In Waid v. County of Lyon, published November 21, 2023, a divided panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of two police officers. The defendant officers responded to a 911 call seeking help with a domestic violence incident. When one of the officers knocked on the door of the caller’s home, the caller’s minor children came out and told the officer their parents were fighting and their mother needed an ambulance. One child said there were no weapons in the house except a BB gun. The officers entered, the lead officer announcing himself and the officer behind him drawing his weapon and pointing it forward as he entered. As the officers entered the kitchen, the decedent, out of sight, swore at the officers. The officers saw the decedent at the end of a hallway. Both pointed their weapons at the decedent and told him to get on the ground. The decedent ignored the commands and ran down the short hallway toward the officers. The officers shot him five times. The plaintiffs sued the officers for use of excessive force under the 4th Amendmentand interfering with familial relationships in violation of the 14th Amendment. The district court granted the officers’ motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity.
The panel majority affirmed summary judgment on both claims. The majority held that the facts, even with all disputes resolved in the plaintiffs’ favor, did not show an obvious violation of constitutional rights. Fourth Amendment violations must be beyond debate to be considered obvious. Obvious violations are thus found only in exceedingly rare circumstances with extreme facts. Here, the officers did not obviously violate the decedent’s right to be free of excessive force. It was not obvious that the use of force was objectively unreasonable in light of the facts and circumstance confronting the officers. The decedent used aggressive language, ignored an order from the officers, and rushed towards them in a small and confined space. The officers were responding to an active domestic violence situation, and needed to make split-second decisions. It is not obvious the officers were constitutionally precluded from firing. Because there was not an obvious constitutional violation, the plaintiffs had to show controlling authorities or a persuasive consensus that would have put every reasonable officer on notice that the officers’ conduct violated the 4th Amendment. They failed to do so. A case holding that shooting a suspect after he had fallen to the ground from gunshots, and stomping his head, violated the 4th Amendment did not apply, because the five shots were continuous, the suspect began falling during the shots, he did not fall until after the shooting stopped, and the officers did not shoot him after he fell. Other cases where suspects did not advance toward officers or present a danger to the officers or others did not apply where the suspect was advancing, and would have presented a threat to the 911 caller if the officers retreated. The officers were entitled to summary judgment on the 14th Amendment claim because they did not have time to deliberate, and there was no evidence they acted with a purpose to harm unrelated to the legitimate law-enforcement objective of protecting themselves.
A dissenting judge would have denied qualified immunity as to the use of force claim. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the decedent was clearly illuminated, unarmed, shirtless, with both hands visible; and there was nothing to be seen in his hands or waistband. Further, the decedent was moving away form his wife’s presumed location, and was not actively engaging in a domestic dispute. The officers were larger than the suspect, and had less-lethal weapons. They did not warn that they would use deadly force.https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/11/21/22-15382.pdf