Source: http://legaliq.com/Case/Countyof_Sacramento_V_Lewis
Timestamp: 2018-02-17 23:35:42
Document Index: 516531036

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1979', '§ 1983', '§ 1', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 17004', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983']

Countyof Sacramento v. Lewis (523 U.S. 833, 118 S. Ct. 1708, 140 L. Ed. 2d 1043)
Countyof Sacramento v. Lewis
Case Name: Countyof Sacramento v. Lewis
Citations: 523 U.S. 833, 118 S. Ct. 1708, 140 L. Ed. 2d 1043, 1998 U.S. LEXIS 3404
Docket #: 96-1337
Judges: Souter
Respondents, Philip Lewis's parents and the representatives of his estate, brought this action under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, against petitioners Sacramento County, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, and Deputy Smith, alleging a deprivation of Philip Lewis's Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right to life.[1] The District Court granted summary judgment for Smith, reasoning that even if he violated the Constitution, he was entitled to qualified immunity, because respondents could point to no "state or federal opinion published before May, 1990, when the alleged misconduct took place, that supports *838 [their] view that [the decedent had] a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right in the context of high speed police pursuits." App. to Pet. for Cert. 52.[2]
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that "the appropriate degree of fault to be applied to high-speed police pursuits is deliberate indifference to, or reckless disregard for, a person's right to life and personal security," 98 F. 3d 434, 441 (1996), and concluding that "the law regarding police liability for death or injury caused by an officer during the course of a high-speed chase was clearly established" at the time of Philip Lewis's death, id., at 445. Since Smith apparently disregarded the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department's General Order on police pursuits, the Ninth Circuit found a genuine issue of material fact that might be resolved by a finding that Smith's conduct amounted to deliberate indifference:
We granted certiorari, 520 U. S. 1250 (1997), to resolve a conflict among the Circuits over the standard of culpability on the part of a law enforcement officer for violating substantive due process in a pursuit case. Compare 98 F. 3d, at 441 ("deliberate indifference" or "reckless disregard"),[3] with Evans v. Avery, 100 F. 3d 1033, 1038 (CA1 1996) ("shocks the conscience"), cert. denied, 520 U. S. 1210 (1997); Williams v. Denver, 99 F. 3d 1009, 1014-1015 (CA10 1996) (same); Fagan v. Vineland, 22 F. 3d 1296, 1306-1307 (CA3 1994) (en banc) (same); Temkin v. Frederick County Commissioners, 945 *840 F. 2d 716, 720 (CA4 1991) (same), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 1095 (1992); and Checki v. Webb, 785 F. 2d 534, 538 (CA5 1986) (same). We now reverse.
Our prior cases have held the provision that "[n]o State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, § 1, to "guarante[e] more than fair process," Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 719 (1997), and to cover a substantive sphere as well, "barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them," Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 331 (1986); see also Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U. S. 113, 125 (1990) (noting that substantive due process violations are actionable under § 1983). The allegation here that Lewis was deprived of his right to life in violation of substantive due process amounts to such a claim, that under the circumstances described earlier, Smith's actions in causing Lewis's death were an abuse of executive power so clearly unjustified by any legitimate objective of law enforcement as to be barred by the Fourteenth Amendment. Cf. Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. 115, 126 (1992) (noting that the Due Process Clause was intended to prevent government officials "` "from abusing [their] power, or employing it as an instrument of oppression"` ") (quoting DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Servs., 489 U. S. 189, 196 (1989), in turn quoting Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U. S. 344, 348 (1986)).[4]
Because we have "always been reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process," Collins v. Harker Heights, supra, at 125, we held in Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386 (1989), that "[w]here a particular Amendment provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection against a particular sort of government behavior, that Amendment, not the more generalized notion of substantive due process, must be the guide for analyzing these claims." Albright v. Oliver, 510 U. S. 266, 273 (1994) (plurality opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.) (quoting Graham v. Connor, supra, at 395) (internal quotation marks omitted). Given the rule in Graham, we were presented at oral argument with the threshold issue raised in several amicus briefs,[6] whether facts involving a police chase aimed at apprehending suspects can ever support a due process claim. The argument runs that in chasing the motorcycle, Smith was attempting to make a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and, perhaps, even that he succeeded when Lewis was stopped by the fatal collision. Hence, any liability must turn on an application of the reasonableness standard *843 governing searches and seizures, not the due process standard of liability for constitutionally arbitrary executive action. See Graham v. Connor, supra, at 395 ("[A]ll claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force deadly or notin the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other `seizure' of a free citizen should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its `reasonableness' standard, rather than under a `substantive due process' approach" (emphasis in original)); Albright v. Oliver, 510 U. S., at 276 (Ginsburg, J., concurring); id., at 288, n. 2 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment). One Court of Appeals has indeed applied the rule of Graham to preclude the application of principles of generalized substantive due process to a motor vehicle passenger's claims for injury resulting from reckless police pursuit. See Mays v. East St. Louis, 123 F. 3d 999, 1002-1003 (CA7 1997).
