Opinion ID: 1033644
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Barrientos’s Assertion of Qualified Immunity

Text: Barrientos first argues the district court erred in analyzing shots two through seven separately from the first shot. Barrientos nominally frames this argument as a legal issue, asserting that segregating the shots as the district court did constitutes a “misapplication of the totality of the circumstances standard” which is applied when analyzing excessive force claims. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989) (holding that determining whether force was excessive under the Fourth Amendment “requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight”); Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 3 (1985) (holding deadly force may not be used “to prevent the escape of an apparently unarmed suspected felon . . . unless it is necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical -12- injury to the officer or others”). Ultimately, however, Barrientos’s argument depends upon a challenge to the facts the district court concluded a reasonable jury could infer based upon the evidence in the summary judgment record. For example, Barrientos asserts the district court’s use of a segmented approach was error “when the facts of the incident are that Barrientos and the public were placed in danger from the moment he was attacked by the decedent until the time that Barrientos was completely sure that neither he nor the public were in further danger.” Appellant’s Br. at 19 (emphasis added). The district court relied on Thomas for the proposition that “circumstances may change within seconds eliminating the justification for deadly force.” 607 F.3d at 666; accord Waterman v. Batton, 393 F.3d 471, 481 (4th Cir. 2005) (“We therefore hold that force justified at the beginning of an encounter is not justified even seconds later if the justification for the initial force has been eliminated.”). Barrientos does not take issue with the district court’s reliance on Thomas or Waterman as an abstract legal matter, i.e., he does not argue it is never appropriate in an incident involving the firing of multiple shots by a police officer to analyze the shots separately if the circumstances so warrant. Instead, Barrientos strenuously argues that the circumstances of this case are not amenable to such analysis. Specifically, he argues that, unlike the situation in Waterman, “the threat of harm caused by the decedent to Barrientos and to nearby community members existed for the duration of the approximately ninety . . . second -13- incident.” Appellant’s Br. at 22. The district court, however, concluded the evidence was sufficient for a reasonable jury to draw a contrary inference: Although in some circumstances multiple shots fired in a matter of seconds should be grouped together in the qualified immunity analysis, this case is different. Here, there is evidence that Deputy Barrientos had time between the first shot and the following shots to take a few steps back to get out of the way of the car, to assess the situation, and to know that Mr. Dominguez had slumped and may not have presented a continuing danger to himself or to the public. Mem. Op. & Order at 16. Because Barrientos’s first argument on appeal cannot reasonably be understood as anything other than an attack on these conclusions of the district court, this court lacks jurisdiction to consider it. Fogarty, 523 F.3d at 1154; Clanton, 129 F.3d at 1153.
Barrientos’s second argument on appeal is similarly unreviewable. Barrientos argues the district court did not consider the risk posed to third parties in applying the segmented approach. In support of this argument Barrientos lists several material facts which he alleges the district court failed to consider when analyzing whether Dominguez posed a continuing threat after the first shot. Barrientos goes on to argue that these facts should have led the district court to conclude that he “could not reasonably have known that [Dominguez] was sufficiently subdued such that he no longer presented a threat to the officer or the community when Deputy Barrientos fired shots two through seven.” Id. at 25. Again, Barrientos’s argument amounts to nothing more than a request for review -14- of the “factual conclusions” of the district court, a task which exceeds the scope of our jurisdiction on interlocutory review of the denial of qualified immunity. Fogarty, 523 F.3d at 1154.
Unlike Barrientos’s first two arguments, his third presents no jurisdictional difficulties. Whether a constitutional right was clearly established at the time an alleged violation occurred is a “quintessential” example of a purely legal determination fit for interlocutory review. Garrett v. Stratman, 254 F.3d 946, 952 n.8 (10th Cir. 2001). Nonetheless, in light of the facts we must assume to be true at this stage of the proceedings, we readily conclude Barrientos’s argument is without merit. In Casey v. City of Federal Heights, this court discussed the “clearly established” standard in the context of excessive force claims: Ordinarily . . . for a rule to be clearly established there must be a Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established weight of authority from other courts must have found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains. However, because excessive force jurisprudence requires an all-things-considered inquiry with “careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case,” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, there will almost never be a previously published opinion involving exactly the same circumstances. We cannot find qualified immunity wherever we have a new fact pattern. Indeed, the Supreme Court has warned that “officials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual circumstances.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002). The Hope decision shifted the qualified immunity analysis from a scavenger hunt for prior cases with precisely the same facts toward the more relevant inquiry of whether the law put officials on fair notice that the described conduct was unconstitutional. -15- 509 F.3d 1278, 1284 (10th Cir. 2007) (citations and quotations omitted). According to the factual scenario upon which the district court based its rejection of Barrientos’s claim to qualified immunity, which this court lacks the authority to review, Barrientos fired six shots into a suspect who was “no longer able to control the vehicle, to escape, or to fire a long gun, and thus, may no longer have presented a danger to the public, Deputy Barrientos, or other responding officers.” Mem. Op. & Order at 30. Prior to shooting Dominguez, Barrientos “stepped back, felt safer, and noticed Mr. Dominguez slump.” Id. This allowed him “enough time . . . to recognize and react to the changed circumstances and cease firing his gun.” Id. Under these circumstances, we have no trouble concluding Barrientos lacked probable cause to believe Dominguez posed a threat of serious harm to Barrientos or others at the time he fired shots two through seven. Garner, 471 U.S. at 3, 11 (“Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so.”). We further have no trouble concluding a reasonable officer in Barrientos’s position would have known that firing shots two through seven was unlawful. Casey, 509 F.3d at 1284. Accordingly, the district court, in evaluating Barrientos’s assertion of qualified immunity, did not err in concluding Barrientos violated clearly established law when he fired shots two through seven. -16-