Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/489/593/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 11:58:14+00:00

Document:
During a high speed police chase, Brower died when he crashed a stolen car into an 18-wheel truck parked across a roadway by the police as a roadblock. Police allegedly parked the truck behind a curve with a police cruiser's headlights aimed so as to blind him on his approach. The use of a roadblock by the police to stop Brower's car constituted a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
Petitioners' decedent (Brower) was killed when the stolen car he had been driving at high speeds to elude pursuing police crashed into a police roadblock. Petitioners brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in Federal District Court, claiming, inter alia, that respondents, acting under color of law, violated Brower's Fourth Amendment rights by effecting an unreasonable seizure using excessive force. Specifically, the complaint alleges that respondents placed an 18-wheel truck completely across the highway in the path of Brower's flight, behind a curve, with a police cruiser's headlights aimed in such fashion as to blind Brower on his approach. It also alleges that the fatal collision was a "proximate result" of this police conduct. The District Court dismissed for failure to state a claim, concluding that the roadblock was reasonable under the circumstances, and the Court of Appeals affirmed on the ground that no "seizure" had occurred.
1. Consistent with the language, history, and judicial construction of the Fourth Amendment, a seizure occurs when governmental termination of a person's movement is effected through means intentionally applied. Because the complaint alleges that Brower was stopped by the instrumentality set in motion or put in place to stop him, it states a claim of Fourth Amendment "seizure." Pp. 489 U. S. 595-599.
2. Petitioners can claim the right to recover for Brower's death because the unreasonableness alleged consists precisely of setting up the roadblock in such a manner as to be likely to kill him. On remand, the Court of Appeals must determine whether the District Court erred in concluding that the roadblock was not "unreasonable." Pp. 489 U. S. 599-600.
817 F.2d 540, reversed and remanded.
SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and WHITE, O'CONNOR, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which BRENNAN, MARSHALL, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined, post, p. 489 U. S. 600.
of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Jamieson v. Shaw, 772 F.2d 1205 (1985).
In Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1 (1985), all Members of the Court agreed that a police officer's fatal shooting of a fleeing suspect constituted a Fourth Amendment "seizure." See id. at 471 U. S. 7; id. at 489 U. S. 27 (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting). We reasoned that "[w]henever an officer restrains the freedom of a person to walk away, he has seized that person." Id. at 471 U. S. 7. While acknowledging Garner, the Court of Appeals here concluded that no "seizure" occurred when Brower collided with the police roadblock because, "[p]rior to his failure to stop voluntarily, his freedom of movement was never arrested or restrained," and because "[h]e had a number of opportunities to stop his automobile prior to the impact." 817 F.2d at 546. Essentially the same thing, however, could have been said in Garner. Brower's independent decision to continue the chase can no more eliminate respondents' responsibility for the termination of his movement effected by the roadblock than Garner's independent decision to flee eliminated the Memphis police officer's responsibility for the termination of his movement effected by the bullet.
The Court of Appeals was impelled to its result by consideration of what it described as the "analogous situation" of a police chase in which the suspect unexpectedly loses control of his car and crashes. See Galas v. McKee, 801 F.2d 200, 202-203 (CA6 1986) (no seizure in such circumstances). We agree that no unconstitutional seizure occurs there, but not for a reason that has any application to the present case.
