SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
CHADRIN LEE MULLENIX
v. BEATRICE LUNA, individually and
as representative of theESTATE OF ISRAEL LEIJA, JR.,
et al.
on petition for writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the fifth circuit
No. 14–1143. Decided
November 9, 2015
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,
715–716 (CA5 2014). When Baker approached
Leija’s 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 Leija’s 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 the risk
posed by the passing driver.
Ibid.
DPS Trooper Chadrin Mullenix also responded. He drove to the
Cemetery Road overpass, initially intending to set up a spike strip
there. Upon learning of the other spike strip positions, however,
Mullenix began to consider another tactic: shooting at
Leija’s car in order to disable it. 2013 WL
4017124, *1. Mullenix had not received training in this tactic and
had not attempted it before, but he radioed the idea to Rodriguez.
Rodriguez responded
“10–4,†gave
Mullenix his position, and said that Leija had slowed to 85 miles
per hour. Mullenix then asked the DPS dispatcher to inform his
supervisor, Sergeant Byrd, of his plan and ask if Byrd thought it
was “worth doing.†773
F. 3d
, at 716–717. Before
receiving Byrd’s response, Mullenix exited his
vehicle and, armed with his service rifle, took a shooting position
on the overpass, 20 feet above I–27. Respondents
allege that from this position, Mullenix still could hear
Byrd’s response to “stand
by†and “see if the spikes work
first.â€
Ibid.[
1]*
As Mullenix waited for Leija to arrive, he and another officer,
Randall County Sheriff’s Deputy Tom Shipman,
discussed whether Mullenix’s plan would work and
how and where to shoot the vehicle to best carry it out. 2013 WL
4017124, *2. Shipman also informed Mullenix that another officer
was located beneath the overpass. 773 F. 3d, at
717.
Approximately three minutes after Mullenix took up his shooting
position, he spotted Leija’s vehicle, with
Rodriguez in pursuit. As Leija approached the overpass, Mullenix
fired six shots. Leija’s car continued forward
beneath the overpass, where it engaged the spike strip, hit the
median, and rolled two and a half times. It was later determined
that Leija had been killed by Mullenix’s shots,
four of which struck his upper body. There was no evidence that any
of Mullenix’s shots hit the
car’s radiator, hood, or engine block.
Id., at 716–717; 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
officer’s favor, precluding us from concluding
that Mullenix acted objectively reasonably as a matter of
law.â€
Id., at 538.
Judge King dissented. She described the
“ ‘fact
issue’ referenced by the majorityâ€
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.’ â€
Id., at 544–545 (quoting
Scott v.
Harris, 550 U. S. 372, 381, n. 8 (2007) ). Turning to that
legal question, Judge King concluded that
Mullenix’s 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 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
548–549.
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
Jolly’s dissent, also filed a separate dissent
of her own. 777 F. 3d 221 (2014) (Â
per curiam).
On the same day, however, the two members forming the original
panel’s 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 judgment—as
Judge King had explained in her dissent—but
reaffirmed the denial of qualified immunity.
Id., at 715,
718. The majority concluded that Mullenix’s
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,
Leija’s driving was relatively controlled,
Mullenix had not first given the spike strips a chance to work, and
Mullenix’s decision was not a split-second
judgment.
Id., at 720–724. 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.â€
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 clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of
which a reasonable person would have
known.’ â€
Pearson
v.
Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting
Harlow v.
Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818
(1982) ). A clearly established right is one that is
“sufficiently clear that every reasonable
official would have understood that what he is doing violates that
right.â€
Reichle v.
Howards, 566
U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 5) (internal
quotation marks and alteration omitted). “We do
not require a case directly on point, but existing precedent must
have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond
debate.â€
Ashcroft v.
al-Kidd, 563
U. S. 731, 741 (2011) . Put simply, qualified immunity
protects “all but the plainly incompetent or
those who knowingly violate the law.â€
Malley v.
Briggs, 475 U. S. 335, 341 (1986) .
“We have repeatedly told courts
. . . not to define clearly established law
at a high level of generality.â€
al-Kidd,
supra, at 742. The dispositive question is
“whether the violative nature of
particular conduct is clearly established.â€
Ibid. (emphasis added). This inquiry
“ ‘must be
undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a
broad general
proposition.’ â€
Brosseau v.
Haugen, 543 U. S. 194, 198 (2004) (
per
curiam) (quoting
Saucier v.
Katz, 533 U. S. 194,
201 (2001) ). Such specificity is especially important in the
Fourth Amendment context, where the Court has recognized that
“[i]t is sometimes difficult for an officer to
determine how the relevant legal doctrine, here excessive force,
will apply to the factual situation the officer
confronts.†533 U. S., at 205.
