Torres v. Madrid

Incident Summary & Facts

At dawn on July 15, 2014, four New Mexico State Police officers went to an Albuquerque apartment complex to execute an arrest warrant for a woman accused of white-collar crimes and “suspected of having been involved in drug trafficking, murder, and other violent crimes.” They saw Roxanne Torres standing near a Toyota FJ Cruiser. Officer Williamson concluded that Torres was not the target of the warrant. As the officers approached, Torres, who was experiencing methamphetamine withdrawal, got into the driver’s seat. She did not notice the officers until one of them tried to open her car door. The officers wore tactical vests marked with police identification, but Torres saw only that they had guns. Believing they were carjackers, she hit the gas.

In Torres’s account, which the Court accepted because the case came up on summary judgment, neither Officer Madrid nor Officer Williamson stood in the vehicle’s path. The two officers fired 13 shots, hitting Torres twice in the back and temporarily paralyzing her left arm. (The dissent recounts that the officers fired because they feared the car was about to hit them.) Torres drove off, stole another car, and drove 75 miles to Grants, New Mexico. She was airlifted back to an Albuquerque hospital and arrested the next day. She later pleaded no contest to aggravated fleeing, assault on a peace officer, and unlawfully taking a motor vehicle.

Torres sued the two officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for excessive force amounting to an unreasonable seizure. The district court granted summary judgment to the officers. The Tenth Circuit affirmed, holding that “a suspect’s continued flight after being shot by police negates a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim.”

Core Legal Issue

Does a Fourth Amendment “seizure” occur when an officer shoots a person with intent to restrain her, even though she does not submit and is not subdued?

The Holding

Yes. “The application of physical force to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a seizure even if the person does not submit and is not subdued.” The officers seized Torres “for the instant that the bullets struck her.” The Court vacated and remanded, leaving open reasonableness, damages, and qualified immunity.

The Court’s Analysis:

• The common law of arrest. Following California v. Hodari D., the Court held that at common law the “slightest touch” with intent to arrest was an arrest, not an attempted arrest, even if the arrestee escaped. That rule applied to criminal as well as civil arrests.
• Force from a distance counts. The required “corporal seising or touching” “can be as readily accomplished by a bullet as by the end of a finger.” In the Court’s words, “There is nothing subtle about a bullet.”
• Objective intent to restrain. Accidental force, or force applied for some other purpose, does not qualify. The test is whether the conduct “objectively manifests an intent to restrain,” regardless of the officer’s subjective motive or the suspect’s perception. Here, ordering Torres to stop and shooting to restrain her qualified even though she thought the officers were carjackers. The amount of force is relevant: “A tap on the shoulder to get one’s attention will rarely exhibit such an intent.”
• A narrow rule. A seizure by force, without submission, “lasts only as long as the application of force.” There is no “continuing arrest during the period of fugitivity.” “Brief seizures are seizures all the same.” The Court declined to address pepper spray, flash-bang grenades, or lasers.
• Dissent (Gorsuch, joined by Thomas and Alito). The dissent argued that a seizure has always required “taking possession.” In its view, the majority “confuses a battery for a seizure and an attempted seizure with its completion,” and Torres had state-law assault and battery remedies available.