"does not hold that all constitutional claims relating to physically abusive government conduct must arise under either the Fourth or Eighth Amendments; rather, Graham simply requires that if a constitutional claim is covered by a specific constitutional provision, such as the Fourth or Eighth Amendment, the claim must be analyzed under the standard appropriate to that specific provision, not under the rubric of substantive due process." United States v. Lanier, 520 U. S. 259, 272, n. 7 (1997).
The Fourth Amendment covers only "searches and seizures," neither of which took place here. No one suggests that there was a search, and our cases foreclose finding a seizure. We held in California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621, *844 626 (1991), that a police pursuit in attempting to seize a person does not amount to a "seizure" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. And in Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U. S. 593, 596-597 (1989), we explained that "a Fourth Amendment seizure does not occur whenever there is a governmentally caused termination of an 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. " We illustrated the point by saying that no Fourth Amendment seizure would take place where a "pursuing police car sought to stop the suspect only by the show of authority represented by flashing lights and continuing pursuit," but accidentally stopped the suspect by crashing into him. Id., at 597. That is exactly this case. See, e. g., Campbell v. White, 916 F. 2d 421, 423 (CA7 1990) (following Brower and finding no seizure where a police officer accidentally struck and killed a fleeing motorcyclist during a high-speed pursuit), cert. denied, 499 U. S. 922 (1991). Graham `s more-specific-provision rule is therefore no bar to respondents' suit. See, e. g., Frye v. Akron, 759 F. Supp. 1320, 1324 (ND Ind. 1991) (parents of a motorcyclist who was struck and killed by a police car during a high-speed pursuit could sue under substantive due process because no Fourth Amendment seizure took place); Evans v. Avery, 100 F. 3d, at 1036 (noting that "outside the context of a seizure, . . . a person injured as a result of police misconduct may prosecute a substantive due process claim under section 1983"); Pleasant v. Zamieski, 895 F. 2d 272, 276, n. 2 (CA6) (noting that Graham "preserve[s] fourteenth amendment substantive due process analysis for those instances in which a free citizen is denied his or her constitutional right to life through means other than a law enforcement official's arrest, investigatory *845 stop or other seizure"), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 851 (1990).[7]
"The principal and true meaning of the phrase has never been more tersely or accurately stated than by Mr. Justice Johnson, in Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wheat. 235-244 [(1819)]: `As to the words from Magna Charta, incorporated into the Constitution of Maryland, after volumes spoken and written with a view to their exposition, the good sense of mankind has at last settled down to this: that they were intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government, unrestrained by the established principles of private right and distributive justice.' " Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 527 (1884).
