CITY OF ESCONDIDO, CALIFORNIA, ET AL. v. MARTY EMMONS
Supreme Court of the United States, Per Curiam, January 7, 2019,
Qualified Immunity – It is improper to deny an officer qualified immunity for acting in good faith unless courts had already placed the specific issue beyond question.
Even as an unpublished opinion, this 5-pager is pretty terrible
Facts:
In 2013, Escondido police were called to a domestic violence incident at an apartment. They had been called to this location weeks earlier and arrested the victim’s husband for domestic violence.
On arrival, officers arrived and knocked on the apartment door, but did not receive an answer. They made contact with the victim through a window, but heard a man’s voice telling her to get away from the window. A short time later, the man, Emmons, opened the apartment door and walked outside.
At that point, Officer Craig was standing alone just outside the door. Officer Craig told the man not to close the door, but Emmons closed the door and tried to brush past Officer Craig. Officer Craig stopped Emmons, took him quickly to the ground, and handcuffed him. Officer Craig did not hit Emmons or display any weapon.
The video shows that Emmons was not in any visible or audible pain as a result of the takedown or while on the ground. Within a few minutes, officers helped Emmons up and arrested him for resisting and delaying a police officer under California law.
Emmons sued Officer Craig and his supervisor, Sgt. Toth, for excessive force.
After a hearing, the District Court held that under California law the officers had probable cause to arrest Marty Emmons for the misdemeanor offense and that the Body Camera “video shows that the officers acted professionally and respectfully in their encounter.” The trial court held that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity from suit, since there was no case law stating that what they did was illegal.
The 9th Circuit reversed, finding that because the “right to be free of excessive force” was clearly established, the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity.
The officers requested review by the Supreme Court.
Held: The Supreme Court held that the 9th Circuit was wrong in defining “clearly established law” in such a general way; they should have looked at whether there were cases related to when police can take down a suspect.
Qualified Immunity – An officer is entitled to qualified immunity from suit as long as the officer does not violate “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
Qualified Immunity – The “right” in question must be defined “with specificity.”
Qualified Immunity – Excessive Force – “Use of excessive force is an area of the law in which the result depends very much on the facts of each case, and thus police officers are entitled to qualified immunity unless existing precedent squarely governs the specific facts at issue…”
Qualified Immunity – A right is not “clearly established” unless “any reasonable official in the defendant’s shoes would have understood that he was violating it.”
Qualified Immunity – Outside of extreme cases, for a right to be “clearly established,” existing case law must “must place the lawfulness of
the particular action beyond debate.”
From the Case: The 9th Circuit “should have asked whether clearly established law prohibited the officers from stopping and taking down a man in these circumstances. Instead, the Court of Appeals defined the clearly established right at a high level of generality by saying only that the ‘right to be free of excessive force’ was clearly established.”
From the Case: The 9th Circuit “failed to properly analyze whether clearly established law barred Officer Craig from stopping and taking down Marty Emmons in this manner as Emmons exited the apartment.” Therefore, its opinion is vacated.