Court Opinion

ID: 9957291
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-04 00:00:44.709365+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:13.569897
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10876            Document: 79-1         Page: 1      Date Filed: 04/03/2024

           United States Court of Appeals
                for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                                   United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                            Fifth Circuit

                                   ____________                                           FILED
                                                                                       April 3, 2024
                                    No. 22-10876                                     Lyle W. Cayce
                                   ____________                                           Clerk

Mary Dawes, Individually and the Administrator of the Estate of
Decedent Genevive A. Dawes; Alfredo Saucedo; Virgilio
Rosales,

                                                                Plaintiffs—Appellants,

                                          versus

City of Dallas; Christopher Hess; Jason Kimpel,

                                            Defendants—Appellees.
                   ______________________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Northern District of Texas
                            USDC No. 3:17-CV-1424
                   ______________________________

Before Dennis, Engelhardt, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
       On January 18, 2017, Dallas police shot and killed Genevieve Dawes.
This federal civil rights suit followed. Defendants prevailed at summary
judgment in the court below in a lengthy and careful decision. We agree with
the district court that the officer defendants did not violate clearly established

       _____________________
       *
           This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
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                                 No. 22-10876

law, and so are entitled to qualified immunity. But we remand the claims
against the City of Dallas for further consideration.
                                       I.
                                      A.
       Qualified immunity cases present two questions. First, did the officers
violate a constitutional right? And second, was the right at issue clearly
established at the time of the officers’ alleged violation? See Morrow v.
Meacham, 917 F.3d 870, 874 (5th Cir. 2019). To reverse the district court in
favor of plaintiffs, we must answer “yes” to both questions. We may
approach them in either order, and we need not reach both if one proves
dispositive. See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009).
       This case reaches us after summary judgment. We review a district
court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. See Aguirre v. City of San
Antonio, 995 F.3d 395, 405 (5th Cir. 2021). Summary judgment is proper
when “the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material
fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R.
Civ. P. 56(a). A dispute is “material” only when it could change the
judgment. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574,
585−86 (1986). And a dispute is “genuine” only when the evidence could
support a reasonable jury’s decision to resolve that dispute against the
movant. See Westfall v. Luna, 903 F.3d 534, 546 (5th Cir. 2018) (relying on
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986)). Where, as here,
facts are documented by video camera, we may take them “in the light
depicted by the videotape.” See Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 381 (2007).
                                      B.
       Because excessive force claims are “necessarily fact intensive,” we
narrate in some detail. Deville v. Marcantel, 567 F.3d 156, 167 (5th Cir. 2009).

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        On the evening of January 17, 2017, Genevieve Dawes and her
husband, Virgilio Rosales, parked a black Dodge Journey in the back corner
of an apartment complex parking lot and went to sleep in the vehicle. A
resident called police and reported a suspicious vehicle. Police ran the tag and
were told the car was stolen.1 Officers were dispatched to the scene around
5:00 AM on January 18.
        Officers Christopher Alisch and Zachary Hopkins arrived at the
complex first, shortly after 5:00 AM. They found the Journey vehicle boxed
in on three of four sides—by fences to the front and left and by another car
to the right. They approached with weapons drawn, calling to the driver and
repeatedly demanding that the occupants “put your hands out the window.”
As they shouted, four more officers arrived, including Christopher Hess and
Jason Kimpel.
        The officers conferred, expressing uncertainty as to whether the
Journey was still occupied. The windows of the car were fogged; one officer
remarked that “you can’t see shit.” Around this time, Hess pulled a police
cruiser closer to the Journey. He sounded the horn and turned on the
cruiser’s spotlight.
        Hopkins tried to open the right rear door of the Journey and found it
locked. Hopkins then moved around behind the Journey and stood near its
rear left taillight. Meanwhile, another officer discerned and announced that
the Journey was in fact occupied. During the first minute that elapsed after
        _____________________
        1
         Rosales would later say that Dawes purchased the car from someone else and did
not know it was reported stolen, an assertion defendants do not contest. But our analysis
centers on the perspective of responding officers at the time of the relevant confrontation.
See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989) (instructing that we consider the
perspective of the “officer on the scene”). In other words, it does not matter whether the
Journey was stolen or who stole it; it matters only that the officers were told the car was
stolen.