We have emphasized time and again that "[t]he touchstone of due process is protection of the individual against arbitrary action of government," Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 558 (1974), whether the fault lies in a denial of fundamental *846 procedural fairness, see, e. g., Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67, 82 (1972) (the procedural due process guarantee protects against "arbitrary takings"), or in the exercise of power without any reasonable justification in the service of a legitimate governmental objective, see, e. g., Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S., at 331 (the substantive due process guarantee protects against government power arbitrarily and oppressively exercised). While due process protection in the substantive sense limits what the government may do in both its legislative, see, e. g., Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965), and its executive capacities, see, e. g., Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952), criteria to identify what is fatally arbitrary differ depending on whether it is legislation or a specific act of a governmental officer that is at issue.
To this end, for half a century now we have spoken of the cognizable level of executive abuse of power as that which shocks the conscience. We first put the test this way in Rochin v. California, supra, at 172-173, where we found the forced pumping of a suspect's stomach enough to offend due process as conduct "that shocks the conscience" and violates the "decencies of civilized conduct." In the intervening *847 years we have repeatedly adhered to Rochin `s benchmark. See, e. g., Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U. S. 432, 435 (1957) (reiterating that conduct that "`shocked the conscience' and was so `brutal' and `offensive' that it did not comport with traditional ideas of fair play and decency" would violate substantive due process); Whitley v. Albers, 475 U. S. 312, 327 (1986) (same); United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 746 (1987) ("So-called `substantive due process' prevents the government from engaging in conduct that `shocks the conscience,'. . . or interferes with rights `implicit in the concept of ordered liberty' ") (quoting Rochin v. California, supra, at 172, and Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325-326 (1937)). Most recently, in Collins v. Harker Heights, supra, at 128, we said again that the substantive component of the Due Process Clause is violated by executive action only when it "can properly be characterized as arbitrary, or conscience shocking, in a constitutional sense." While the measure of what is conscience shocking is no calibrated yard stick, it does, as Judge Friendly put it, "poin[t] the way." Johnson v. Glick, 481 F. 2d 1028, 1033 (CA2), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 1033 (1973).[8]
*848 It should not be surprising that the constitutional concept of conscience shocking duplicates no traditional category of common-law fault, but rather points clearly away from liability, or clearly toward it, only at the ends of the tort law's spectrum of culpability. Thus, we have made it clear that the due process guarantee does not entail a body of constitutional law imposing liability whenever someone cloaked with state authority causes harm. In Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693, 701 (1976), for example, we explained that the Fourteenth Amendment is not a "font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever systems may already be administered by the States," and in Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S., at 332, we reaffirmed the point that "[o]ur Constitution deals with the large concerns of the governors and the governed, but it does not purport to supplant traditional tort law in laying down rules of conduct to regulate liability for injuries that attend living together in society." We have accordingly rejected the lowest common denominator of customary tort liability *849 as any mark of sufficiently shocking conduct, and have held that the Constitution does not guarantee due care on the part of state officials; liability for negligently inflicted harm is categorically beneath the threshold of constitutional due process. See id., at 328; see also Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U. S., at 348 (clarifying that Daniels applies to substantive, as well as procedural, due process). It is, on the contrary, behavior at the other end of the culpability spectrum that would most probably support a substantive due process claim; conduct intended to injure in some way unjustifiable by any government interest is the sort of official action most likely to rise to the conscience-shocking level. See Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S., at 331 ("Historically, this guarantee of due process has been applied to deliberate decisions of government officials to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property" (emphasis in original)).
