rule allowed for a law enforcement officer to “be held responsible for an otherwise reasonable use of force where the officer intentionally or recklessly provoked a violent confrontation, and the provocation was itself an independent Fourth Amendment violation,” as the petitioners defined in their brief to the high court.
The application of the rule came as the result of two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies searching for a potentially armed and dangerous parolee-at-large, and instead stumbling upon Angel Mendez and Jennifer Lynn Garcia “napping” in the shack where they lived.
The deputies burst into the shack without a warrant or announcing their presence and Mendez got up from the bed holding a BB gun, which prompted one deputy to yell “gun!” Both deputies then opened fire and hit Mendez and Garcia multiple times. The deputies never found the suspected parolee in the shack or anywhere else on the property, as the high court’s opinion noted.
Mendez and Garcia sued the deputies under Fourth Amendment grounds on claims of a warrantless entry, unannounced entry and excessive force. A federal court granted damages to Mendez and Garcia on the warrantless and unannounced entry claims.
On the claim of excessive force, the federal court found the use of force to be “reasonable” but held the officers responsible under the 9th Circuit’s provocation rule. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s use of the provocation rule.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court scrapped the provocation rule because of its inconsistency with existing court precedent.
“The provocation rule is incompatible with this Court’s excessive force jurisprudence, which sets forth a settled and exclusive framework for analyzing whether the force used in making a seizure complies with the Fourth Amendment,” Alito wrote.
“When an officer carries out a seizure that is reasonable, taking into account all relevant circumstances, there is no valid excessive force claim. The provocation rule, however, instructs courts to look back in time to see if a different Fourth Amendment violation was somehow tied to the eventual use of force, an approach that mistakenly conflates distinct Fourth Amendment claims. … To the extent that a plaintiff has other Fourth Amendment claims, they should be analyzed separately.”
Alito’s opinion vacating and remanding the lower court’s ruling was joined by all of the other justices with the exception of Justice Neil Gorsuch, who did not participate in the consideration of the case. The Supreme Court did deliver its first opinion with Gorsuch’s participation on Tuesday, however. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion of the court in BNSF Railway Co. v Tyrrell about a jurisdictional question involving the Federal Employers Liability Act, and was joined by all of the other justices including Gorsuch. The next opportunity for the Supreme Court to distribute opinions will come on June 5.
