Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765 (2014), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the use of force by police officers during high-speed car chases. After first holding that it had jurisdiction to hear the case, the Court held that the conduct of the police officers involved in the case did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
Near midnight on July 18, 2004, Donald Rickard led police officers on a high-speed car chase ending in a parking lot, where officers fired fifteen shots into Rickard's car as he continued to flee. Rickard and his passenger both died from a combination of gunshot wounds and injuries sustained when the car eventually crashed. Rickard's daughter sued the officers who shot Rickard, arguing that they had used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The officers moved for summary judgment, arguing they were entitled to qualified immunity because their actions did not violate law that was clearly established at the time of the car chase. The district court denied this motion, and the court of appeals affirmed.
On May 27, 2014, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that the officers did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In a unanimous (9–0) decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court found that Rickard's actions posed a "grave public safety risk" and that the officers "acted reasonably in using deadly force to end that risk". The Court also found that the number of shots fired was also reasonable, writing that "if police officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, the officers need not stop shooting until the threat has ended". Finally, the Court said the officers would have still been entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity, even if their conduct did violate the Fourth Amendment, because their actions did not violate clearly established law at the time of the incident.
Background
Prior case law The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by the federal government, and the Fourteenth Amendment extends this prohibition to state governments under the incorporation doctrine. In the course of their duties, police officers must sometimes make split-second decisions in situations where they believe there is a serious threat to the lives of themselves or the public. The use of force by police officers to counter such threats constitutes a Fourth Amendment seizure. The Supreme Court has previously held in such cases as Tennessee v. Garner (1985) and Graham v. Connor (1989) that the use of force, including deadly force, by a police officer does not violate the Fourth Amendment if it is "objectively reasonable" in light of the circumstances confronting them.
Prior to Plumhoff the Supreme Court had also examined the use of force against fleeing motorists specifically. In Brosseau v. Haugen (2004), the Supreme Court upheld the use of force by a police officer who fired her gun into the back of a suspect's car after chasing the suspect on foot. The Court held in Scott v. Harris (2007) that 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."Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 (2007), slip op. at 13 (U.S. April 30, 2007). In both cases, the Court confirmed that the standard of review for force against fleeing motorists is the same "objective reasonableness" standard as that in Graham v. Connor.
If a person believes that the use of force against them is unjustified, 42 U.S.C. §1983 allows them to file a civil action, claiming a violation of their constitutional rights. In general, police officers are protected from individual liability from these claims by the qualified immunity doctrine, which prevents government officials, including police officers, from being held individually liable for federal civil rights violations unless their conduct violated clearly established law at the time in question. In Johnson v. Jones (1995), the Supreme Court held that a defendant entitled to qualified immunity in these kinds of cases cannot immediately appeal a district court's order regarding a motion for summary judgment "insofar as that order determines whether or not the pretrial record sets forth a genuine issue of fact for trial".Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304 (1995).
Facts of the case Around midnight on July 18, 2004, Lieutenant Joseph Forthman of the West Memphis, Arkansas, Police Department pulled over a white Honda Accord driven by Donald Rickard because the car had only one working headlight. A woman named Kelly Allen sat in the car's passenger seat. During the traffic stop, the lieutenant noticed an indentation in the car's windshield that, according to him, was "'roughly the size of a head or basketball'". He then saw beer in the car and asked whether Rickard had been drinking, which Rickard denied. Rickard appeared nervous and failed to produce a driver's license when asked; the lieutenant asked him to step out of the car, but Rickard sped away.
The lieutenant, later joined by other officers, pursued Rickard in a high-speed car chase down Interstate 40 that reached speeds beyond per hour.Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 2. The chase lasted approximately five minutes. According to a video of the car chase, Rickard nearly struck 29 other drivers, struck two different patrol cars, and nearly struck another patrol car. Rickard drove east, crossing the Mississippi River into Tennessee. The officers attempted unsuccessfully to use a "rolling roadblock" to stop Rickard. After exiting Interstate 40, Rickard collided with the cruiser of one of the officers and spun out into a parking lot in Memphis, Tennessee.
