County of Los Angeles v. Mendez
Issues
Does a police officer violate the Fourth Amendment when the officer uses reasonable force in response to a hazardous situation the officer created, and does an injured individual’s actions that give rise to the need for use of force constitute an intervening, superseding event that severs the causal relationship between the police officers’ conduct and the individual’s injuries?
In this case, the Supreme Court will decide whether a police officer’s conduct leading up to her use of force against a citizen is relevant to the inquiry of whether that force was reasonable, and if so, what the limits are on holding that officer liable. The deputies of the County of Los Angeles argue that no liability should attach to their decision to open fire on Angel and Jennifer Mendez, because they were responding to the Mendezes’ threatening behavior. The Mendezes argue that the deputies provoked their threatening behavior, so they should be liable for opening fire on the Mendezes. The parties disagree as to whether the Ninth Circuit’s provocation rule, which would hold the deputies liable under the Fourth Amendment, conforms to Supreme Court precedent. A win for the deputies could promote police officer safety and help preserve the integrity of the qualified immunity doctrine by keeping standards of behavior clear. A win for the Mendezes could preserve the balance of protections for police officers and citizens and provide better incentives for officer reasonableness during every stage of an investigation.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
- The Ninth Circuit’s provocation rule holds officers liable under the Fourth Amendment for objectively reasonable force, vitiates qualified-immunity protections, and permits tort liability in the absence of proximate cause. Should this Court reject the provocation rule and continue to analyze police use of force under the established legal framework set out in Graham?
- The Court of Appeals held alternatively that the Deputies were liable for the shooting “under basic notions of proximate cause.” Did the court err in holding that the failure to secure a warrant proximately caused the shooting, particularly where the Deputies shot in reasonable self-defense after one of the Plain-tiffs pointed a gun at them and the outcome would not have changed if the Deputies had a warrant?
On October 1, 2010, a group of police officers and deputies were searching for a wanted parolee in a California neighborhood. See Mendez v. Cty. Of Los Angeles, 815 F.3d 1178, 1184–85 (9th Cir. 2016); Brief for Petitioners, County of Los Angeles et al.
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Additional Resources
- Lyle Denniston, Court to Rule on Police Shooting, Lyle Denniston Law News (Dec. 2, 2016).
- Supreme Court to Consider Liability for “Provoking” Use of Force, Law Officer (Jan. 10, 2017).