Supreme Court rules on police barging into houses

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court made it harder to sue police for barging into a home and provoking a shooting, setting aside a $4 million verdict against two Los Angeles County deputies on Tuesday.

The unanimous ruling rejected the so-called provocation rule that some lower courts have used. Under that rule, police can be sued for violating a victim’s constitutional rights against unreasonable searches if they provoked a confrontation that resulted in violence.

“The basic problem with the provocation rule,” Justice Samuel A. Alito, wrote in the 80 decision, is that it “provides a novel and unsupported path to liability in cases in which the use of force was reasonable.”

The police cannot be held liable for injuries they caused as part of a search unless the search itself is “unreasonable” under the Fourth Amendment, Alito wrote.

The case decided Tuesday began in 2010 when Los Angeles County deputies were searching for a parole violator who was believed to be armed and dangerous. Based on a tip, they went to a house in Lancaster. Several deputies entered the house without a search warrant, and two others went around to the back where they saw three metal storage sheds and a wooden shack.

When they opened the door of the shack and pulled back a blue blanket, they startled a man and a woman who were napping. When the man reached for a BB gun, one deputy yelled “Gun!” and the two officers fired 15 shots.

Angel Mendez was hit several times and lost his leg. His wife, Jennifer Garcia Mendez, who was pregnant, was also hit. The deputies did not find the fugitive they were looking for.