Opinion ID: 3066152
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Second Entry

Text: We hold, however, that there are triable issues of fact as to whether the second entry violated the Fourth Amendment.
We do not suggest that the officers are liable for acting without a warrant. There are at least two, and possibly three, reasons why the officers were permitted to act without a warrant at the time of the second entry. First, the officers continued to have an objectively reasonable basis for concluding that there was an urgent need to protect Sheehan from serious harm, satisfying the emergency aid exception’s first prong. See Snipe, 515 F.3d at 952.6 The emergency that 5 Because we hold that the initial entry falls under the emergency aid exception, we need not decide whether the exigent circumstances exception would also apply. Nor need we address whether the officers’ warrantless entry may have been covered by a “special need” exception to the warrant requirement. See Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987). The First and Third Circuits have held that a special need exception applies when police officers enter a subject’s home to take her into custody pursuant to a state law authorizing emergency hospitalization of a person suffering from mental illness. See Doby v. DeCrescenzo, 171 F.3d 858, 872 (3d Cir. 1999); McCabe v. Life-Line Ambulance Serv., Inc., 77 F.3d 540, 553 (1st Cir. 1996). The parties have not raised that issue here, however. 6 The two prongs of the emergency aid exception address distinct Fourth Amendment requirements. The first prong – whether law enforcement had an objectively reasonable basis for concluding that there was an immediate need to protect others or themselves from serious harm – SHEEHAN V. CITY & CNTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO 23 existed at the time of the initial entry was no less apparent at the time of the second entry. On the contrary, Sheehan’s behavior toward the officers during their initial entry only confirmed that her condition had deteriorated to the point of creating an emergency. Second, because the two entries were part of a single, continuous search or seizure, the officers are not required to separately justify the continuing emergency with respect to the second entry. See Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 511 (1978) (“[W]e find that the morning entries were no more than an actual continuation of the first, and the lack of a warrant thus did not invalidate the resulting seizure of evidence” where the initial entry was justified by exigent circumstances); Fisher, 558 F.3d at 1077 (“[W]e conclude that when Fisher was seized at the beginning of the standoff, the officers were not required to periodically reassess whether the exigency persisted throughout the standoff because the standoff was ‘no more than an actual continuation’ of the initial seizure.”); United States v. Kaplan, 895 F.2d 618, 623 (9th Cir. 1990); United States v. addresses whether the officers proceeded lawfully by acting without a warrant. The second prong – whether the search’s scope and manner were reasonable to meet the need – addresses whether, even if a warrant was not required, the officers carried out the search or seizure in an unreasonable manner. A search or seizure comports with the Fourth Amendment only if both prongs are satisfied. Cf. Fisher, 558 F.3d at 1080, 1084 (holding that the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement was satisfied under the exigent circumstances exception but that the officers still could be liable for carrying out the seizure in an unreasonable manner). The first prong is satisfied here, justifying the officers for acting without a warrant. But there are triable issues as to whether the second prong is satisfied. 24 SHEEHAN V. CITY & CNTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO Echegoyen, 799 F.2d 1271, 1280 (9th Cir. 1986).7 Third, although the point is debatable, the officers may have been justified in acting without a warrant under the exigent circumstances exception.8 That the officers did not have a warrant at the time of the second entry, therefore, did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
We are not persuaded, however, that the officers carried out the search or seizure in a reasonable manner at the point of the second entry. As we have explained, regardless of whether the officers invoke the emergency aid exception or the exigent circumstances exception, they were required to 7 Although the continuous search doctrine applies here, that doctrine speaks only to the warrant requirement, not to the separate requirement that officers carry out a search or seizure in a reasonable manner. See Fisher, 558 F.3d at 1084. Thus, although the officers were not required to reassess the existence of an emergency or the need for a warrant periodically, they were required at all times to conduct the search or seizure in a reasonable manner. 8 Because we hold that the absence of a warrant was justified under both the emergency aid exception and the continuous search doctrine, we need not address whether the exigent circumstances exception applies to the second entry. Whether as a matter of law it would apply is at least questionable. By the time of the second entry, the officers had probable cause to believe Sheehan had committed a crime by threatening the officers. Arguably, the officers could have avoided harm to themselves by retreating a safe distance from the door; the knife was not in imminent danger of destruction; there was no “hot pursuit” given that Sheehan “was already inside the [room] when the police officers arrived,” Struckman, 603 F.3d at 744; and given that Hodge had informed them that the only way out of the room was an inaccessible second story window, and Sheehan had shown no interest in