Supreme court rules for women whose son was killed by the police (1)

The US Court of Justice decided for the mother of a black man who was shot by the police, and revitalized her lawsuit, which is liable to the Texas officer for his use of fatal violence.

In a unanimous decision on Thursday, the judges said that the US Appeal Court used the wrong standard for the Fifth Circuit to evaluate whether the civil servant's actions were appropriate.

“In order to assess whether an official acted somewhat in the application of violence, a court must take all relevant circumstances into account, including facts and events that led to the climatic moment,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan in the court's opinion.

Janice Hughes Barnes claims that the officer Roberto Felix and Harris County had violated the fourth right of change from her son Ashtian Barnes about inappropriate confiscation when Felix shot him during a routine traffic stop in 2016.

Felix argued that his use of fatal violence was justified at the moment he feared for his security. The fifth circuit said it was bound to the rule of the “threat” to evaluate whether his use was appropriate.

This rule only requires whether the civil servant was in danger at the moment of the threat that led to fatal use of violence, and earlier events are not relevant, the court said.

However, Kagan said that the right examination is to look at the “entirety of the circumstances” that have no time limit.

“Of course, the situation at the time of the shootout is often what is most important. After all, it is the choice of the official at this moment that is checked. But earlier facts and circumstances can form how a reasonable officer would have understood later and answered later,” she wrote.

The case was found by civil rights lawyers who feared that a decision for Felix feared to make it more difficult to blame police officers if they kill people in a time of permanent racial questions in police work.

In his unanimous opinion, the judge Patrick Higginbotham, the judge of the Fifth Circuit, described the case as another routine traffic stop that ended with the death of an unarmed black man. “And again we have a police officer with qualified immunity and protect his liability,” he said.

The Supreme Court did not deal whether or how the “creation of a dangerous situation” of an official flows into the analysis analysis. The police recordings of the traffic stops showed that Ashtian Barnes tried to start while Felix was partly in the vehicle. Barnes had argued that it is inappropriate that an officer jumped on a movable vehicle and then shoots the driver.

But Kagan said the problem was not in court.

“The question asked to us was alone: ​​whether you should only look at the last two seconds of the encounter or consider earlier events to put these seconds in the context,” she said. “With this matter we give everything else back to the dishes below. It is now for you to take into account the appropriateness of the shootout by using the longer time frame that we have prescribed.”

In a matching statement, which was summarized by the judges Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, he agreed that the actions of the officer should be assessed during the traffic freeze on the basis of the entirety of the circumstances. Kavanaugh said he wrote separately to add a few points about how dangerous it is when the drivers withdraw during a traffic stop and how the police have to make life or death decisions to protect the public.

“When analyzing the appropriateness of the behavior of an officer at a traffic stop, especially the traffic stoppage, in which the driver suddenly withdrawn, the courts must appreciate the extraordinary dangers and risks for police officers and the community as a whole,” he said.

The case is Barnes v. Felix, USA, No. 23-1239.