Whether the point of the conscience shocking is reached when injuries are produced with culpability falling within the middle range, following from something more than negligence but "less than intentional conduct, such as recklessness or `gross negligence,' " id., at 334, n. 3, is a matter for closer calls.[9] To be sure, we have expressly recognized the possibility that some official acts in this range may be actionable under the Fourteenth Amendment, ibid., and our cases have compelled recognition that such conduct is egregious enough to state a substantive due process claim in at least one instance. We held in City of Revere v. Massachusetts Gen. Hospital, 463 U. S. 239 (1983), that "the due process rights of a [pretrial detainee] are at least as great as the *850 Eighth Amendment protections available to a convicted prisoner." Id., at 244 (citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 535, n. 16, 545 (1979)). Since it may suffice for Eighth Amendment liability that prison officials were deliberately indifferent to the medical needs of their prisoners, see Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 104 (1976), it follows that such deliberately indifferent conduct must also be enough to satisfy the fault requirement for due process claims based on the medical needs of someone jailed while awaiting trial, see, e. g., Barrie v. Grand County, Utah, 119 F. 3d 862, 867 (CA10 1997); Weyant v. Okst, 101 F. 3d 845, 856 (CA2 1996).[10]
"The phrase [due process of law] formulates a concept less rigid and more fluid than those envisaged in other specific and particular provisions of the Bill of Rights. Its application is less a matter of rule. Asserted denial is to be tested by an appraisal of the totality of facts in a given case. That which may, in one setting, constitute a denial of fundamental fairness, shocking to the universal sense of justice, may, in other circumstances, and in the light of other considerations, fall short of such denial." Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455, 462 (1942).
The Court is correct, of course, in repeating that the prohibition against deprivations of life, liberty, or property contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extends beyond the command of fair procedures. It can no longer be controverted that due process has a substantive component as well. See, e. g., Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702 (1997); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992); Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. 115, 125-128 (1992); Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110 (1989). As a consequence, certain actions are prohibited no matter what procedures attend them. In the case before us, there can be no question that an interest protected by the text of the Constitution is implicated: The actions of the State were part of a causal chain resulting in the undoubted loss of life. We have no definitional problem, then, in determining whether there is an interest sufficient to invoke due process. Cf. Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, ante, p. 272.
*857 What we do confront is the question of the standard of conduct the Constitution requires the State, in this case the local police, to follow to protect against the unintentional taking of life in the circumstances of a police pursuit. Unlike the separate question whether or not, given the fact of a constitutional violation, the state entity is liable for damages, see Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 694-695 (1978); Canton v. Harris, 489 U. S. 378 (1989), which is a matter of statutory interpretation or elaboration, the question here is the distinct, anterior issue whether or not a constitutional violation occurred at all. See Collins v. Harker Heights, supra, at 120, 124.
The Court decides this case by applying the "shocks the conscience" test first recognized in Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 172-173 (1952), and reiterated in subsequent decisions. The phrase has the unfortunate connotation of a standard laden with subjective assessments. In that respect, it must be viewed with considerable skepticism. As our opinion in Collins v. Harker Heights illustrates, however, the test can be used to mark the beginning point in asking whether or not the objective character of certain conduct is consistent with our traditions, precedents, and historical understanding of the Constitution and its meaning. 503 U. S., at 126-128. As Justice Scalia is correct to point out, we so interpreted the test in Glucksberg. Post, at 860 861 (opinion concurring in judgment). In the instant case, the authorities cited by Justice Scalia are persuasive, indicating that we would contradict our traditions were we to sustain the claims of the respondents.
I join the Court's judgment and opinion. I write separately only to point out my agreement with Justice Stevens, post, at 859, that Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U. S. 226 (1991), should not be read to deny lower courts the flexibility, in appropriate cases, to decide 42 U. S. C. § 1983 claims on the basis of qualified immunity, and thereby avoid wrestling with *859 constitutional issues that are either difficult or poorly presented. See Siegert, supra, at 235 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (lower court "adopted the altogether normal procedure of deciding the case before it on the ground that appeared to offer the most direct and appropriate resolution, and one argued by the parties").
When defendants in a 42 U. S. C. § 1983 action argue in the alternative (a) that they did not violate the Constitution, and (b) that in any event they are entitled to qualified immunity because the constitutional right was not clearly established, the opinion in Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U. S. 226 (1991), tells us that we should address the constitutional question at the outset. That is sound advice when the answer to the constitutional question is clear. When, however, the question is both difficult and unresolved, I believe it wiser to adhere to the policy of avoiding the unnecessary adjudication of constitutional questions. Because I consider this such a case, I would reinstate the judgment of the District Court on the ground that the relevant law was not clearly defined in 1990.