leaving her room, there was no reason to fear Sheehan’s escape. SHEEHAN V. CITY & CNTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO 25 carry out the search or seizure in a reasonable manner, without the use of excessive force. See Fisher, 558 F.3d at 1084; Snipe, 515 F.3d at 952. Although we have no trouble with the manner in which the officers carried out the search or seizure up to and including the initial entry, we cannot say as a matter of law that the officers continued to carry out the search or seizure in a reasonable manner when they decided to force the second entry, without taking Sheehan’s mental illness into account and in an apparent departure from their police officer training.9 Sheehan presented an expert report by Lou Reiter, a former deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. We treat Reiter’s report as relevant evidence of reasonableness, as we are required to do. Although we have held that the mere fact that an expert disagrees with an officer’s actions does not itself compel the conclusion that the officer’s actions were unreasonable, see Billington v. Smith, 292 F.3d 1177, 1189 (9th Cir. 2002); Reynolds v. Cnty. of San Diego, 84 F.3d 1162, 1170 (9th Cir. 1996), overruled on other grounds by Acri v. Varian Assocs., Inc., 114 F.3d 999, 1001 (9th Cir. 1997), a rational jury may rely upon expert evidence in assessing whether an officer’s use of force was unreasonable, see Glenn v. Washington Cnty., 673 F.3d 864, 877 (9th Cir. 2011); Smith v. City of Hemet, 394 F.3d 689, 9 In examining whether the officers conducted the search or seizure in a reasonable manner at the point of the second entry, we do not focus on the amount of force they employed to force open the door (considerable) and that they did so with their firearms drawn (itself a significant use of force). See footnote 3, supra. Rather, we focus on their critical decision to enter at all. See Alexander v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 29 F.3d 1355, 1366–67 (9th Cir. 1994) (holding that there were triable issues as to whether officers used excessive force by storming the house of a mentally ill recluse who had threatened to shoot anybody who entered). 26 SHEEHAN V. CITY & CNTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO 703 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc); Reynolds, 84 F.3d at 1169. Reiter’s report is therefore relevant to the excessive force inquiry. Reiter described general police practices for dealing with persons who are mentally ill or emotionally disturbed, explaining that officers are trained not to unreasonably agitate or excite the person, to contain the person, to respect the person’s comfort zone, to use nonthreatening communications and to employ the passage of time to their advantage. He also cited materials used by the San Francisco Police Department to train officers on “appropriate tactical actions” to be used when confronting the mentally ill. These materials, which are germane to the excessive force inquiry because they were designed to protect individuals such as Sheehan from harm, see Scott v. Henrich, 39 F.3d 912, 915–16 (9th Cir. 1994), advise officers to request backup, to calm the situation, to communicate, to move slowly, to assume a quiet, nonthreatening manner, to take time to assess the situation and to “give the person time to calm down.” Reiter deemed the officers’ second entry into Sheehan’s home tactically unreasonable under those policies. In his view, the officers should have “elected to . . . relocate to a safer tactical position, call for special units/equipment, and determine the propriety of seeking a warrant.” He opined that there was no logical reason that the officers did not pull back from the landing outside Ms. Sheehan’s private residence after their first attempt to enter. The location was a tactical disadvantage for the officers. Both officers knew that Ms. Sheehan had refused their entry SHEEHAN V. CITY & CNTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO 27 and made specific comments regarding the necessity for a warrant. They knew that other resources were en-route to their call for backup. Officer Holder’s and Sgt. Reynold’s [sic] continued conduct exacerbated the confrontation, rather than any effort to [defuse] the agitation. In view of Reiter’s report, the officers’ training and the totality of the circumstances – viewing the facts favorably to Sheehan as we must – we conclude that a reasonable jury could find that the officers’ decision to force a confrontation with Sheehan was objectively unreasonable. See Alexander v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 29 F.3d 1355, 1366 (9th Cir. 1994) (explaining that the operative question is whether “the force the police used was unreasonable under all of the circumstances”). Although Sheehan needed assistance, the officers had no reason to believe that a delay in entering her room would cause her serious harm, especially when weighed against the high likelihood that a deadly confrontation would ensue if they forced a confrontation. Sheehan was not suicidal, cf. Fitzgerald v. Santoro, 707 F.3d 725, 731 (7th Cir. 2013); West v. Keef, 479 F.3d 757, 759 (10th Cir. 2007); Bias v. Moynihan, 508 F.3d 1212, 1220 (9th Cir. 2007), or bleeding to death. In addition, although the officers may have been justified in believing that Sheehan had assaulted them and should be arrested, under her version of the facts there was no immediate need to subdue her and take her into custody. A reasonable jury could find that Sheehan was in a confined area and not a threat to others – so long as they did not invade her home. According to Hodge, the officers knew that there was no way out of the room other than the door they were guarding 28 SHEEHAN V. CITY & CNTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO and that there