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this discovery, officers shouted commands to the effect of “show your
hands” eight times and twice identified themselves as Dallas police.
       While the officers were shouting, Hopkins and Kimpel stood just
behind the Journey. Hopkins decided to retreat and said, “C’mon Kimpel,
back up a little bit.” The officers retreated but remained in the path directly
behind the Journey.
       Eight seconds after Hopkins’s statement, the Journey’s engine
ignited. Hess leapt into a police cruiser and said “watch out” as he pulled the
cruiser behind the rear bumper of the otherwise boxed-in Journey.
       The Journey reversed and collided with Hess’s cruiser. The Journey
then accelerated forward and hit the fence in front of it. This impact occurred
at low speed, but the sound of the impact is audible on Hopkins’s body
camera, and the jolt of the fence visibly shook the surrounding trees.
       Kimpel and Hopkins still stood behind the Journey at the moment of
the Journey’s impact against the fence. Kimpel said “watch out watch out
watch out,” and moved laterally out of the Journey’s path and towards other
officers near the police cruiser. Kimpel passed in front of Hopkins (and could
not see Hopkins) as Kimpel traveled.
       Hess, after the Journey hit the cruiser, jumped out from the driver’s
seat and trained his weapon on the Journey. He and other officers shouted
several more times for the Journey’s occupants to show their hands.
       After hitting the fence, the Journey immediately reversed. As it did so,
Hess fired twelve rounds, all within a five second interval. Kimpel fired one
round, simultaneous with Hess’s sixth shot.
       Kimpel later stated that he fired his weapon “in fear of Officer
Hopkins’ life.” Hess said he fired to protect both Hopkins and Kimpel, who
he believed were in the path of the reversing Journey.

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       Hopkins’s bodycam reveals that, although he was not in Hess’s or
Kimpel’s immediate field of view, he had moved out of the Journey’s path
several seconds before Hess first fired.
       Four of Hess’s bullets struck Dawes, who later died at the hospital.
None struck Rosales. Kimpel’s round struck neither person.
       Rosales and Dawes’s estate filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 excessive force
suit against Hess, Kimpel, and the City of Dallas. See Tennessee v. Garner, 471
U.S. 1, 7 (1985) (an officer’s use of deadly force is a “seizure” within the
meaning of the Fourth Amendment). Hess and Kimpel prevailed on qualified
immunity grounds at summary judgment. This appeal followed.
                                          II.
       The Supreme Court’s approach to qualified immunity reflects
concern that, absent privilege for in-the-moment street decision-making,
officers would be deterred from “the unflinching discharge of their duties.”
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 814 (1982) (quotation omitted).
Accordingly, qualified immunity shields officers from civil suit unless they
had “fair notice that [their] conduct was unlawful.” Nerio v. Evans, 974 F.3d
571, 574 (5th Cir. 2020) (quotation omitted). That notice requirement means
a § 1983 plaintiff must show that the defendant officer violated “clearly
established law.” Id.
       To make that showing in the excessive force context, a plaintiff must
“identify a case where an officer acting under similar circumstances was held
to have violated the Fourth Amendment.” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583
U.S. 48, 64 (2018) (quotation omitted).2 That is not easy, because clearly

       _____________________
       2
         A plaintiff might also succeed without a governing precedent on extraordinarily
egregious facts where the defendant officer faced a complete absence of exigency. See

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established law cannot be defined “at a high level of generality.” Ashcroft v.
al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 742 (2011). Instead, a precedent must “squarely
govern[]” the facts of the plaintiff’s claim; facts that fall in the “hazy border
between excessive and acceptable force” result in qualified immunity.
Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 201 (2004) (per curiam) (quotation
omitted).
        How clear must fair warning be? “[F]or a right to be clearly
established, existing precedent must have placed the statutory or
constitutional question beyond debate.” White v. Pauly, 580 U.S. 73, 79
(2017) (per curiam) (quotation omitted). The law must be clear enough that,
“in the blink of an eye, in the middle of a high-speed chase—every reasonable
officer would know it immediately.” Morrow, 917 F.3d at 876 (emphasis
added); see also Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 664 (2012) (discussing the
“every reasonable official” standard); Harmon v. City of Arlington, 16 F.4th
1159, 1165–66 (5th Cir. 2021) (same).
        Plaintiffs here present several cases that they contend clearly
established the law as applied to Hess and Kimpel’s specific actions. In part,
they rely on seminal Fourth Amendment cases like Tennessee v. Garner, 471
U.S. 1 (1985), and Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989). But neither of
those cases involved a nighttime confrontation between officers and the
occupants of a reportedly-stolen vehicle, much less did they involve suspects
who backed their reportedly-stolen vehicle into a police cruiser after refusing
numerous commands from police. The Supreme Court has repeatedly made
clear that we may not rely on general rule statements in Garner and Graham
to clearly establish the law in far-afield cases like ours. See Mullenix v. Luna,

