Brosseau v. Haugen

Incident Summary & Facts

Officer Rochelle Brosseau of the Puyallup, Washington Police Department learned that Kenneth Haugen was accused of stealing tools and had a felony no-bail warrant out on drug and other offenses. The next morning she responded to a report that men were fighting in the yard of Haugen’s mother’s house. Her arrival let Haugen escape on foot. During a 30- to 45-minute search with a K-9 team, officers told the two men involved in the fight to stay in their pickup and Haugen’s girlfriend and her 3-year-old daughter to stay in her small car. The car was parked about 4 feet in front of Haugen’s Jeep, and the pickup was 20 to 30 feet away.

Haugen reappeared, ran into the driveway, jumped into the Jeep, and locked the door. Brosseau believed he was going for a weapon. She pointed her gun and ordered him out. He ignored her and searched for his keys. She hit the window several times with her handgun until it shattered, tried and failed to grab the keys, and struck him on the head with the barrel and butt of the gun. Haugen started the Jeep. As it started or shortly after it began to move, Brosseau jumped back and to the left and fired one shot through the rear driver’s-side window, hitting him in the back. She said she feared for officers on foot she believed were nearby, for the occupied vehicles in his path, and for any other citizens in the area. Haugen drove on, then stopped about half a block later with a collapsed lung. He later pleaded guilty to felony eluding, admitting he drove with “a wanton or wilful disregard for the lives . . . of others.”

Haugen sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court granted Brosseau summary judgment on qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit reversed, finding a violation of clearly established law. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on the qualified immunity question only and decided the case summarily.

Core Legal Issue

Whether Brosseau was entitled to qualified immunity, that is, whether it was clearly established in February 1999 that shooting a disturbed felon fleeing in a vehicle, when people in the immediate area were at risk from that flight, violated the Fourth Amendment.

The Holding

Expressing no view on whether the Fourth Amendment was violated, the Court held that the law did not clearly establish that Brosseau’s conduct was unconstitutional, so she was entitled to qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit was reversed and the case remanded.

The Court’s Analysis:

• Excessive-force claims are judged under the Fourth Amendment’s “objective reasonableness” standard of Graham v. Connor and Tennessee v. Garner. Deadly force is not unreasonable where an officer has probable cause to believe the suspect “poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others.”
• The clearly-established inquiry “must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition.” Graham and Garner are “cast at a high level of generality” and decide only an “obvious case,” which this was “far from.”
• The relevant cases (Cole v. Bone and Smith v. Freland, finding no violation, and Estate of Starks v. Enyart, finding a triable claim) showed that the result “depends very much on the facts of each case.” Brosseau acted in the “hazy border between excessive and acceptable force.”
• Decisions issued after the 1999 shooting “could not have given fair notice” and were irrelevant.
• Concurrence (Breyer, J., joined by Scalia and Ginsburg, JJ.): urged reconsidering Saucier’s rigid two-step order.
• Dissent (Stevens, J.): Haugen had threatened no one with a weapon, and Brosseau did not shoot in self-defense. The only risk was an accidental collision, which “surely did not justify an attempt to kill the fugitive.” Immunity was a fact question for a jury.