A unanimous Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with sheriff’s deputies in a legal dispute stemming from 2010, when an innocent couple was shot while California deputies searched for a wanted man.
The justices overturned an award of $4 million in damages to the couple and ordered a lower court to take another look at whether the deputies should be held liable for the shooting.
Deputies were searching for a parolee when they entered the backyard shack in Lancaster, north of Los Angeles. Seeing an armed man, they fired shots that seriously wounded him and his pregnant girlfriend.
But the man wasn’t the suspect they were searching for, and it turned out he was carrying a BB gun. A federal appeals court ruled that the deputies were liable because they provoked a violent confrontation by entering the shack without a warrant.
Justice Samuel Alito said such a “provocation rule” is not compatible with excessive force claims under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. If the officers were reasonable in using force to defend themselves, Alito said, a court should not go back in time to see whether the incident was provoked.
“We hold that the Fourth Amendment provides no basis for such a rule,” Alito said. “A different Fourth Amendment violation cannot transform a later, reasonable use of force into an unreasonable seizure.”