        _____________________
Ducksworth v. Landrum, 62 F.4th 209, 218 (5th Cir. 2023) (Oldham, J., concurring in part
and dissenting in part) (discussing the current state of obvious-case doctrine).

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577 U.S. 7, 12−13 (2015) (per curiam); Kisela v. Hughes, 584 U.S. 100, 105
(2018) (per curiam).
       Plaintiffs also point to several circuit precedents. Even assuming our
cases can clearly establish the law, see Boyd v. McNamara, 74 F.4th, 662, 669–
70 (5th Cir. 2023), the plaintiffs’ citations are unavailing. One, Newman v.
Guedry, 703 F.3d 757 (5th Cir. 2012), concerned an alleged tasing and beating
of a man not in a vehicle. Id. at 759–60. A second, Edwards v. Oliver, 31 F.4th
925 (5th Cir. 2022), post-dated the events of this case and so could not have
given Hess and Kimpel fair notice of their legal obligations. See Pearson, 555
U.S. at 232 (the law must be clearly established “at the time of the
defendant’s alleged misconduct”). A third, Baker v. Coburn, 68 F.4th 240
(5th Cir. 2023), also post-dated the events of this case. In any event, Baker
did not conclude that an official violated the Fourth Amendment, so it cannot
clearly establish law. See id. at 251; Wesby, 583 U.S. at 64. Moreover, Baker
involved several fact disputes, including whether shots were fired after a
vehicle was, in daylight and in the plain view of every responding officer,
traveling away from officers when they fired. Id. at 248−49. Here, the facts
exhaustively documented by multiple cameras cannot be disputed. Shots
were fired in the dead of night as a vehicle traveled towards a location an
officer had stood in seconds before. Baker therefore cannot “squarely
govern[]” today’s facts. Brosseau, 543 U.S. at 201.
       Plaintiffs rely most heavily on Lytle v. Bexar County, 560 F.3d 404 (5th
Cir. 2019). Like Baker, Lytle did not find a constitutional violation, and so it
did not clearly establish law. Wesby, 583 U.S. at 64; see also Nerio, 974 F.3d at
575. And Lytle featured significant fact disputes that distinguish it from this
case. In Lytle, the panel resolved those disputes in favor of the plaintiff for
the purposes of evaluating summary judgment. Lytle, 560 F.3d at 409 (“We
therefore adopt Lytle’s version of the facts.”). What were Lytle’s assumed
facts? In broad daylight, with no other officers present, and without first

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                                  No. 22-10876

giving a warning, an officer fired at a vehicle “three to four houses down the
block.” Id. This case could hardly be more different because officers gave
several warnings, shot their weapons in close quarters, in the predawn
darkness, and with officers in the harm’s way just seconds before the shots
were fired.
       For its part, the dissenting opinion correctly recognizes that “Lytle
itself cannot form the clearly established law in this case.” Post, at 6 (Dennis,
J., dissenting). The dissenting opinion instead points to two out-of-circuit
precedents to clearly establish the relevant law. Post, at 7–8 (Dennis, J.,
dissenting). This contention is foreclosed by our precedent, however. In
McClendon v. City of Columbia, 305 F.3d 314 (5th Cir. 2002), we recognized
that six circuits sanctioning “some version” of the question at issue was
insufficient to give officers “fair warning.” Id. at 330; see also Vincent v. City
of Sulphur, 805 F.3d 543, 549 (5th Cir. 2015) (“[T]wo out-of-circuit cases and
a state-court intermediate appellate decision hardly constitute persuasive
authority adequate to qualify as clearly established law sufficient to defeat
qualified immunity in this circuit.”); id. at 550 (“[T]wo cases from other
circuits and one from a stayed intermediate court do not, generally speaking,
constitute persuasive authority defining the asserted right at the high degree
of particularity that is necessary for a rule to be clearly established despite a
lack of controlling authority.”); Morrow, 917 F.3d at 879-80 (holding that two
Sixth Circuit cases could not establish a robust consensus and relying in part
on McClendon).
                                       III.
       The district court’s grant of summary judgment to the City of Dallas
rested on its alternative holding that, if the law was clearly established, the
officers nevertheless committed no constitutional violation. See City of
Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 385 (1989) (requiring a constitutional rights

