Opinion ID: 2507712
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Standard for Qualified Immunity

Text: This case, and the superior court's ruling below, require us to reexamine our previous decisions on qualified immunity and to clarify the standard for granting immunity to police officers. On the one hand, the appellees implicitly, and the state explicitly, urge us to depart from our ruling in Samaniego and instead adopt the Supreme Court's standard announced in Saucier. On the other hand, the appellants contend that we should adhere to the Samaniego standard. Appellees and the state are correct that this court usually follows federal case law in the area of qualified immunity; [7] their suggestion that we depart from Samaniego is bolstered by the fact that the Ninth Circuit decision on which Samaniego partially relied [8] was reversed by the United States Supreme Court in Saucier. [9] But appellants are also correct that we are not bound to follow federal law in designing our own judicial standard for excessive force. We are here dealing with the interpretation of Alaska statutes, not federal law, and have no obligation to follow federal case law. Both sides make credible arguments. Unlike the appellees and the state, we do not find that Samaniego is clearly contradicted by Saucier. Rather, we find Samaniego's standard to be ambiguous, at points seeming to vary from the later adopted Saucier standard, and at other points describing a standard that is in principle much closer to Saucier. Nonetheless, unlike the appellants, we are persuaded that Samaniego should be read in a way that more closely conforms to the standard developed in Saucier. We therefore take the opportunity provided by this case, not to overturn Samaniego, but rather to clarify its holding. In the words of the superior court, we choose to follow Samaniego as modified by Saucier, rather than abandon it. In Saucier, the United States Supreme Court emphasized that in deciding whether an officer is eligible for qualified immunity one must not merely look to whether an officer's actions were objectively reasonable, but also to whether the officer might have reasonably believed that his actions were reasonable. [10] Would a reasonable officer, in other words, have been on notice that his particular use of force would be unlawful? [11] Or could he have reasonably believed that his actions were legal? This test recognizes that there may be behavior that is objectively unreasonable but that nonetheless an officer might have reasonably believed was reasonable. If this is the case, then the officer should be entitled to qualified immunity for his behavior. As the Supreme Court wrote, [t]he concern of the immunity inquiry is to acknowledge that reasonable mistakes can be made as to the legal constraints on particular police conduct. . . . If the officer's mistake as to what the law requires is reasonable . . . the officer is entitled to the immunity defense. [12] In other words, a reasonable but mistaken belief can confer immunity on an officer even after it has been established that the officer violated a constitutional right by behaving unreasonably. We find that this concern to protect officers who reasonably believe that their actions are lawful furthers the rationale we announced in Samaniego: to recognize the reality that police officers, in pursuit of their dangerous and important jobs, are often forced to make difficult decisions regarding the use of force. [13] Saucier overturned the Ninth Circuit's decision in Katz, a decision which Samaniego cited twice in its discussion of qualified immunity. [14] What Katz denied, and Saucier asserted, was that an officer's mistaken but reasonable belief about the legality of his actions could secure that officer qualified immunity. The problem with Katz was that it turned the qualified immunity analysis solely into the question of whether the actions of an officer were objectively reasonable. [15] It did not allow the possibility that an officer might act in a way that was objectively unreasonable and still be immune from suit because he reasonably but mistakenly believed that his actions were lawful. The state, in its brief, argues that Samaniego errs in the same way in which Katz did, by focusing solely on whether the officer's behavior was objectively reasonable. Indeed, Samaniego cited Katz at two key points. [16] The emphasis on objective reasonableness is also seemingly in evidence in Samaniego's concluding paragraphs. The opinion concluded that the proper analysis of defendant officers' claims of privilege to rebut excessive-force allegations . . . is to examine the objective reasonableness of the officers' use of force in making an arrest. It was error to apply, the Samaniego opinion ended, an immunity analysis driven by the officers' subjective beliefs as to the reasonableness of the force used. [17] Because it relied on Katz, the state asks us now to overturn Samaniego based on the changed circumstances that include the United States Supreme Court's decision in Saucier. [B]y continuing to follow Katz,  the state argues, this Court has diverged from the very federal precedent that it intended to follow. Accordingly, the state asks us to declare that Samaniego is no longer