Facts of the Case
In April 2013, Escondido police officers responded to a domestic violence call, which ended in the arrest of Maggie Emmons’s husband. He was later released. In May 2013, police received a 911 call about another domestic disturbance at the same residence. The same officer responded, along with a second officer, and the 911 dispatcher informed the officers that two children could be in the residence and attempts to return the 911 call had gone unanswered.
When the officers arrived at the residence, they knocked on the door but received no answer. Through a side window, the officers spoke with Emmons wife and convinced her to open the door so they could perform a welfare check. As officers were speaking with her, an unidentified man told Emmons to back away from the window.
A few minutes later, and after additional officers had arrived, a man opened the apartment door and came outside. One of the officers told the man not to close the door, but the man closed the door and tried to walk past the officer. The officer stopped him, took him to the ground, and handcuffed him. Police body-camera video shows that the officer did not hit the man or display any weapon, and that the man was not in any visible or audible pain either as a result of the takedown or while on the ground. Minutes later, officers helped the man up and arrested him for the misdemeanor offense of resisting arrest and delaying a police officer.
The man turned out to be Emmons’s father, Marty Emmons. Marty Emmons sued all of the police officers present and the City of Escondido for use of excessive force, among other claims, in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The federal district court rejected the excessive force claim as to all but the officer who took down Marty Emmons. With respect to that officer, the district court found that the law was not clearly established that the officer could not act the way he did in that situation, so he was entitled to qualified immunity.
The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded for trial on the excessive force claims against two of the officers, finding that the right to be free of excessive force was clearly established at the time of the events in question.
Question
Did the Ninth Circuit properly analyze whether the law was clearly established as to the unlawfulness of the conduct of the two police officers in this situation?
Conclusion
In a per curiam opinion issued without argument, the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit as to one of the officers and vacated the lower court decision as to the other officer. The Ninth Circuit provided no explanation for reinstating the excessive force claim against an officer whom the district court determined through video evidence did not exert any force whatsoever against arrestee. As to the officer who physically stopped him, the Ninth Circuit’s broad and unsupported statement that the right against excessive force is clearly established is insufficient to meet the requirement that a clearly established law “must be defined with specificity.” In this case, the Ninth Circuit should have considered whether clearly established law prohibited the officers from exercising the force they used in these circumstances. By failing to analyze the the law with the requisite specificity, the Ninth Circuit erred in finding that the arresting officer was not entitled to qualified immunity.