SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
MIKE STANTON, PETITIONER
v. DRENDOLYN
SIMS
on petition for writ of certiorari to the
united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 12–1217. Decided November 4,
2013
Per Curiam.
Around one o’clock in the morning on May
27, 2008, Officer Mike Stanton and his partner responded to a call
about an “unknown disturbance” involving a person with
a baseball bat in La Mesa, California. App. to Pet. for Cert. 6.
Stanton was familiar with the neighborhood, known for
“violence associated with the area gangs.”
Ibid.
The officers—wearing uniforms and driving a marked police
vehicle—approached the place where the disturbance had been
reported and noticed three men walking in the street. Upon seeing
the police car, two of the men turned into a nearby apartment
complex. The third, Nicholas Patrick, crossed the street about 25
yards in front of Stanton’s car and ran or quickly walked
toward a residence.
Id., at 7, 17. Nothing in the record
shows that Stanton knew at the time whether that residence belonged
to Patrick or someone else; in fact, it belonged to Drendolyn
Sims.
Stanton did not see Patrick with a baseball bat,
but he considered Patrick’s behavior suspicious and decided
to detain him in order to investigate.
Ibid.; see
Terry v.
Ohio,
392 U.S. 1
(1968)
. Stanton exited his patrol car, called out
“police,” and ordered Patrick to stop in a voice loud
enough for all in the area to hear. App. to Pet. for Cert. 7. But
Patrick did not stop. Instead, he “looked directly at
Stanton, ignored his lawful orders[,] and quickly went through
[the] front gate” of a fence enclosing Sims’ front
yard.
Id., at 17 (alterations omitted). When the gate closed
behind Patrick, the fence—which was more than six feet tall
and made of wood—blocked Stanton’s view of the yard.
Stanton believed that Patrick had committed a jailable misdemeanor
under California Penal Code §148 by disobeying his order to
stop;[
1] Stanton also
“fear[ed] for [his] safety.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 7.
He accordingly made the “split-second decision” to kick
open the gate in pursuit of Patrick.
Ibid. Unfortunately,
and unbeknownst to Stanton, Sims herself was standing behind the
gate when it flew open. The swinging gate struck Sims, cutting her
forehead and injuring her shoulder.
Sims filed suit against Stanton in Federal
District Court under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C.
§1983, alleging that Stanton unreasonably searched her home
without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The
District Court granted summary judgment to Stanton, finding that:
(1) Stanton’s entry was justified by the potentially
dangerous situation, by the need to pursue Patrick as he fled, and
by Sims’ lesser expectation of privacy in the curtilage of
her home; and (2) even if a constitutional violation had occurred,
Stanton was entitled to qualified immunity because no clearly
established law put him on notice that his conduct was
unconstitutional.
Sims appealed, and a panel of the Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. 706 F.3d 954 (2013). The
court held that Stanton’s warrantless entry into Sims’
yard was unconstitutional because Sims was entitled to the same
expectation of privacy in her curtilage as in her home itself,
because there was no immediate danger, and because Patrick had
committed only the minor offense of disobeying a police officer.
Id., at 959–963. The court also found the law to be
clearly established that Stanton’s pursuit of Patrick did not
justify his warrantless entry, given that Patrick was suspected of
only a misdemeanor.
Id., at 963–964. The court
accordingly held that Stanton was not entitled to qualified
immunity.
Id., at 964–965. We address only the latter
holding here, and now reverse.
“The doctrine of qualified immunity
protects government officials ‘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.’ ”
Pearson v.
Callahan,
555 U.S.
223, 231 (2009) (quoting
Harlow v.
Fitzgerald,
457 U.S.
800, 818 (1982)). “Qualified immunity gives government
officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken
judgments,” and “protects ‘all but the plainly
incompetent or those who knowingly violate the
law.’ ”
Ashcroft v.
al-Kidd, 563
U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 12) (quoting
Malley
v.
Briggs,
475 U.S.
335, 341 (1986)). “We do not require a case directly on
point” before concluding that the law is clearly established,
“but existing precedent must have placed the statutory or
constitutional question beyond debate.”
al-Kidd, 563
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9).
There is no suggestion in this case that Officer
Stanton knowingly violated the Constitution; the question is
whether, in light of precedent existing at the time, he was
“plainly incompetent” in entering Sims’ yard to
pursue the fleeing Patrick.
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 12).
The Ninth Circuit concluded that he was. It did so despite the fact
that federal and state courts nationwide are sharply divided on the
question whether an officer with probable cause to arrest a suspect
for a misdemeanor may enter a home without a warrant while in hot
pursuit of that suspect. Compare,
e.g., Middletown v.