In this case, the Fifth Circuit held that Mullenix violated the
clearly established rule that a police officer may not
“ ‘use deadly
force against a fleeing felon who does not pose a sufficient threat
of harm to the officer or
others.’ †773
F. 3d, at 725. Yet this Court has previously
considered—and
rejected—almost that exact formulation of the
qualified immunity question in the Fourth Amendment context. In
Brosseau, which also involved the shooting of a suspect
fleeing by car, the Ninth Circuit denied qualified immu-nity on the
ground that the officer had violated the clearly established rule,
set forth in
Tennessee v.
Garner, 471
U. S. 1 (1985) , that “deadly force
is only permissible where the officer has probable cause to believe
that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to
the officer or to others.â€
Haugen v.
Brosseau, 339 F. 3d 857, 873 (CA9 2003) (internal quotation
marks omitted). This Court summarily reversed, holding that use of
Gar-ner’s
“general†test for excessive force
was “mistaken.â€
Brosseau, 543
U. S., at 199. The correct inquiry, the Court
explained, was whether it was clearly established that the Fourth
Amendment prohibited the officer’s conduct in
the “ ‘situation
[she] confronted’: whether to shoot a disturbed
felon, set on avoiding capture through vehicular flight, when
persons in the immediate area are at risk from that
flight.â€
Id., at 199–200. The
Court considered three court of appeals cases discussed by the
parties, noted that “this area is one in which
the result depends very much on the facts of each
case,†and concluded that the officer was entitled to
qualified immunity because “[n]one of [the
cases]
squarely governs the case here.â€
Id., at 201 (emphasis added).
Anderson v.
Creighton, 483 U. S. 635 (1987) , is
also instructive on the required degree of specificity. There, the
lower court had denied qualified immunity based on the clearly
established “right to be free from warrantless
searches of one’s home unless the searching
officers have probable cause and there are exigent
circumstances.â€
Id., at 640. This Court faulted
that formulation for failing to address the actual question at
issue: whether “the circumstances with which
Anderson was confronted . . . constitute[d]
probable cause and exigent circumstances.â€
Id.,
at 640–641. Without answering that question, the
Court explained, the conclusion that Anderson’s
search was objectively unreasonable did not
“follow immediatelyâ€
from—and thus was not clearly established
by—the principle that warrantless searches not
supported by probable cause and exigent circumstances violate the
Fourth Amendment.
Id., at 641.
In this case, Mullenix confronted a reportedly intoxi-cated
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. The relevant inquiry is whether existing precedent
placed the conclusion that Mullenix acted unreasonably in these
circumstances “beyond debate.â€
al-Kidd,
supra, at 741. The general principle that
deadly force requires a sufficient threat hardly settles this
matter. See
Pasco v.
Knoblauch, 566 F. 3d
572, 580 (CA5 2009) (“[I]t would be unreasonable
to expect a police officer to make the numerous legal conclusions
necessary to apply
Garner to a high-speed car chase
. . .â€).
Far from clarifying the issue, excessive force cases involving
car chases reveal the hazy legal backdrop against which Mullenix
acted. In
Brosseau itself, the Court held that an officer
did not violate clearly established law when she shot a fleeing
suspect out of fear that he endangered “other
officers on foot who [she]
believed were in the immediate
area,†“the occupied vehicles in
[his] path,†and “any other citizens
who
might be in the area.†543
U. S., at 197 (first alteration in original; internal
quotation marks omitted; emphasis added). The threat Leija posed
was at least as immediate as that presented by a suspect who had
just begun to drive off and was headed only in the general
direction of officers and bystanders.
Id., at
196–197. By the time Mullenix fired, Leija had
led police on a 25-mile chase at extremely high speeds, was
reportedly intoxicated, had twice threatened to shoot officers, and
was racing towards an officer’s location.
This Court has considered excessive force claims in connection
with high-speed chases on only two occasions since
Brosseau.
In
Scott v.
Harris, 550 U. S. 372 , the
Court held that an officer did not violate the Fourth Amendment by
ramming the car of a fugitive whose reckless driving
“posed an actual and imminent threat to the
lives of any pedestrians who might have been present, to other
civilian motorists, and to the officers involved in the
chase.â€
Id., at 384. And in
Plumhoff v.
Rickard, 572 U. S. ___ (2014), the Court
reaffirmed
Scott by holding that an officer acted reasonably
when he fatally shot a fugitive who was “intent
on resuming†a chase that “pose[d] a
deadly threat for others on the road.†572
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 10). The Court has thus
never found the use of deadly force in connection with a dangerous
car chase to violate the Fourth Amendment, let alone to be a basis
for denying qualified immunity. Leija in his flight did not pass as
many cars as the drivers in
Scott or
Plumhoff;
traffic was light on I–27. At the same time, the
fleeing fugitives in
Scott and
Plumhoff had not
verbally threatened to kill any officers in their path, nor were
they about to come upon such officers. In any event, none of our
precedents “squarely governs†the
facts here. Given Leija’s conduct, we cannot say
that only someone “plainly
incompetent†or who “knowingly
violate[s] the law†would have perceived a sufficient
threat and acted as Mullenix did.
