Opinion ID: 6326557
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Clearly Established Inquiry

Text: Because the Najeras have presented facts sufficient to establish a Fourth Amendment violation, we consider the second prong of qualified immunity: whether the law was clearly established. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna is instructive. As the Court explained, in an “obvious case,” the standards set forth in Graham and Garner, though “cast ‘at a high level of generality,’” can “clearly establish” that a constitutional violation has occurred “even without a body of relevant case law.” Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna, 142 S. Ct. 4, 8 (2021) (per curiam) (quoting Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 199 (2004) (per curiam)). This is one of those obvious cases. Deadly force is not justified “[w]here the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others.” Garner, 471 U.S. at 11. Assuming that Najera posed no immediate threat to Ponder or others at the time of his death, this “general constitutional rule” applies “with obvious clarity” here and renders Ponder’s decision to shoot Najera objectively unreasonable. Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 1 Ponder cites several cases in an effort to counter Najera’s constitutional claims. See e.g., Bouggess v. Mattingly, 482 F.3d 886, 896 (6th Cir. 2007); Mace v. City of Palestine, 333 F.3d 621, 625 (5th Cir. 2003). However, those cases simply restate the uncontroversial proposition that using force against an immediately threatening suspect is generally reasonable, and Ponder sidesteps the baseline principle that at this stage of the proceedings, the facts must be construed in favor of Najera. 10 ESTATE OF NAJERA AGUIRRE V. CNTY. OF RIVERSIDE (2002) (quoting United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 270– 71 (1997)). Although no “body of relevant case law” is necessary in an “obvious case” like this one, our precedents also put Ponder “on notice that his specific conduct was unlawful.” Rivas-Villegas, 142 S. Ct. at 8. We emphasize that only cases that predate the incident are relevant to the “clearly established” inquiry. City of Tahlequah v. Bond, 142 S. Ct. 9, 12 (2021) (per curiam) (citation omitted). Two cases published about three years before the April 2016 incident, Hayes v. County of San Diego and George v. Morris, made “clear to a reasonable officer” that a police officer may not use deadly force against a non-threatening individual, even if the individual is armed, and even if the situation is volatile. City of Tahlequah, 142 S. Ct. at 11. In Hayes, we held that police used excessive force when they fatally shot Hayes after encountering him inside his girlfriend’s home holding a large knife pointed tip-down and standing six to eight feet away. Hayes v. Cnty. of San Diego, 736 F.3d 1223, 1227–28 (9th Cir. 2013). We reasoned that the officers’ use of deadly force was unreasonable because the evidence did not “clearly establish that Hayes was threatening the deputies with the knife,” and because Hayes was not attempting to evade arrest. Id. at 1233, 1234. It was also “significant” that, like Ponder, the officers failed to warn Hayes before deploying deadly force. Id. at 1234–35. In Hayes, as here, officers, without warning, shot and killed an individual holding a weapon in a non-threatening manner. Indeed, the officers in Hayes were much closer to the individual than Ponder was to Najera when the shooting occurred. Id. Hayes stands as clearly established law that Ponder’s actions were unconstitutional. ESTATE OF NAJERA AGUIRRE V. CNTY. OF RIVERSIDE 11 Similarly, in Morris, we held that it was unreasonable for officers responding to a domestic disturbance call to fatally shoot a suspect who emerged from his home onto his porch with his pistol pointed down. See George v. Morris, 736 F.3d 829, 832–33, 839 (9th Cir. 2013). While we were “clear-eyed about the potentially volatile and dangerous situation these deputies confronted,” we could not conclude as a matter of law that the officers behaved reasonably by shooting the decedent “without objective provocation” and while “his gun [was] trained on the ground.” Id. at 838–39. Like the officers in Morris, Ponder entered a “potentially volatile” situation when he responded to the calls about Najera. And we too acknowledge the difficult landscape facing Ponder and other offices responding to tense and often explosive situations. Nevertheless, Morris established that, even in such situations, officers must not use deadly force against non-threatening suspects, even if those suspects are armed. Ponder’s response to these clearly established principles is to repeat his mantra that Najera posed an immediate threat to the officer or bystanders at the time of his death. But Ponder can neither rewrite the facts to his own liking nor ignore the disputed evidence. See Adams, 473 F.3d at 991 (“The exception to the normal rule prohibiting an appeal before a trial works only if the appellant concedes the facts and seeks judgment on the law.”). The posture of this interlocutory appeal coupled with clearly established law supports the district court’s denial of qualified immunity.