Flinchum, 95 Ohio St. 3d 43, 45, 765 N.E.2d 330, 332 (2002)
(“We . . . hold today that when officers, having
identified themselves, are in hot pursuit of a suspect who flees to
a house in order to avoid arrest, the police may enter without a
warrant, regardless of whether the offense for which the suspect is
being arrested is a misdemeanor”), and
State v.
Ricci, 144 N. H. 241, 244, 739 A.2d 404, 407 (1999)
(“the facts of this case demonstrate that the police had
probable cause to arrest the defendant for the misdemeanor offense
of dis- obeying a police officer” where the defendant had
fled into his home with police officers in hot pursuit), with
Mas- corro v.
Billings, 656 F.3d 1198, 1207 (CA10
2011) (“The warrantless entry based on hot pursuit was not
justified” where “[t]he intended arrest was for a
traffic misdemeanor committed by a minor, with whom the officer was
well acquainted, who had fled into his family home from which there
was only one exit” (footnote omitted)), and
Butler v.
State, 309 Ark. 211, 217,
829 S.W.2d 412,
415 (1992) (“even though Officer Sudduth might have been
under the impression that he was in continuous pursuit of Butler
for what he considered to be the crime of disorderly conduct,
. . . since the crime is a minor offense, under these
circumstances there is no exigent circumstance that would allow
Officer Sudduth’s warrantless entry into Butler’s home
for what is concededly, at most, a petty disturbance”).
Other courts have concluded that police officers
are at least entitled to qualified immunity in these circumstances
because the constitutional violation is not clearly established.
E.g., Grenier v.
Champlin,
27 F.3d 1346, 1354 (CA8 1994) (“Putting firmly to one
side the merits of whether the home arrests were constitutional, we
cannot say that only a plainly incompetent policeman could have
thought them permissible at the time,” where officers entered
a home without a warrant in hot pursuit of misdemeanor suspects who
had defied the officers’ order to remain outside (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted)).
Notwithstanding this basic disagreement, the
Ninth Circuit below denied Stanton qualified immunity. In its
one-paragraph analysis on the hot pursuit point, the panel relied
on two cases, one from this Court,
Welsh v.
Wisconsin,
466 U.S.
740, 750 (1984), and one from its own,
United States v.
Johnson,
256 F.3d 895, 908 (2001) (en banc) (
per curiam). Neither
case clearly establishes that Stanton violated Sims’ Fourth
Amendment rights.
In
Welsh, police officers learned from a
witness that Edward Welsh had driven his car off the road and then
left the scene, presumably because he was drunk. Acting on that
tip, the officers went to Welsh’s home without a warrant,
entered without consent, and arrested him for driving while
intoxicated—a nonjailable traffic offense under state law.
466 U. S., at 742–743. Our opinion first noted our
precedent holding that hot pursuit of a fleeing felon justifies an
officer’s warrantless entry.
Id., at 750 (citing
United States v.
Santana,
427 U.S.
38, 42–43 (1976)). But we rejected the suggestion that
the hot pursuit exception applied: “there was no immediate or
continuous pursuit of [Welsh] from the scene of a crime.” 466
U. S., at 753. We went on to conclude that the officers’
entry violated the Fourth Amendment, finding it
“important” that “there [was] probable cause to
believe that only a minor offense . . . ha[d] been
committed.”
Ibid. In those circumstances, we said,
“application of the exigent-circumstances exception in the
context of a home entry should rarely be sanctioned.”
Ibid. But we did not lay down a categorical rule for all
cases involving minor offenses, saying only that a warrant is
“usually” required.
Id., at 750.
In
Johnson, police officers broke into
Michael Johnson’s fenced yard in search of another person
(Steven Smith) whom they were attempting to apprehend on five
misdemeanor arrest warrants. 256 F. 3d, at 898–900. The
Ninth Circuit was clear that this case, like
Welsh, did not
involve hot pursuit: “the facts of this case simply are not
covered by the ‘hot pursuit’ doctrine” because
Smith had escaped from the police 30 minutes prior and his where-
abouts were unknown. 256 F. 3d, at 908. The court held that
the officers’ entry required a warrant, in part because Smith
was wanted for only misdemeanor offenses. Then, in a footnote, the
court said: “In situations where an officer is truly in hot
pursuit and the underlying offense is a felony, the Fourth
Amendment usually yields [to law enforcement’s interest in
apprehending a fleeing suspect]. See [
Santana,
supra,
at 42–43]. However, in situations where the underlying
offense is only a misdemeanor, law enforcement must yield to the
Fourth Amendment in all but the ‘rarest’ cases.
