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Page Number: 4.0

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CITY OF TAHLEQUAH v. BOND 

Per Curiam 

confronts.”  Mullenix  v.  Luna,  577  U. S.  7,  12  (2015)  (per 
curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

The  Tenth  Circuit  contravened  those  settled  principles
here.  Not one of the decisions relied upon by the Court of 
Appeals—Estate of Ceballos v. Husk, 919 F. 3d 1204 (CA10
2019), Hastings v. Barnes, 252 Fed. Appx. 197 (CA10 2007), 
Allen, 119 F. 3d 837, and Sevier v. Lawrence, 60 F. 3d 695 
(CA10 1995)—comes close to establishing that the officers’ 
conduct  was  unlawful.    The  Court  relied  most  heavily  on 
Allen.  But the facts of Allen are dramatically different from 
the facts here.  The officers in Allen responded to a potential
suicide call by sprinting toward a parked car, screaming at 
the suspect, and attempting to physically wrest a gun from
his hands.  119 F. 3d, at 841.  Officers Girdner and Vick, by 
contrast,  engaged  in  a  conversation  with  Rollice,  followed 
him into a garage at a distance of 6 to 10 feet, and did not 
yell until after he picked up a hammer.  We cannot conclude 
that Allen “clearly established” that their conduct was reck-
less or that their ultimate use of force was unlawful. 

The other decisions relied upon by the Court of Appeals 
are even less relevant.  As for Sevier, that decision merely
noted in dicta that deliberate or reckless preseizure conduct
can render a later use of force excessive before dismissing 
the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.  See 60 F. 3d, at 700–701. 
To state the obvious, a decision where the court did not even 
have jurisdiction cannot clearly establish substantive con-
stitutional law.  Regardless, that formulation of the rule is
much too general to bear on whether the officers’ particular
conduct here violated the Fourth Amendment.  See al-Kidd, 
563  U. S.,  at  742.    Estate  of  Ceballos,  decided  after  the 
shooting at issue, is of no use in the clearly established in-
quiry.  See  Brosseau  v.  Haugen,  543  U. S.  194,  200,  n.  4 
(2004)  (per  curiam).  And  Hastings,  an  unpublished  deci-
sion, involved officers initiating an encounter with a poten-
tially suicidal individual by chasing him into his bedroom,
screaming  at  him,  and  pepper-spraying  him.    252  Fed.