High court sides with state trooper over fatal shooting

The Supreme Court has repeatedly declared that officers may not use deadly force against a fleeing suspect unless he poses a “significant threat of violence”, and despite what the court ruled, it’s not at all obvious that Leija posed such a threat that Mullenix had to shoot at him seconds before he hit the spike strips. Those officers face criminal charges.

But Monday’s decision showed again that the Supreme Court is willing to give the benefit of the doubt to police officers, who must make quick decisions in unsafe situations, especially when fleeing suspects create risk for bystanders and the police.

The case started in 2010 in Tulia, Tex. The driver, Israel Leija, Jr., had led several officers on a chase at speeds up to one hundred miles per hour along a superhighway in the panhandle of Texas, twice telephoning police to say that he had a gun and would shoot any police officers who tried to stop him.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the lone dissenting voice in the decision, sharply pointed out that the officer was in no real danger, that the police already had in place a plan to disable the vehicle, and that the officer fired against orders and then gloated about it.

“How’s that for proactive?” said Mullenix, after allegedly ignoring a request to wait and see if the spikes worked before attempting the unusual manouevre of stopping the speeding auto by firing at it with his rifle from an overpass.

SCOTUS said, “It was later determined that Leija had been killed by Mullenix’s shots, four of which struck his upper body”.

That decision was upheld by a 9-6 vote of the full appeals court. The Court drew upon decisions in which it has emphasized just how “clearly established” the unreasonableness of an officer’s actions must be in order to deny qualified immunity. Mullenix fired when the vehicle approached, killing Leija. During the eighteen-minute pursuit, Leija twice called from his cellphone to warn officers to back off, or he would shoot them.

Sotomayor said the court “renders the protections of the 4th Amendment hollow” by sanctioning the officer’s “rogue conduct”. “The relevant inquiry”, the Court explained, is “whether existing precedent placed the conclusion that Mullenix acted unreasonably in these circumstances ‘beyond debate.'” (Emphasis added.) Highlighting the “hazy legal backdrop against which Mullenix acted” and pointing out that Leija was driving fast, was reportedly intoxicated, and was racing towards officers manning a set of tire spikes, the Court deferred to Mullenix’s “reasonable” judgment. “Mullenix fired six rounds in the dark at a auto traveling 85 miles per hour”, Sotomayor observed.

Beatrice Luna, as the representative of Leija’s estate, and Christina Flores, on behalf of Leija’s minor child, sued Mullenix under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the federal law that authorizes citizens to sue for constitutional violations, alleging that Mullenix violated the Fourth Amendment by using excessive force. Earlier, the trooper had been told in a counseling session that he was not enterprising enough. She had a great case: A Department of Public Safety shooting review found that Mullenix had acted recklessly, lacking “sufficient legal or factual justification to use deadly force”. “When Mullenix confronted his superior officer after the shooting, his first words were, ‘How’s that for proactive?'” she wrote.