City of Tahlequah v. Bond

Incident Summary & Facts

On August 12, 2016, Joy Rollice called 911 to report that her ex-husband, Dominic Rollice, was intoxicated in her garage and would not leave, warning that “it’s going to get ugly real quick.” She told the dispatcher he did not live there but kept tools in the garage. Officers Josh Girdner, Chase Reed, and Brandon Vick responded, each aware that Rollice was her ex-husband, intoxicated, and refusing to leave. The officers spoke with Rollice in the side doorway of the garage. He worried aloud about going to jail; Girdner said they were only trying to get him a ride. Rollice fidgeted with something in his hands, appeared nervous, and refused a pat-down for weapons.

Body-camera video showed that after Girdner gestured and took one step toward the doorway, Rollice stepped back, turned, and walked toward the back of the garage, where tools hung over a workbench. The officers followed; “No officer was within six feet of Rollice.” The officers stated they ordered him to stop, but he kept walking, grabbed a hammer from the wall, and turned to face them, gripping it with both hands “as if preparing to swing a baseball bat” at shoulder level. The officers backed up, drew their guns, and yelled at him to drop the hammer. He did not. He moved to his right, out from behind a piece of furniture, gaining “an unobstructed path to Officer Girdner,” then raised the hammer behind his head and took “a stance as if he was about to throw the hammer or charge at the officers.” Officers Girdner and Vick fired, killing him.

Rollice’s estate sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for Fourth Amendment excessive force. The district court granted the officers summary judgment on the merits and on qualified immunity. The Tenth Circuit reversed, reasoning that a jury could find the officers’ initial step and “cornering” of Rollice recklessly created the need for deadly force, and that its precedent (chiefly Allen v. Muskogee) clearly established this. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and decided the case summarily (per curiam).

Core Legal Issue

Whether officers who shot a man raising a hammer at them were entitled to qualified immunity, i.e., whether clearly established law put them on notice that their pre-shooting conduct (approaching and following him into the garage) recklessly created the need for deadly force and rendered the shooting unconstitutional.

The Holding

The officers “plainly did not violate any clearly established law” and were entitled to qualified immunity. The Court reversed the Tenth Circuit’s judgment without deciding whether a Fourth Amendment violation occurred.

The Court’s Analysis:

• The Court expressly declined to decide whether the shooting violated the Fourth Amendment, or whether recklessly creating a situation that requires deadly force can itself be a violation; it resolved the case on the clearly established prong only.
• Qualified immunity protects “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law,” and clearly established law may not be defined “at too high a level of generality.” Specificity is “especially important in the Fourth Amendment context” (quoting Mullenix v. Luna).
• Allen v. Muskogee was “dramatically different”: those officers sprinted toward a car, screamed at the suspect, and tried to wrest a gun from his hands. Here the officers conversed with Rollice, followed him “at a distance of 6 to 10 feet,” and “did not yell until after he picked up a hammer.”
• The other cited cases did not help: Sevier stated the rule only in dicta in a case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, and too generally; Estate of Ceballos was decided after the shooting; and the unpublished Hastings involved chasing, screaming at, and pepper-spraying a suicidal person.
• Neither the panel nor the respondent identified “a single precedent finding a Fourth Amendment violation under similar circumstances.”