Just last Term, in Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 720-722 (1997), the Court specifically rejected the method of substantive-due-process analysis employed by Justice Souter in his concurrence in that case, which is the very same method employed by Justice Souter in his opinion for the Court today. To quote the opinion in Glucksberg:
Today, so to speak, the stone that the builders had rejected has become the foundation stone of our substantive-dueprocess jurisprudence. The atavistic methodology that Justice Souter announces for the Court is the very same methodology that the Court called atavistic when it was proffered by Justice Souter in Glucksberg. In fact, if anything, today's opinion is even more of a throwback to highly subjective substantive-due-process methodologies than the concurrence in Glucksberg was. Whereas the latter said merely that substantive due process prevents "arbitrary impositions" and "purposeless restraints" (without any objective criterion as to what is arbitrary or purposeless), today's opinion resuscitates the one plus ultra, the Napoleon Brandy, the Mahatma Gandhi, the Cellophane[1] of subjectivity, th' ol' "shocks-the-conscience" test. According to today's opinion, this is the measure of arbitrariness when what is at issue is executive, rather than legislative, action. Ante, at 846-847.[2]*862 Glucksberg, of course, rejected "shocks-the-conscience," just as it rejected the less subjective "arbitrary action" test. A 1992 executive-action case, Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. 115, which had paid lipservice to "shocks-theconscience," see id., at 128, was cited in Glucksberg for the proposition that "[o]ur Nation's history, legal traditions, and practices . . . provide the crucial `guide posts for responsible decision making.' " 521 U. S., at 721, quoting Collins, supra, at 125. In fact, even before Glucksberg we had characterized the last "shocks-the-conscience" claim to come before us as "nothing more than [a] bald assertio[n]," and had rejected it on the objective ground that the petitioner "failed to proffer any historical, textual, or controlling precedential support for [his alleged due process right], and we decline to fashion a new due process right out of thin air." Carlisle v. United States, 517 U. S. 416, 429 (1996).
Respondents provide no textual or historical support for this alleged due process right, and, as in Carlisle, I would "decline to fashion a new due process right out of thin air." 517 U. S., at 429. Nor have respondents identified any precedential support. Indeed, precedent is to the contrary: *863 "Historically, th[e] guarantee of due process has been applied to deliberate decisions of government officials to deprive a person of life, liberty, or property." Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 331 (1986) (citations omitted); Collins, supra, at 127, n. 10 (same). Though it is true, as the Court explains, that "deliberate indifference" to the medical needs of pretrial detainees, City of Revere v. Massachusetts Gen. Hospital, 463 U. S. 239, 244-245 (1983), or of involuntarily committed mental patients, Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U. S. 307, 314-325 (1982), may violate substantive due process, it is not the deliberate indifference alone that is the "deprivation." Rather, it is that combined with "the State's affirmative act of restraining the individual's freedom to act on his own behalfthrough incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty," DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Servs., 489 U. S. 189, 200 (1989). "[W]hen the State by the affirmative exercise of its power so restrains an individual's liberty that it renders him unable to care for himself, and at the same time fails to provide for his basic human needs[,] . . . it transgresses the substantive limits on state action set by the . . . Due Process Clause." Ibid. (emphasis added). We have expressly left open whether, in a context in which the individual has not been deprived of the ability to care for himself in the relevant respect, "something less than intentional conduct, such as recklessness or `gross negligence,' " can ever constitute a "deprivation" under the Due Process Clause. Daniels, 474 U. S., at 334, n. 3. Needless to say, if it is an open question whether recklessness can ever trigger due process protections, there is no precedential support for a substantive-dueprocess right to be free from reckless police conduct during a car chase.
