Long v. Slaton

Incident Summary & Facts

In May 2005, Bryan Long’s father, a physician, tried to have his son committed for a “psychotic episode,” but no hospital beds were available. He called the Lauderdale County (Alabama) Sheriff’s Department for help and waited in his vehicle at home. Deputy Jimmie Slaton arrived alone. He left his marked cruiser with the keys in the ignition and the driver’s door open. The father said Long had not been physically violent with him. Slaton approached Long near the house, pulled out handcuffs, and told him he was going to jail. Long objected, ran to the cruiser, got in, and shut the door.

Slaton ran to the driver’s side, pointed his pistol at Long, ordered him out, and threatened to shoot him if he did not comply. Long put the cruiser in reverse and began backing down the 250-foot driveway toward a county road. Slaton stepped into the middle of the driveway and fired three shots as the cruiser moved away. One shot went through the windshield and struck Long in the chest. The cruiser rolled into an embankment, and Long died about a minute later. Backup was en route. The property was a rural 18-acre lot.

Procedural posture: Interlocutory appeal from the district court’s unexplained denial of the defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds. The facts are as alleged in the complaint.

Core Legal Issue

Accepting the complaint’s allegations as true, did a deputy violate the Fourth Amendment by using deadly force to stop a mentally unstable man from driving off in a stolen, marked police cruiser after a warning, when the cruiser was moving away from the deputy? If so, was that violation clearly established?

The Holding

Reversed and remanded. The complaint failed to state a Fourth Amendment claim because the deadly force was objectively reasonable. In the alternative, the deputy and the sheriff were entitled to qualified immunity because no clearly established law gave fair warning that the conduct was unlawful.

The Court’s Analysis:

• Framework: The court applied Graham’s objective reasonableness test from the perspective of an officer on the scene, recognizing officers’ “split-second judgments.” It also relied on Scott v. Harris: Garner is not “a magical on/off switch” of rigid preconditions.
• Danger to the public counts. “[T]he threat of danger to be assessed is not just the threat to officers at the moment, but also to the officers and other persons if the chase went on.” Long was mentally unstable and had taken a fully marked, equipped police cruiser. The court called the cruiser a “potentially … lethal weapon” that would also have given him the apparent authority of a police officer. It cited many cases in which stolen police cars were used to harm people.
• No need to wait. Even if the cruiser was not moving toward Slaton, “the law does not require officers in a tense and dangerous situation to wait until the moment a suspect uses a deadly weapon to act.” The court noted that Long “could have quickly shifted gears and accelerated towards Deputy Slaton at any time.” Long’s evasion, his felony theft of the cruiser, and his driving toward a public road after a warning all supported a belief that he was dangerous.
• Warning and alternatives: Slaton “gave clear warning” of deadly force. Shooting out tires, spike strips, or tracking the car later may have existed as options, but “police need not have taken that chance and hoped for the best”; “[t]he circumstances made the time to think short.”
• Qualified immunity: Vaughan v. Cox was materially different. This case involved an unstable driver, a marked police cruiser, and a warning. Garner does not apply “with obvious clarity.” At worst, the conduct fell within the “hazy border between excessive and acceptable force.” Without an underlying violation, the failure-to-train claim against the sheriff also failed.
• Dissent (Judge Forrester): Deadly force requires a serious threat of imminent harm. The threat that a “nonviolent fleeing felon” might later harm others was “remote and highly speculative,” and Vaughan gave fair notice.