Opinion ID: 2651709
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: State-Created Danger Theory

Text: Appellant argues that Defendants set forth and executed a policy whereby they “designate[d] specific dates/times during which they [would] not seek and/or issue arrest warrants for probation/parole violations.” (Appellant Br. 11.) This policy was allegedly designed to “give the appearance that the recidivism rates for probation/parole violations are lower than what they would otherwise be.” (Id.) In accordance with this policy, Defendants, according to Appellant, failed to arrest Jones for his probation violation. The failure to arrest Jones allegedly created the circumstances leading to Officer Walker’s demise. In Kneipp v. Tedder, 95 F.3d 1199, 1201 (3d Cir. 1996), we first adopted the statecreated danger theory as another avenue to remedy a constitutional violation in suits brought under § 1983. Under Kneipp, liability may attach where the state acts to create or enhance a danger that deprives a plaintiff of his Fourteenth Amendment right to substantive due process. Kneipp, 95 F.3d at 1205; see also Morrow v. Balaski, 719 F.3d 160, 177-79 (3d Cir. 2013). To prevail on this theory, a plaintiff must prove the following four elements: 1) the harm ultimately caused was foreseeable and fairly direct; 2) a state actor acted with a degree of culpability that shocks the conscience; 3) a relationship between the state and the plaintiff existed such that the plaintiff was a foreseeable victim of the defendant’s acts, or a member of a discrete class of persons subjected to the potential harm brought about by the state’s actions, as opposed to a 4 member of the public in general; and 4) a state actor affirmatively used his or her authority in a way that created a danger to the citizen or that rendered the citizen more vulnerable to danger than had the state not acted at all. Id. In the case at bar, the District Court dismissed all claims brought under § 1983 against each of the Defendants pursuant to the state-created danger theory. We will affirm. “[T]he first inquiry in any 1983 suit . . . is whether the plaintiff has been deprived of a right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Martinez v. California, 44 U.S. 277, 284 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted). The answer to that inquiry disposes of this case. Id. In Martinez, the complaint alleged that the State of California had released on parole a person who had been convicted of attempted rape. 444 U.S. at 279. The parolee had been committed to a state mental hospital and then sentenced to twenty years in state prison. Id. After five years, he was released on parole and five months later murdered a fifteen-year-old girl. Id. at 279-80. In upholding the dismissal of the complaint against the state as not stating a claim under § 1983, the Supreme Court explained that the fifteen-year-old girl’s “life was taken by the parolee . . . after his release,” he “was in no sense an agent of the parole board,” and “the parole board was not aware that [the girl], as distinguished from the public at large, faced any special danger.” Id. at 285. Thus, the Supreme Court determined that since the girl’s “death is too remote a consequence of the parole officers’ action to hold them responsible under the federal civil rights law,” it could not be said that the officers 5 themselves, in a constitutional sense, deprived the decedent of her life. Id. In the instant case, as in Martinez, Defendants’ actions cannot be said to have deprived Officer Walker of his life. Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. at 283-85. Even assuming that the officers could have, but did not, cause Jones to be arrested on or before August 18, 2012, the killing of Officer Walker by Jones is too remote a consequence of the failure to arrest Jones to constitute a cognizable “deprivation” by Defendants under the Fourteenth Amendment. See DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Social Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 197 n.4 (1989) (explaining that in Martinez, “we affirmed the dismissal of the claim on the . . . ground that the causal connection between the state officials’ decision to release the parolee from prison and the murder was too attenuated to establish a ‘deprivation’ of constitutional rights within the meaning of § 1983”); Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. at 284-85 (“Although the decision to release [the parolee] from prison was action by the State, the action of [the parolee] five months later cannot be fairly characterized as state action.”). In its opinion, the District Court concluded that, even “assuming that all the other elements [of the state-created danger theory] . . . have been satisfied,” the third element was not met because “any threat [Defendants] created was to the general population and not simply to a discrete individual or discrete class of individuals.” (App. 11 (citing Morse v. Lower Merion School District, 132 F.3d 902, 913 (3d Cir. 1997).) Appellant argues that the District Court erred in so ruling, for police officers are “a distinct class of individuals” who “are at a greater risk than the general public within the context of a[n 6 encounter with a] parolee . . .” (Appellant Br. 28.) We disagree. There is no case law support for this proposition and we decline to expand the state-created danger theory by ruling in accordance with Appellant’s assertion.