To hold, as respondents urge, that all government conduct deliberately indifferent to life, liberty, or property violates the Due Process Clause would make "`the Fourteenth Amendment a font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever *864 systems may already be administered by the States.' " Id., at 332, quoting Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693, 701 (1976) (other citation omitted). Here, for instance, it is not fair to say that it was the police officer alone who "deprived" Lewis of his life. Though the police car did run Lewis over, it was the driver of the motorcycle, Willard, who dumped Lewis in the car's path by recklessly making a sharp left turn at high speed. (Willard had the option of rolling to a gentle stop and showing the officer his license and registration.) Surely Willard "deprived" Lewis of his life in every sense that the police officer did. And if Lewis encouraged Willard to make the reckless turn, Lewis himself would be responsible, at least in part, for his own death. Was there contributory fault on the part of Willard or Lewis? Did the police officer have the "last clear chance" to avoid the accident? Did Willard and Lewis, by fleeing from the police, "assume the risk" of the accident? These are interesting questions of tort law, not of constitutional governance. "Our Constitution deals with the large concerns of the governors and the governed, but it does not purport to supplant traditional tort law in laying down rules of conduct to regulate liability for injuries that attend living together in society." Daniels, supra, at 332. As we have said many times, "the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment . . . does not transform every tort committed by a state actor into a constitutional violation." DeShaney, supra, at 202 (citations omitted).
If the people of the State of California would prefer a system that renders police officers liable for reckless driving during high-speed pursuits, "[t]hey may create such a system. . . by changing the tort law of the State in accordance with the regular lawmaking process." 489 U. S., at 203. For now, they prefer not to hold public employees "liable for civil damages on account of personal injury to or death of any person or damage to property resulting from the operation, in the line of duty, of an authorized emergency vehicle . . . when in the immediate pursuit of an actual or suspected violator *865 of the law." Cal. Veh. Code Ann. § 17004 (West 1971). It is the prerogative of a self-governing people to make that legislative choice. "Political society," as the Seventh Circuit has observed, "must consider not only the risks to passengers, pedestrians, and other drivers that high-speed chases engender, but also the fact that if police are forbidden to pursue, then many more suspects will fleeand successful flights not only reduce the number of crimes solved but also create their own risks for passengers and bystanders." Mays v. City of East St. Louis, 123 F. 3d 999, 1003 (1997). In allocating such risks, the people of California and their elected representatives may vote their consciences. But for judges to overrule that democratically adopted policy judgment on the ground that it shocks their consciences is not judicial review but judicial governance.
[2] The District Court also granted summary judgment in favor of the county and the Sheriff's Department on the § 1983 claim, concluding that municipal liability would not lie under Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658 (1978), after finding no genuine factual dispute as to whether the county adequately trains its officers in the conduct of vehicular pursuits or whether the pursuit policy of the Sheriff's Department evinces deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of the public. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court on these points, 98 F. 3d 434, 446-447 (1996), and the issue of municipal liability is not before us.
[3] In Jones v. Sherrill, 827 F. 2d 1102, 1106 (1987), the Sixth Circuit adopted a "gross negligence" standard for imposing liability for harm caused by police pursuit. Subsequently, in Foy v. Berea, 58 F. 3d 227, 230 (1995), the Sixth Circuit, without specifically mentioning Jones, disavowed the notion that "gross negligence is sufficient to support a substantive due process claim." Although Foy involved police inaction, rather than police pursuit, it seems likely that the Sixth Circuit would now apply the "deliberate indifference" standard utilized in that case, see 58 F. 3d, at 232-233, rather than the "gross negligence" standard adopted in Jones, in a police pursuit situation.
[4] Respondents do not argue that they were denied due process of law by virtue of the fact that California's post deprivation procedures and rules of immunity have effectively denied them an adequate opportunity to seek compensation for the state-occasioned deprivation of their son's life. We express no opinion here on the merits of such a claim, cf. Albright v. Oliver, 510 U. S. 266, 281-286 (1994) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment); Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527 (1981), or on the adequacy of California's post deprivation compensation scheme.