Welsh, [
supra, at 753].”
Johnson,
supra, at 908, n. 6.
In concluding—as it must have—that
Stanton was “plainly incompetent,”
al-Kidd, 563
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12), the Ninth Circuit below read
Welsh and the footnote in
Johnson far too broadly.
First, both of those cases cited
Santana with approval, a
case that
approved an officer’s warrantless entry
while in hot pursuit. And though
Santana involved a felony
suspect, we did not expressly limit our holding based on that fact.
See 427 U. S., at 42 (“The only remaining question is
whether [the suspect’s] act of retreating into her house
could thwart an otherwise proper arrest. We hold that it could
not”). Second, to repeat, neither
Welsh nor
Johnson involved hot pursuit.
Welsh,
supra, at
753;
Johnson,
supra, at 908. Thus, despite our
emphasis in
Welsh on the fact that the crime at issue was
minor—indeed, a mere nonjailable civil offense—nothing
in the opinion establishes that the seriousness of the crime is
equally important
in cases of hot pursuit. Third, even in
the portion of
Welsh cited by the Ninth Circuit below, our
opinion is equivocal: We held not that warrantless entry to arrest
a misdemeanant is never justified, but only that such entry should
be rare. 466 U. S., at 753.
That is in fact how two California state courts
have read
Welsh. In both
People v.
Lloyd,
216 Cal. App. 3d 1425, 1430,
265 Cal. Rptr. 422, 425 (1989), and
In re Lavoyne
M.,
221 Cal. App. 3d 154, 159,
270 Cal. Rptr. 394, 396 (1990), the California Court of Appeal
refused to limit the hot pursuit exception to felony suspects. The
court stated in
Lloyd: “Where the pursuit into the
home was based on an arrest set in motion in a public place, the
fact that the offenses justifying the initial detention or arrest
were misdemeanors is of no significance in determining the validity
of the entry without a warrant.” 216 Cal. App. 3d, at 1430,
265 Cal. Rptr., at 425. It is especially troubling that the Ninth
Circuit would conclude that Stanton was plainly
incompetent—and subject to personal liability for
damages—based on actions that were lawful according to courts
in the jurisdiction where he acted. Cf.
al-Kidd,
supra, at ___ (Kennedy, J., concurring) (slip op., at
2–4).
Finally, our determination that
Welsh and
Johnson are insufficient to overcome Stanton’s
qualified immunity is bolstered by the fact that, even after
Johnson, two different District Courts in the Ninth Circuit
have granted qualified immunity precisely because the law regarding
warrantless entry in hot pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanant is not
clearly established. See
Kolesnikov v.
Sacramento
County, No. S–06–2155, 2008 WL 1806193, *7 (ED
Cal., Apr. 22, 2008) (“since
Welsh, it has not been
clearly established that there can never be warrantless home
arrests in the context of a ‘hot pursuit’ of a suspect
fleeing from the commission of misdemeanor offenses”);
Garcia v.
Imperial, No. 08–2357, 2010 WL
3834020, *6, n. 4 (SD Cal., Sept. 28, 2010). In
Garcia,
a case with facts similar to those here, the District Court
distinguished
Johnson as a case where “the officers
were not in hot pursuit of the suspect, had not seen the suspect
enter the neighbor’s property, and had no real reason to
think the suspect was there.” 2010 WL 3834020, *6, n. 4.
Precisely the same facts distinguish this case from
Johnson:
Stanton
was in hot pursuit of Patrick, he
did see
Patrick enter Sims’ property, and he had every reason to
believe that Patrick was just beyond Sims’ gate. App. to Pet.
for Cert. 6–7, 17.
To summarize the law at the time Stanton made
his split-second decision to enter Sims’ yard: Two opinions
of this Court were equivocal on the lawfulness of his entry; two
opinions of the State Court of Appeal affirmatively authorized that
entry; the most relevant opinion of the Ninth Circuit was readily
distinguishable; two Federal District Courts in the Ninth Circuit
had granted qualified immunity in the wake of that opinion; and the
federal and state courts of last resort around the Nation were
sharply divided.
We do not express any view on whether Officer
Stanton’s entry into Sims’ yard in pursuit of Patrick
was constitutional. But whether or not the constitutional rule
applied by the court below was correct, it was not “beyond
debate.”
al-Kidd,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at
9). Stanton may have been mistaken in believing his actions were
justified, but he was not “plainly incompetent.”
Malley, 475 U. S., at 341.
The petition for certiorari and
respondent’s motion for leave to proceed
in forma
pauperis are granted, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit is
reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.