WASHINGTON, DC — The Rutherford Institute is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to rein in reckless police behavior that not only escalates the level of danger during encounters with members of the public but too often results in the deadly use of force against unarmed citizens.
For instance, an Illinois sheriff’s deputy was charged with first-degree murder for shooting and killing Sonya Massey after she called 911 for help at her home. A year earlier in Ohio, a pregnant mother was killed by a police officer in a grocery store parking lot. Some federal courts analyze such events under the “moment-of-threat doctrine,” which has contributed to a climate in which police unnecessarily escalate situations over relatively minor crimes and then respond to the perceived danger with deadly force.
In an amicus brief in Barnes v. Felix, The Rutherford Institute has called on the Supreme Court to overturn the “moment-of-threat doctrine,” warning that it encourages police to act recklessly with impunity. Institute attorneys argue that the moment-of-threat doctrine violates established Fourth Amendment principles for determining what constitutes a reasonable use of force, and that to arbitrarily ignore an officer’s actions is to “rig the game.”
“In an age when police are increasingly militarized, weaponized and protected by the courts, run-of-the mill encounters between police and citizens are now inherently dangerous for any individual unlucky enough to be in a situation where police are inclined to respond to unsubstantiated fears for their safety and perceived challenges to their ‘authority’ by drawing and using their weapons,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Unfortunately, this mindset that any challenge to police authority is a threat that needs to be ‘neutralized’ is a dangerous one that is part of a greater nationwide trend that sets law enforcement officers beyond the reach of the Fourth Amendment. Equally problematic is the trend in the courts that acquits officers involved in such shootings, letting them off with barely a slap to the wrists.”
In the afternoon of April 28, 2016, Harris County Texas Officer Roberto Felix initiated a traffic stop of Ashtian Barnes due to a report by the Toll Road Authority that the license plate number on his vehicle had outstanding toll violations. When asked for proof of insurance, Barnes explained that the car had been rented a week earlier by his girlfriend and the documentation might be in the trunk. The officer claimed he smelled marijuana and ordered Barnes to open the trunk. A few seconds after Barnes opened the trunk, the car’s blinker toward the side of the Tollway to which Barnes pulled over turned off for about ten seconds. Once the same blinker turned back on, Felix shouted at Barnes not to move, stepped onto the door sill where the driver-side door was open, and shoved his gun into Barnes’s head. At that point, the car started to move, and Felix fired two shots into the car, killing Barnes.
Barnes’s parents filed a lawsuit arguing that Barnes did not pose a threat justifying deadly force, especially in light of the fact that Felix jumped onto the car, but the trial court dismissed the case, concluding that Felix’s use of deadly force was “presumptively reasonable,” because the moment of threat occurred when Felix was hanging onto the moving vehicle and feared for his safety. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal under its moment-of-threat doctrine.
Angela M. Liu, Peter J. McGinley, Christopher J. Merken, Steven Oberlander, Shane Sanderson, and Luke D. Yamulla of Dechert LLP advanced the arguments in the Barnes v. Felix amicus brief.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, defends individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
