NCJ Number
153575
Journal
Crime to Court Police Officer's Handbook Dated: (February 1995) Pages: complete issue
Date Published
1995
Length
22 pages
Annotation
In analyzing the case of Scott v. Henrich (1994), heard in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, this booklet discusses related issues on when the police use of deadly force is reasonable; community-oriented policing in Columbia, S.C., is also discussed.
Abstract
In Scott v. Henrich, the plaintiff-the wife of decedent John Scott-claimed that the police officer defendants acted unreasonably by killing her husband. This commentary considers the amount of proof needed to overcome a motion for summary judgment in a deadly force case under Section 1983. The officers raised the defense of qualified immunity, which shields government officials performing discretionary functions from liability for civil damages "insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Officers testified that Scott responded to their knock on his door with a gun in his hand. Although the gun was subsequently found to be unloaded, the officers had no way of knowing this and testified they believed their lives were in danger when they shot and killed Scott. The court held there was no basis for finding the officers inadequately trained nor that they acted unreasonably in shooting Scott. The judge dismissed the suit without trial. Whether or not officers have acted reasonably in their use of force is usually a question of fact for the jury. A trial judge, however, can dismiss a suit against an officer if the judge concludes, after resolving all factual disputes in favor of the officer, that the officer's use of force was reasonable in the circumstances. Other policy issues determined in the case are that an officer is not required to use alternative measures in approaching a situation, lack of fingerprints on a gun does not prove the gun was not used by a particular person, and deadly force may not be used after the threat of death or serious bodily injury has abated. The summary judgment also held that departmental regulations are not pertinent to the issue of the use of force unless the regulations were designed to protect the person against whom the force is used. The section on community policing in Columbia, S.C., notes that reports on the incidents of crime, ranging from homicide and rape to weapons violations and drugs, are down from 537 incidents in 1990 to 333 by August 1994. List of 13 community policing resources