Malley, 475
U. S., at 341.
The dissent focuses on the availability of spike strips as an
alternative means of terminating the chase. It argues that even if
Leija posed a threat sufficient to justify deadly force in some
circumstances, Mullenix nevertheless contravened clearly
established law because he did not wait to see if the spike strips
would work before taking action. Spike strips, however, present
dangers of their own, not only to drivers who encounter them at
speeds between 85 and 110 miles per hour, but also to officers
manning them. See,
e.g., Thompson v.
Mercer, 762
F. 3d 433, 440 (CA5 2014); Brief for National
Association of Police Organizations et al. as
Amici Curiae
15–16. Nor are spike strips always successful in
ending the chase. See,
e.g., Cordova v.
Aragon, 569
F. 3d 1183, 1186 (CA10 2009); Brief for National
Association of Police Organizations et al. as
Amici Curiae
16 (citing examples). The dissent can cite no case from this Court
denying qualified immunity because officers entitled to terminate a
high-speed chase selected one dangerous alternative over
another.
Even so, the dissent argues, there was no governmental interest
that justified acting before Leija’s car hit the
spikes. Mullenix explained, however, that he feared Leija might
attempt to shoot at or run over the officers manning the spike
strips. Mullenix also feared that even if Leija hit the spike
strips, he might still be able to continue driving in the direction
of other officers. The dissent ignores these interests by
suggesting that there was no “possible marginal
gain in shooting at the car over using the spike strips already in
place.â€
Post, at 4 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.).
In fact, Mullenix hoped his actions would stop the car in a manner
that avoided the risks to other officers and other drivers that
relying on spike strips would entail. The dissent disputes the
merits of the options available to Mullenix,
post, at
3–4, but others with more experience analyze the
issues differently. See,
e.g., Brief for National
Association of Police Organizations et al. as
Amici Curiae
15–16. Ultimately, whatever can be said of the
wisdom of Mullenix’s choice, this
Court’s precedents do not place the conclusion
that he acted unreasonably in these circumstances
“beyond debate.â€
al-Kidd, 563
U. S., at 741.
More fundamentally, the dissent repeats the Fifth
Circuit’s error. It defines the qualified
immunity inquiry at a high level of
generality—whether any governmental interest
justified choosing one tactic over another—and
then fails to consider that question in “the
specific context of the case.â€
Brosseau v.
Haugen, 543 U. S., at 198 (internal quotation
marks omitted). As in
Anderson, the conclusion that
Mullenix’s reasons were insufficient to justify
his actions simply does not “follow
immediately†from the general proposition that force
must be justified. 483 U. S., at 641.
Cases decided by the lower courts since
Brosseau likewise
have not clearly established that deadly force is inappropriate in
response to conduct like Leija’s. The Fifth
Circuit here principally relied on its own decision in
Lytle
v.
Bexar County, 560 F. 3d 404 (2009), denying qualified
immunity to a police officer who had fired at a fleeing car and
killed one of its passengers. That holding turned on the
court’s assumption, for purposes of summary
judgment, that the car was moving away from the officer and had
already traveled some distance at the moment the officer fired. See
id., at 409. The court held that a reasonable jury could
conclude that a receding car “did not pose a
sufficient threat of harm such that the use of deadly force was
reasonable.â€
Id., at 416. But, crucially, the
court also recognized that if the facts were as the officer
alleged, and he fired as the car was coming towards him,
“he would likely be entitled to qualified
immunity†based on the “threat of
immediate and severe physical harm.â€
Id., at
412. Without implying that
Lytle was either correct or
incorrect, it suffices to say that
Lytle does not clearly
dictate the conclusion that Mullenix was unjustified in perceiving
grave danger and responding accordingly, given that Leija was
speeding towards a confrontation with officers he had threatened to
kill.
Cases that the Fifth Circuit ignored also suggest that
Mullenix’s assessment of the threat Leija posed
was reasonable. In
Long v.
Slaton, 508 F. 3d 576
(2007), for example, the Eleventh Circuit held that a
sheriff’s deputy did not violate the Fourth
Amendment by fatally shooting a mentally unstable individual who
was attempting to flee in the deputy’s 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 deputy’s warning to stop.
Id.,
at 581–582. 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 Long’s 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.â€
Id., at 583
(alteration and internal quotation marks omitted). But see
Smith v.
Cupp, 430 F. 3d 766,
774–777 (CA6 2005) (denying qualified immunity
to an officer who shot an intoxicated suspect who had stolen the
officer’s cruiser where a reasonable jury could
have concluded that the suspect’s 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,
479–480 (CA6 2008);
Adams v.
Speers, 473 F. 3d 989, 991 (CA9 2007);
Vaughan v.
Cox, 343 F. 3d 1323, 1330–1331, 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 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 Ducheneaux’s 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.’ â€
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,’ â€
Stanton v.
Sims, 571 U. S. ___, ___
(2013) (
per curiam) (slip op., at 8), we grant
Mullenix’s petition for certiorari and reverse
the Fifth Circuit’s determination that Mullenix
is not entitled to qualified immunity.
It is so ordered.