The Supreme Court made it easier for people to sue law enforcement officers for excessive force.
The highest court, in a 5-3 ruling issued on Thursday, decided that Roxanne Torres could pursue her lawsuit against two New Mexico State Police officers, alleging they violated the Fourth Amendment during the incident in question. This was a reversal from the lower court’s ruling.
The ruling demonstrates that it is not necessary for a plaintiff to have been physically seized by law enforcement to sue for excessive force under the Fourth Amendment.
“We hold that the application of physical force to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a seizure even if the person does not submit and is not subdued,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the ruling. Roberts was joined by the court’s three liberal justices and Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the majority opinion.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate because she hadn’t joined the court at the time the case was argued in October. Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a dissenting opinion arguing that a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment has always been considered the literal “taking possession of someone or something.”
“The majority’s need to resort to such a schizophrenic reading of the word ‘seizure’ should be a signal that something has gone seriously wrong,” Gorsuch wrote. “Today, for the first time, the majority seeks to equate seizures and criminal arrests with mere touches, attempted seizures and batteries.”
The case will go back to the lower courts and the officers involved, Richard Williamson and Janice Madrid, could get the case tossed on other grounds such as the legal doctrine qualified immunity, which protects law enforcement officers from civil litigation.
The incident occurred in 2014 when Williamson, Madrid, and two other officers arrived at an apartment complex in Albuquerque and approached Torres in her car. She said she thought she was going to be the victim of a carjacking, so she drove away, which is when Williamson and Madrid fired 13 shots, hitting her twice in the back.
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The issue of police conduct and rules of engagement have been in the spotlight over the last year since the death of George Floyd. Floyd, a black man, was unarmed when he died in the custody of law enforcement officers in Minnesota last May, who have since been charged. His death sparked nationwide protests and raised questions about law enforcement’s use of force rules and how they treat minorities.