good law. We agree that Samaniego attempted to be faithful to federal precedent, but we disagree as to the extent it diverges from that precedent even now, after Saucier. In beginning its analysis of qualified immunity, our court in Samaniego noted that it had, in a prior case, adopted the federal . . . test for official immunity. [18] It then proceeded to cite and quote from Mathis v. Sauser , an Alaska Supreme Court decision that relied directly on the United States Supreme Court's decision in Anderson v. Creighton . [19] Under the federal standard, we emphasized in Samaniego, the relevant inquiry is whether a reasonable official could have believed the challenged conduct was lawful in light of clearly established law and the facts of the case. [20] Here is what Saucier would later identify as the reasonable, but mistaken, beliefs aspect of the qualified immunity inquiry. [21] That is, qualified immunity can be conferred when an officer could have reasonably believed that his conduct was lawful (even if it was not). By invoking Anderson, a case on which Saucier explicitly relied, [22] this court signaled its recognition that the beliefs of the officer, supposing that they are reasonable, were relevant to a qualified immunity inquiry. If Samaniego had stopped there, there would be no doubt that, in Alaska, an officer would be entitled to qualified immunity if he reasonably believed that his conduct was lawful, even if that conduct was objectively excessive. Unfortunately, the Samaniego court subsequently muddied its clear statement by writing, in the immediately following sentence, that [i]n other words, `[w]hether an official may prevail in his qualified immunity defense depends upon the objective reasonableness of [his] conduct.' [23] The use of in other words suggested that the inquiry into the objective reasonableness of an officer's conduct was the only inquiry, of which an inquiry into the reasonableness of an officer's beliefs was simply a part. This suggestion goes against the holding in Saucier which says that finding the absence of objective reasonableness  here excessive force  is only the first step; the court must then go on to determine whether the officer could have had a reasonable belief that his conduct was lawful. This is the reasonable but mistaken belief prong of the qualified immunity analysis which Saucier elaborated. In context, however, it becomes clearer what the Samaniego court meant to emphasize. In emphasizing objective reasonableness, the opinion did not, or did not necessarily, mean to apply only the single standard of Katz, but instead to distinguish objective reasonableness from the (merely) subjective beliefs of police officers. The court had made clear, earlier in its opinion, that a focus on an officer's beliefs was relevant. This inquiry is not merely into what he happened to feel was right, but whether he was reasonable in believing that his conduct was legal. Hence, early in the opinion, the court wrote that [i]t must be borne in mind, though, that when we analyze the issue of reasonableness of the use of force, we focus on . . . what reasonable officers in their position could have thought. [24] Thus, as the court emphasized later in the opinion, and immediately after it seemed to endorse objective reasonableness as the only relevant standard, [b]ecause objective reasonableness is required, officers do not enjoy immunity on account of their subjective good faith alone. [25] But such a sentiment forbidding immunity on the basis of subjective good faith is compatible with allowing immunity based on reasonable mistake. A police officer might make a good faith mistake in believing that his action is legal; this does not, however, prevent that same belief from being unreasonable for that officer to hold. [26] The conclusion of Samaniego, which stresses that the subjective beliefs of officers should not be relevant to the qualified immunity inquiry should also be read in this light: merely subjective beliefs about reasonableness are not enough; the beliefs must also be ones a reasonable officer could have had about the legality of his actions. As the court notes in a footnote, citing a previous case, even a good faith defense must have an objective component, [27] even though it examines the beliefs and not the actions of an officer. We also read Samaniego's summation of the qualified immunity analysis, that the reasonableness of an officer's actions is to be assessed in light of all the relevant circumstances of the case at hand, [28] to implicitly include the reasonable but mistaken belief element of the Saucier test. Both the objective reasonableness of the conduct and the reasonableness of the officer's belief in the legality of his conduct are part of the relevant circumstances that must be assessed in order to determine whether an officer is entitled to qualified immunity for his actions. Read in this light, our decision in Samaniego comports in all essential respects with the Supreme Court's decision in Saucier, especially in its concern to grant immunity in cases where an officer might have reasonably believed that his conduct was lawful. Insofar as our decision today may be taken to modify Samaniego, it is this modification that is now controlling. [29]