[5] As in any action under § 1983, the first step is to identify the exact contours of the underlying right said to have been violated. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, 394 (1989). The District Court granted summary judgment to Smith on the basis of qualified immunity, assuming without deciding that a substantive due process violation took place but holding that the law was not clearly established in 1990 so as to justify imposition of § 1983 liability. We do not analyze this case in a similar fashion because, as we have held, the better approach to resolving cases in which the defense of qualified immunity is raised is to determine first whether the plaintiff has alleged a deprivation of a constitutional right at all. Normally, it is only then that a court should ask whether the right allegedly implicated was clearly established at the time of the events in question. See Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U. S. 226, 232 (1991) ("A necessary concomitant to the determination of whether the constitutional right asserted by a plaintiff is `clearly established' at the time the defendant acted is the determination of whether the plaintiff has asserted a violation of a constitutional right at all," and courts should not "assum[e], without deciding, this preliminary issue").
[7] Several amici suggest that, for the purposes of Graham, the Fourth Amendment should cover not only seizures,but also failed attempts to make a seizure. See, e. g., Brief for National Association of Counties et al. as Amici Curiae 10-11. This argument is foreclosed by California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621 (1991), in which we explained that "neither usage nor common-law tradition makes an attempted seizure a seizure. The common law may have made an attempted seizure unlawful in certain circumstances; but it made many things unlawful, very few of which were elevated to constitutional proscriptions." Id., at 626, n. 2. Attempted seizures of a person are beyond the scope of the Fourth Amendment. See id., at 646 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (disagreeing with the Court's position that "an attempt to make [a] . . . seizure is beyond the coverage of the Fourth Amendment").
[8] As Justice Scalia has explained before, he fails to see "the usefulness of `conscience shocking' as a legal test," Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390, 428 (1993), and his independent analysis of this case is therefore understandable. He is, however, simply mistaken in seeing our insistence on the shocks-the-conscience standard as an atavistic return to a scheme of due process analysis rejected by the Court in Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702 (1997).
[9] In Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165 (1952), the case in which we formulated and first applied the shocks-the-conscience test, it was not the ultimate purpose of the government actors to harm the plaintiff, but they apparently acted with full appreciation of what the Court described as the brutality of their acts. Rochin, of course, was decided long before Graham v. Connor (and Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961)), and today would be treated under the Fourth Amendment, albeit with the same result.
[10] We have also employed deliberate indifference as a standard of culpability sufficient to identify a dereliction as reflective of municipal policy and to sustain a claim of municipal liability for failure to train an employee who causes harm by unconstitutional conduct for which he would be individually liable. See Canton v. Harris, 489 U. S. 378, 388-389 (1989).
[12] Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U. S. 307 (1982), can be categorized on much the same terms. There, we held that a severely retarded person could state a claim under § 1983 for a violation of substantive due process if the personnel at the mental institution where he was confined failed to exercise professional judgment when denying him training and habilitation. Id., at 319-325. The combination of a patient's involuntary commitment and his total dependence on his custodians obliges the government to take thought and make reasonable provision for the patient's welfare.
[14] To say that due process is not offended by the police conduct described here is not, of course, to imply anything about its appropriate treatment under state law. See Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. 115, 128-129 (1992) (decisions about civil liability standards that "involve a host of policy choices . . .must be made by locally elected representatives [or by courts enforcing the common law of torts], rather than by federal judges interpreting the basic charter of Government for the entire country"). Cf. Thomas v. City of Richmond, 9 Cal. 4th 1154, 892 P. 2d 1185 (1995) (en banc) (discussing municipal liability under California law for injuries caused by police pursuits).
[2] The proposition that "shocks-the-conscience" is a test applicable only to executive action is original with today's opinion. That has never been suggested in any of our cases, and in fact "shocks-the-conscience" was recited in at least one opinion involving legislative action. See United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 746 (1987) (in considering whether the Bail Reform Act of 1984 violated the Due Process Clause, we said that "[s]o-called `substantive due process' prevents the government from engaging in conduct that `shocks the conscience' "). I am of course happy to accept whatever limitations the Court today is willing to impose upon the "shocks-the-conscience" test, though it is a puzzlement why substantive due process protects some liberties against executive officers but not against legislatures.
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