Violation of the Fourth Amendment requires an intentional acquisition of physical control. A seizure occurs even when an unintended person or thing is the object of the detention or taking, see Hill v. California, 401 U. S. 797, 401 U. S. 802-805 (1971); cf. Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79, 480 U. S. 85-89 (1987), but the detention or taking itself must be willful. This is implicit in the word "seizure," which can hardly be applied to an unknowing act. The writs of assistance that were the principal grievance against which the Fourth Amendment was directed, see Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 116 U. S. 624-625 (1886); T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations *301-*302, did not involve unintended consequences of government action. Nor did the general warrants issued by Lord Halifax in the 1760's, which produced "the first and only major litigation in the English courts in the field of search and seizure," T. Taylor, Two Studies in Constitutional Interpretation 26 (1969), including the case we have described as a "monument of English freedom" "undoubtedly familiar" to "every American statesman" at the time the Constitution was adopted, and considered to be "the true and ultimate expression of constitutional law," Boyd, supra, at 116 U. S. 626 (discussing Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 95 Eng.Rep. 807 (K.B. 1765)). In sum, the Fourth Amendment addresses "misuse of power," Byars v. United States, 273 U. S. 28, 273 U. S. 33 (1927), not the accidental effects of otherwise lawful government conduct.
individual's freedom of movement (the innocent passerby), nor even whenever there is a governmentally caused and governmentally desired termination of an individual's freedom of movement (the fleeing felon), but only when there is a governmental termination of freedom of movement through means intentionally applied. That is the reason there was no seizure in the hypothetical situation that concerned the Court of Appeals. The pursuing police car sought to stop the suspect only by the show of authority represented by flashing lights and continuing pursuit, and though he was in fact stopped, he was stopped by a different means -- his loss of control of his vehicle and the subsequent crash. If, instead of that, the police cruiser had pulled alongside the fleeing car and sideswiped it, producing the crash, then the termination of the suspect's freedom of movement would have been a seizure.
"The defendant's own acts, and those of his associates, disclosed the jug, the jar and the bottle -- and there was no seizure in the sense of the law when the officers examined the contents of each after they had been abandoned."
not merely the result of government action, but the result of the very means (the show of authority) that the government selected, and a Fourth Amendment seizure would have occurred.
stopped by the accidental discharge of a gun with which he was meant only to be bludgeoned, or by a bullet in the heart that was meant only for the leg. We think it enough for a seizure that a person be stopped by the very instrumentality set in motion or put in place in order to achieve that result. It was enough here, therefore, that, according to the allegations of the complaint, Brower was meant to be stopped by the physical obstacle of the roadblock -- and that he was so stopped.
This is not to say that the precise character of the roadblock is irrelevant to further issues in this case. "Seizure" alone is not enough for § 1983 liability; the seizure must be "unreasonable." Petitioners can claim the right to recover for Brower's death only because the unreasonableness they allege consists precisely of setting up the roadblock in such manner as to be likely to kill him. This should be contrasted with the situation that would obtain if the sole claim of unreasonableness were that there was no probable cause for the stop. In that case, if Brower had had the opportunity to stop voluntarily at the roadblock, but had negligently or intentionally driven into it, then, because of lack of proximate causality, respondents, though responsible for depriving him of his freedom of movement, would not be liable for his death. See Martinez v. California, 444 U. S. 277, 444 U. S. 285 (1980); Cameron v. Pontiac, 813 F.2d 782, 786 (CA6 1987). Thus, the circumstances of this roadblock, including the allegation that headlights were used to blind the oncoming driver, may yet determine the outcome of this case.
on the basis that the alleged roadblock did not effect a seizure that was "unreasonable."
The Court is unquestionably correct in concluding that respondents' use of a roadblock to stop Brower's car constituted a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. I therefore concur in its judgment. I do not, however, join its opinion, because its dicta seem designed to decide a number of cases not before the Court, and to establish the proposition that "[v]iolation of the Fourth Amendment requires an intentional acquisition of physical control." Ante at 489 U. S. 596.
"a person has been 'seized' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment only if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave."
(opinion of Stewart, J.); see also INS v. Delgado, 466 U. S. 210, 466 U. S. 215 (1984).
"there can be no question that apprehension by the use of deadly force is a seizure subject to the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment."
471 U.S. at 471 U. S. 7. Because it was undisputed that the police officer acted intentionally, we did not discuss the hypothetical case of an unintentional seizure. I would exercise the same restraint here.
County of Inyo, et al.

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