POLICE PURSUITS AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

inCounty of Sacramento v. Lewis (1998), the Supreme Court sent an unfortunate message to innocent citizens trapped in the midst of vehicular police pursuits: they lack the constitutional protections afforded those injured by the unrestricted use of firearms by the police.

Although no single government agency maintains an exhaustive accounting of all pursuits in a given year, from 1980 to 1996, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported 5,306 vehicular-pursuit deaths in the United States. Despite the staggering frequency of pursuits ending in tragedies, the Supreme Court declined to consider the police vehicle as a deadly weapon for which officers should train with the same attention as that afforded the use of firearms.

inTennessee v. Garner (1985), the Supreme Court curtailed the unrestricted use of firearms against suspected criminals by stating: "The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable. It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit relied upon Tennessee v. Garner and reversed a lower court's grant of summary judgment in favor of a police officer who engaged in a vehicular pursuit of two unarmed youths on a motorcycle who posed no threat of imminent harm to human life. The pursuit ended in the death of the minor passenger, Philip Lewis. In a lawsuit filed against the county and the pursuing officer, James Everet Smith, Lewis's parents asserted that the chase violated their son's fourteenth amendment substantive due process rights.

In reversing the Ninth Circuit, the Supreme Court ruled that rather than deliberate indifference to their son's constitutional rights, the Lewis's were required to establish that the pursuing officer's conduct was so egregious and outrageous that it "shocks the conscience." What is shocking is the Supreme Court's failure to recognize an officer's fundamental duty to weigh the risks of a vehicular pursuit against the need for immediate apprehension. If that analysis is constitutionally required when an officer reaches into his or her holster, then it must also extend when that officer decides to launch a two-ton vehicle through a community.

Lynne A. Dunn
(2000)

Bibliography

Alpert, Geoffrey P. 1997 The Constitutional Implications of High Speed Police Pursuit Under A Substantive Due Process Analysis: Homeward Through The Haze. University of Memphis Law Review 27:599–662.

Alpert, Geoffrey P. and Fridell, Lorie A. 1992 Police Vehicles and Firearms: Instruments of Deadly Force. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waverly Press.

Falcone, David 1992 Police Pursuit in Pursuit of Policy: The Pursuit Issue, Legal and Literature Review and An Empirical Study. Normal, Ill.: Illinois State University Press.