Police violence case reveals high court fault lines

Justices split 5-3, rule in favor of woman shot by Albuquerque officers

WASHINGTON — A fleeing woman shot by police officers may sue them for using excessive force, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday, saying that the shooting was a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment even though the woman managed to escape.

“The application of physical force to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a seizure, even if the force does not succeed in subduing the person,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority in the 5-3 decision.

The ruling elicited a sharp dissent from the court’s three most conservative members, who came close to accusing the chief justice of bending the law in response to the public uproar over police violence.

Justice Neil Gorsuch offered a possible reason for the majority’s decision to let the plaintiff, Roxanne Torres, pursue her suit: “Maybe it is an impulse that individuals like Ms. Torres should be able to sue for damages.”

“Sometimes police shootings are justified, but other times they cry out for a remedy,” Gorsuch wrote, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. “The majority seems to give voice to this sentiment.”

Roberts’ mild response did not wholly mask his irritation. “The dissent speculates that the real reason for today’s decision is an ‘impulse’ to provide relief to Torres,” he wrote.

“There is no call for such surmise,” he wrote, saying the court had effectively answered the question before it in a 1991 decision featuring a majority opinion from Justice Antonin Scalia. “At the end of the day, we simply agree with the analysis of the common law of arrest and its relation to the Fourth Amendment set forth 30 years ago by Justice Scalia, joined by six of his colleagues, rather than the competing view urged by the dissent today.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the majority opinion, as did the three members of the court’s liberal wing — Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. That coalition now appears to represent the most likely one in which the liberal bloc prevails. (The case was argued before Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court, and she did not take part in deciding it.)

The case, Torres v. Madrid, No. 19-292, started when two state police officers in dark tactical gear arrived at a housing complex to serve an arrest warrant in Albuquerque in 2014. In the parking lot, they came upon Torres, who was sitting in her car with the engine running. Torres was not the woman they were looking for. But the officers, who did not identify themselves, approached her car.

Taking them for carjackers, Torres started to drive away. The officers shot at her 13 times, hitting her twice, but she managed to flee.

Precisely what happened that morning is contested. The officers say they feared that Torres would run them over. Torres soon lost control of her car, stopped in a parking lot and asked a bystander to call the police. Receiving no response, she stole a car that had been left running and drove 75 miles to a hospital in Grants.

She was airlifted to a hospital in Albuquerque, where she was arrested. She pleaded no contest to charges of fleeing from a police officer, assaulting a police officer and stealing a car.

Torres sued the officers who shot her, Richard Williamson and Janice Madrid, saying they had used excessive force in violation of her Fourth Amendment rights. The amendment bars unreasonable searches and seizures.

Had the officers managed to stop Torres, there would be no question that she could sue. The question for the justices was whether it should matter that Torres managed to escape.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver, ruled that it did. “A suspect’s continued flight after being shot by police,” the court said, “negates a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim.”

Roberts said that was the wrong analysis, pointing to the 1991 decision, which said that “the word ‘seizure’ readily bears the meaning of a laying on of hands or application of physical force to restrain movement, even when it is ultimately unsuccessful.”

Roberts wrote that Torres’ case was covered by that analysis.

“The officers’ shooting applied physical force to her body and objectively manifested an intent to restrain her from driving away,” the chief justice wrote. “We therefore conclude that the officers seized Torres for the instant that the bullets struck her.”