Rickard temporarily stopped next to a building, and officers approached his car on foot. Rickard then began to back up, and an officer pounded against his passenger-side window with his firearm. Rickard subsequently collided with another police cruiser, and even though Rickard's bumper was flush against the cruiser, he continued to use his accelerator. At this point, Sergeant Vance Plumhoff fired three shots into Rickard's car. Then, as Rickard continued "fleeing down" a street, officers Troy Galtelli and John Gardner fired twelve additional shots in the direction of Rickard's car, making the total number of shots fired in the incident fifteen. Rickard then lost control and crashed into a building. He and Allen died from a combination of gunshot wounds and crash injuries.Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 3.
Lower court proceedings
Whitne Rickard, Rickard's minor daughter, filed a legal action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Plumhoff and the other officers, alleging that the officers had violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments by using excessive force against her father. The officers filed a motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee denied this motion on January 20, 2011, holding that the officers' conduct violated clearly established law at the time of the incident.Estate of Allen v. City of West Memphis, Nos. 05-2489/2585, 2011 WL 197426 (W.D. Tenn. Jan. 20, 2011). Before the case could proceed, the officers appealed the district court's denial to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which initially dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, citing the Supreme Court's decision in Johnson v. Jones, but later vacated that judgment and instead affirmed the District Court's holding on October 9, 2012.Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 4.Estate of Allen v. City of West Memphis, 509 F. App'x 388, 389 (6th Cir. 2012)
Supreme Court
The officers filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court. The petition was distributed for conference six times before the Court granted certiorari on November 15, 2013. Two questions were presented in the petition: (1) "whether the Sixth Circuit wrongly denied qualified immunity to Petitioners by analyzing whether the force used in 2004 was distinguishable from factually similar force ruled permissible three years later in Scott v. Harris [...]", and (2) "whether the Sixth Circuit erred in denying qualified immunity by finding the use of force was not reasonable as a matter of law when, under Respondent's own facts, the suspect led police officers on a high-speed pursuit [...]".
Opinion of the Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered the opinion of the Court on May 27, 2014. Writing for a unanimous Court, Alito first addressed whether the Court had jurisdiction to hear the case as an interlocutory appeal. Alito then wrote that the officers' conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Finally, Alito stated that the officers would still be entitled to qualified immunity even if their actions had violated the Fourth Amendment. The Court reversed the judgment of the Sixth Circuit and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 15.
Jurisdiction In general, federal law (specifically ) only allows courts of appeals to hear appeals from the "final decisions" of district courts, and Alito acknowledged that an order denying summary judgment "is generally not a final decision within the meaning of §1291 and is thus generally not immediately appealable".Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 5. However, summary judgments based on qualified immunity are an exception to this general rule, since qualified immunity is "an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability". Alito rejected the respondent's argument that the Court's decision in Johnson v. Jones prevents the Court from having jurisdiction in this case, stating that in Johnson, the summary judgment order was not appealable because "it merely decided 'a question of evidence sufficiency', i.e. which facts a party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial".Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 6. In the case of Plumhoff v. Rickard, however, the officers raised legal issues, and Alito stated that "deciding legal issues of this sort is a core responsibility of appellate courts".Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 6–7.
Fourth Amendment Moving to his constitutional analysis of the case, Alito explained that he was beginning his analysis of whether the officers violated "clearly established law" by answering whether the officers actually violated the Fourth Amendment, citing the Court's decision in Saucier v. Katz (2001).Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 7. Alito reaffirmed the Court's decisions in Graham v. Connor and Tennessee v. Garner that excessive force claims against law enforcement officers are evaluated under the "objective reasonableness" standard of the Fourth Amendment, which "requires analyzing the totality of the circumstances".Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 8. Examining the facts of the case "from the perspective 'of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with 20/20 vision of hindsight'", Alito concluded that the officers had acted reasonably and had not violated the Fourth Amendment, stating:Under the circumstances at the moment when the shots were fired, all that a reasonable police officer could have concluded was that Rickard was intent on resuming his flight and that, if he was allowed to do so, he would once again pose a deadly threat for others on the road.Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 8–10.Alito wrote there was "no basis for reaching a different conclusion" from the Court's decision in Scott v. Harris, stating that "Rickard's outrageously reckless driving posed a grave public safety risk" and that "the police acted reasonably in using deadly force to end that risk".Plumhoff, 572 U.S. 765, slip op. at 10–11.