Opinion ID: 857195
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: On March 23, 2006, it was clearly established

Text: law that a state official, who acts with a purpose to harm unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement objective, violates the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause. By March 23, 2006—the day that Markgraf shot Eklund—it was clearly established that a police officer, who acts with the purpose to harm unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement objective, violates the rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause. In 1998, the Supreme Court held that a police officer, who acts under circumstances where “actual deliberation is [not] practical,” violates due process if he acts with a “purpose to cause harm unrelated to the legitimate object of arrest.” Lewis, 523 U.S. at 836, 851; see also Moreland, 159 F.3d at 372; cf. Porter, 546 F.3d at 1137 (concluding that deliberation was not practical in a “rapidly escalating . . . confrontation”). Since Lewis, we also identified (in addition to arrest) self-protection and the protection of the public as legitimate objectives that could justify a police officer acting with the purpose to harm. A.D. V. CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL 13 See Moreland, 159 F.3d at 373. Taken together, these cases established that a police officer who acted with the purpose to harm a civilian, unrelated to the legitimate law enforcement objectives of arrest, self-defense, or the defense of others, violated the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause.3 To be clearly established, the foregoing law only must have been “sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he [was] doing violate[d] [a constitutional] right.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739 (2002). Reasonableness is not a demanding standard. The “state of the law” was sufficiently clear if it gave “fair warning” to an officer that his conduct was unconstitutional. Id. at 741. After Lewis and Moreland, no reasonable officer could fairly have believed that it was constitutional to shoot a civilian with the subjective purpose to harm unrelated to a legitimate objective. Even if those cases are factually distinguishable, that is irrelevant in this case, because the constitutional rule they established “appl[ies] with obvious clarity to [Markgraf’s conduct].” Id. (quoting United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271 (1997)). Further, because we are confined to the jury’s factual finding that Markgraf acted with a purpose to cause Eklund’s death unrelated to any legitimate law enforcement objective, we are essentially compelled to 3 Notably, in Porter, the parties agreed that this law was clearly established by 2003—nearly three years before Markgraf shot Eklund. See Porter, 546 F.3d at 1140. Additionally, we acknowledge that there may be other “legitimate law enforcement objectives” in addition to those listed. However, neither Markgraf nor the Plaintiffs has suggested any. Markgraf only identifies one “legitimate purpose” on appeal: protecting the safety of other officers. 14 A.D. V. CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL deny Markgraf qualified immunity—it would be “clear to a reasonable officer” that killing a person with no legitimate law enforcement purpose violates the Constitution. See Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 199 (2004) (per curiam). This is one of those rare cases in which the constitutional right at issue is defined by a standard that is so “obvious” that we must conclude—based on the jury’s finding—that qualified immunity is inapplicable, even without a case directly on point. See Hope, 536 U.S. at 740–41 (recognizing that “a general constitutional rule already identified in the decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question”). Accordingly, we conclude that it was clearly established law when Markgraf shot Eklund that acting with the purpose to harm unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement objective violated due process. Markgraf argues that the “purpose to harm” standard outlined in Lewis and Moreland cannot be “clearly established,” because the standard is too general. He cautions that the Supreme Court has “repeatedly told courts—and the Ninth Circuit in particular—not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2084 (2011) (internal citation omitted). However, we do not anticipate that our analysis will add to the Supreme Court’s tally of such cases. The Supreme Court has rejected proposed definitions of clearly established law as “too general” when they merely restate the applicable constitutional standard. For example, in al-Kidd the Supreme Court indicated that “[t]he general proposition . . . that an unreasonable search or seizure violates the Fourth Amendment is of little help in determining whether the violative nature of particular conduct is clearly established.” al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. at 2084. Similarly, in A.D. V. CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL 15 Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639 (1987), the Court acknowledged that “the right to due process of law is quite clearly established by the Due Process Clause, and thus there is a sense in which any action that violates that Clause . . . violates a clearly established right.” The Court then rejected the notion that the law, defined at such a level of generality, was “clearly established” for qualified immunity purposes. Rather, to be clearly established, “in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.” Id. at 640. Applying the principles of al-Kidd and Anderson to this case, we could not say that it is clearly established law (for purposes of qualified immunity) that whatever “shocks the conscience” violates due process. However, the Supreme Court has defined the law of due process that governed Markgraf’s conduct with more particularity. A reasonable police officer in Markgraf’s position would have known that acting with a purpose to harm unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement objective (such as arrest, self-defense, or the defense of others) violates due process. Where, as here, a jury has determined that the officer acted with such a purpose, we must conclude that he violated clearly 16 A.D. V. CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL established law and deny him qualified immunity.4 See Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639–40.