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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Law - High speed chases - rulings from U.S. and Indiana Supreme Courts

Linda Greenhouse of the NY Times writes today:

The police did not violate a speeding driver’s rights by ramming his car and causing an accident that left him permanently paralyzed, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday by a vote of 8 to 1.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that despite the fact that the 19-year-old driver was suspected of nothing more than speeding, the decision to force him off the road was reasonable in light of the need to protect pedestrians and other drivers from “a Hollywood-style car chase of the most frightening sort.”

The justices took the unusual step — a first for the court — of posting on the court’s Web site the 15-minute video of the chase, recorded by a camera mounted on the squad car’s dashboard. * * *

The lone dissenter, Justice John Paul Stevens, said that to the contrary, jurors could well have concluded that the late-night chase endangered no pedestrians, since there were none, and no other motorists, since the police sirens warned other cars to pull off the road. “The Court has usurped the jury’s fact-finding function,” Justice Stevens said, [ILB emphasis] adding that “whether a person’s actions have risen to a level warranting deadly force is a question of fact best reserved for a jury.” * * *

The question, as in any Fourth Amendment case, was whether the seizure was “reasonable” under the circumstances. Mr. Harris sued the deputy for damages, and the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, held that he was entitled to have his case heard by a jury. The appeals court said that a jury could find that the case was governed by a 1985 Supreme Court precedent on the use of deadly force by the police against a fleeing suspect and that the jury could reasonably find that the police behavior in this case was unreasonable. * * *

Justice Scalia said the rule of the case was that “a police officer’s attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death.”

This is, of course, the case of Scott v. Harris, about which the ILB posted yesterday here and here.

This ILB entry from June 15, 2006 is headed "Bystanders can sue police over chases."

The decisions involved were City of Indianapolis and Indianapolis Police Department v. Richard Garman and the case Jeffrey Patrick, City of Gary & City of Gary Police Department v. Richard Miresso. See June 14, 2006 ILB entry summarizing the rulings here.

These Indiana Supreme Court decisions did not address the Fourth Amendment issue, but rather the question of a governmental unit's immunity from liability from a suit by an innocent bystander. In yesterday's case, the fleeing driver was the person injured.

[More] See also " More Thoughts On Supreme Court Placing Video Online" from the New York Personal Injury Law Blog. Also, this good review by Alyson M. Palmer of the Fulton County Daily Report.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 1, 2007 07:42 AM
Posted to General Law Related