Opinion ID: 213250
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Brower v. Cnty. of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 596 (1989).

Text: Both Fisher and Troupe relied on language in Brower, a frequently-cited Fourth Amendment excessive-force case in which a fleeing driver was killed when the stolen car that he had been driving at high speeds for approximately 20 miles in an effort to elude pursuing police crashed into a police roadblock. 489 U.S. at 594, 109 S.Ct. 1378. The decedent's heirs brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the respondent officers used excessive, unreasonable and unnecessary force in establishing the roadblock and thus effected an unreasonable seizure of Brower. The district court granted the respondents' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, concluding that establishing a roadblock was not unreasonable under the circumstances. A divided Ninth Circuit affirmed on the basis that no seizure had occurred. The Supreme Court reversed: In Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 [105 S.Ct. 1694, 85 L.Ed.2d 1] (1985), all Members of the Court agreed that a police officer's fatal shooting of a fleeing suspect constituted a Fourth Amendment seizure. See id., at 7 [105 S.Ct. 1694]; id., at 25 [105 S.Ct. 1694] (O'Connor, J., dissenting). We reasoned that [w]henever an officer restrains the freedom of a person to walk away, he has seized that person. Id., at 7 [105 S.Ct. 1694]. While acknowledging Garner, the Court of Appeals here concluded that no seizure occurred when Brower collided with the police roadblock because [p]rior to his failure to stop voluntarily, his freedom of movement was never arrested or restrained and because [h]e had a number of opportunities to stop his automobile prior to the impact. 817 F.2d, at 546. Essentially the same thing, however, could have been said in Garner. Brower's independent decision to continue the chase can no more eliminate respondents' responsibility for the termination of his movement effected by the roadblock than Garner's independent decision to flee eliminated the Memphis police officer's responsibility for the termination of his movement effected by the bullet. The Court of Appeals was impelled to its result by consideration of what it described as the analogous situation of a police chase in which the suspect unexpectedly loses control of his car and crashes. See Galas v. McKee, 801 F.2d 200, 202-203 (C.A.6 1986) (no seizure in such circumstances). We agree that no unconstitutional seizure occurs there, but not for a reason that has any application to the present case. Violation of the Fourth Amendment requires an intentional acquisition of physical control. A seizure occurs even when an unintended person or thing is the object of the detention or taking, see Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 802-805 [91 S.Ct. 1106, 28 L.Ed.2d 484] (1971); cf. Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 85-89 [107 S.Ct. 1013, 94 L.Ed.2d 72] (1987), but the detention or taking itself must be willful. This is implicit in the word seizure, which can hardly be applied to an unknowing act. . . . Thus, if a parked and unoccupied police car slips its brake and pins a passerby against a wall, it is likely that a tort has occurred, but not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the situation would not change if the passerby happened, by lucky chance, to be a serial murderer for whom there was an outstanding arrest warranteven if, at the time he was thus pinned, he was in the process of running away from two pursuing constables. It is clear, in other words, that a Fourth Amendment seizure does not occur whenever there is a governmentally caused and governmentally desired termination of an individual's freedom of movement (the fleeing felon), but only where there is a governmental termination of freedom of movement through means intentionally applied. That is the reason there was no seizure in the hypothetical situation that concerned the Court of Appeals. The pursuing police car sought to stop the suspect only by the show of authority represented by flashing lights and continuing pursuit; and though he was in fact stopped, he was stopped by a different meanshis loss of control of his vehicle and the subsequent crash. If, instead of that, the police cruiser had pulled alongside the fleeing car and sideswiped it, producing the crash, then the termination of the suspect's freedom of movement would have been a seizure. . . . . [A] roadblock is not just a significant show of authority to induce a voluntary stop, but is designed to produce a stop by physical impact if voluntary compliance does not occur. It may well be that respondents here preferred, and indeed earnestly hoped, that Brower would stop on his own, without striking the barrier, but we do not think it practicable to conduct an inquiry into subjective intent. . . . Nor do we think it possible, in determining whether there has been a seizure in a case such as this, to distinguish between a roadblock that is designed to give the oncoming driver the option of a voluntary stop ( e.g., one at the end of a long straightaway), and a roadblock that is designed precisely to produce a collision ( e.g., one located just around a bend). In determining whether the means that terminates the freedom of movement is the very means that the government intended we cannot draw too fine a line, or we will be driven to saying that one is not seized who has been stopped by the accidental discharge of a gun with which he was meant only to be bludgeoned, or by a bullet in the heart that was meant only for the leg. We think it enough for a seizure that a person be stopped by the very instrumentality set in motion or put in place in order to achieve that result. It was enough here, therefore, that according to the allegations of the complaint, Brower was meant to be stopped by the physical obstacle of the roadblockand that he was so stopped. Brower, 489 U.S. at 595-99, 109 S.Ct. 1378 (some emphasis added).