were no other occupants in the building, facts that distinguish this case from those in which officers’ more confrontational tactics were held to be reasonable based on the need to protect others. See, e.g., Reynolds, 84 F.3d at 1168 (“Reynolds was not in a confined area and there were other people in the vicinity.”); Estate of Bennett v. Wainwright, 548 F.3d 155, 169 (1st Cir. 2008) (“[A] reasonable officer under the circumstances could have reasonably believed . . . that entering the house without first obtaining a warrant or express consent was necessary to prevent injury to Bennett himself, and to the family members present inside.”), overruled on other grounds by Maldonado v. Fontanes, 568 F.3d 263, 269 (1st Cir. 2009); Black, 482 F.3d at 1039 (“The police were justified in their entry because they feared that [a domestic violence victim] could have been inside the apartment, badly injured and in need of medical attention . . . .”); Ewolski v. City of Brunswick, 287 F.3d 492, 502 (6th Cir. 2002) (the subject’s “dramatic reaction” to police, “combined with the officers’ knowledge that he was armed and volatile and that his wife and child were in the house with him, reveals an undisputed body of evidence from which a reasonable officer could have reasonably concluded that there was an immediate threat to [the subject’s] wife and son”). Sheehan, with some force, argues that whatever her behavior in resisting unwanted medical assistance and claiming the sanctity of her home, once the officers exited her room and her door was shut the threats to the safety of the officers or others were under control and there was no need to force a confrontation. Of significance, all of the information known to the officers suggested that Sheehan wanted only to be left alone in her home. She had shown no desire to leave the room. Although she had acted in a threatening manner, she had done so only to those who had entered her home without her permission. SHEEHAN V. CITY & CNTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO 29 The officers also were aware that Sheehan, who they knew was both mentally ill and emotionally disturbed, was not likely to respond rationally to police officers breaking down her door. A rational person, recognizing that she was outnumbered and facing superior firepower, might have been expected to drop the knife and surrender. As the officers knew, however, Sheehan was mentally ill and acting irrationally, and, given her initial reaction to the officers, likely to react violently to an escalating show of force. As we explained in Deorle v. Rutherford, 272 F.3d 1272 (9th Cir. 2001), the tactics to be employed against an emotionally distraught individual who is creating a disturbance or resisting arrest are ordinarily different from those involved in law enforcement efforts to subdue an armed and dangerous criminal who has recently committed a serious offense. In the former instance, increasing the use of force may, in some circumstances at least, exacerbate the situation; in the latter, a heightened use of less-than-lethal force will usually be helpful in bringing a dangerous situation to a swift end. Id. at 1282–83; see also Glenn, 673 F.3d at 875 (“Another circumstance relevant to our analysis is whether the officers were or should have been aware that Lukus was emotionally disturbed.”); Drummond ex rel. Drummond v. City of Anaheim, 343 F.3d 1052, 1058 (9th Cir. 2003) (if “it is or should be apparent to the officers that the individual involved is emotionally disturbed, that is a factor that must be considered in determining, under Graham, the reasonableness 30 SHEEHAN V. CITY & CNTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO of the force employed” (quoting Deorle, 272 F.3d at 1283)).10 The officers’ decision to force an entry was in effect a decision to cause a violent – and potentially deadly – confrontation with a mentally ill person without a countervailing need. Thus, on this record, we cannot say as a matter of law that the officers conducted the search or seizure in a reasonable manner or used appropriate force by forcing their way back into Sheehan’s home. Of course, a reasonable jury could find that the officers acted reasonably by forcing the entry. Whether Sheehan was contained, the officers had reason to fear Sheehan’s escape, the officers knew the building was empty and the officers could have ensured their safety by retreating are all disputed facts that a jury could resolve in the officers’ favor. To find the officers liable, moreover, the jury would have to conclude not only that freezing or attempting to de-escalate the situation were reasonable courses of action but also that forcing an entry was unreasonable. See Glenn, 673 F.3d at 876 (explaining that police officers “need not avail themselves of the least intrusive means of responding to an exigent situation” and that “they need only act within that range of conduct we identify as reasonable” (quoting Scott, 39 F.3d at 915) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Viewing the evidence favorably to Sheehan, however, we cannot say that the officers acted reasonably as a matter of law.
Having determined that a reasonable jury could find a Fourth Amendment violation, we next consider whether the 10 In contrast to Deorle, Sheehan was armed. But she was also contained (or so a reasonable jury could find), so Deorle remains relevant. SHEEHAN V. CITY & CNTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO 31 officers are nonetheless entitled to qualified immunity. At this stage of the proceedings, the operative question is whether, again viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Sheehan, the officers violated a clearly established Fourth Amendment right of which all but the plainly incompetent would have been aware. See Stanton v. Sims, 134 S. Ct. 3, 5