Supreme Court Rejects Restriction on Qualified Immunity for Police

 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of Oklahoma police officers who were accused of using excessive force after fatally shooting a man who raised a hammer behind his head, “and took a stance as if he was about to throw the hammer or charge at the officers.” The Court held that the officers are entitled to qualified immunity.

* * *

After a federal trial court held in a summary judgment that the officers’ use of force was reasonable, and that qualified immunity protected the officers from personal financial liability, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed.

* * *

But the Supreme Court disagreed, stating, “The officers plainly did not violate any clearly established law,” and that qualified immunity protects “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”

“We have repeatedly told courts not to define clearly established law at too high a level of generality,” the Supreme Court added.

“It is not enough that a rule be suggested by then-existing precedent; ‘rule’s contours must be so well defined that it is ‘clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted,'” the Court said.

The Supreme Court went on to say that such specificity is “‘especially important in the Fourth Amendment context,’ where it is ‘sometimes difficult for an officer to determine how the relevant legal doctrine, here excessive force, will apply to the factual situation the officer confronts.'”

To see more CLICK HERE.