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                                   No. 22-10876

violation for § 1983 claims against a municipality). Because we do not reach
the district court’s alternative holding, we remand the claims against Dallas
to the district court for further consideration. On remand, the district court
may reiterate its no rights-violation finding, may reconsider that finding, or
may consider any other aspect of the plaintiffs’ claims against the City of
Dallas.
                               *        *         *
          The grant of summary judgment to the defendant officers is
AFFIRMED. The grant of summary judgment to the City of Dallas is
REMANDED.

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                                    No. 22-10876

James L. Dennis, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
       While I concur in the majority opinion’s remand of plaintiffs’ claims
against the City of Dallas, I dissent from the majority’s decision to affirm the
district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of the two individual
officers. Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claims against Hess and Kimpel are
based on the officers’ use of deadly force against Dawes and Rosales in the
absence of any danger to themselves or others. The majority’s approval of
the district court’s misguided judgment extending qualified immunity to
Hess and Kimpel is not only incorrect as a matter of law, but also serves to
condone the inexcusable incompetence displayed by these two officers—
both of whom were suspended or terminated from their positions as police
officers for having violated their department’s use-of-force policy. I
respectfully dissent.
                                *        *         *
       Taking the evidence in the light most favorable to them, plaintiffs have
met their burden of demonstrating that: (1) the officers violated Dawes’s and
Rosales’s constitutional right to be free from unreasonably excessive force;
and (2) Dawes’s and Rosales’ right to be free from such force under these
facts was both obvious and clearly established. Morrow v. Meachum, 917 F.3d
870, 874 (5th Cir. 2019); Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378 (2007) (“[C]ourts
are required to view the facts and draw reasonable inferences in the light most
favorable” to the plaintiff when assessing assertion of qualified immunity at
the summary judgment stage) (internal citation omitted). Here, we have the
benefit of video footage capturing the incident, which makes clear that the
“videotape quite clearly contradicts” the officers’ dangerous belief that
deadly force—indeed thirteen shots fired—was necessary to stop a boxed-in
vehicle from reversing at a crawling speed of under three miles per hour when

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the officers could have, and in fact did, use a squad car to block Dawes’s
vehicle—making it impossible for her to flee. Scott, 550 U.S. at 378.
       First, plaintiffs presented summary judgment evidence that could lead
a reasonable jury to conclude that the officers violated Dawes’s and Rosales’s
constitutional rights. To prevail on their Fourth Amendment excessive force
claims, plaintiffs must show “(1) an injury, (2) which resulted directly and
only from a use of force that was clearly excessive, and (3) the excessiveness
of which was clearly unreasonable.” Ontiveros v. City of Rosenberg, 564 F.3d
379, 382 (5th Cir. 2009). It is undisputed that the officers’ use of deadly force
caused injuries to Dawes and Rosales. The central inquiry is, accordingly,
whether the officers exercised force that was unreasonably excessive. The
Supreme Court has instructed courts to use the following factors to
determine whether an officer used unreasonably excessive force: (1) “the
severity of the crime at issue[;]” (2) “whether the suspect poses an
immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others[;]” and (3) whether
the suspect was “actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by
flight.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). The reasonableness of
the officers’ use of force is assessed under the “totality of the
circumstances.” Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1985).
       Here, the evidence, when construed in the light most favorable to
plaintiffs, may lead a reasonable jury to conclude that the officers’ use of
force was excessive and unreasonable under the totality of the circumstances.
While the severity of plaintiffs’ suspected crime of stealing a vehicle—a
felony under Texas law—may weigh in favor of the officers, the other two
Graham factors weigh heavily against a finding that the officers’ use of force
was reasonable. The video footage, testimony, and expert analysis at the very
least demonstrate the existence of genuine disputes of material facts that
Dawes posed no immediate danger to officers and was not actively resisting
or attempting to flee at the time she was killed. See, e.g., Flores v. City of

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Palacios, 381 F.3d 391, 399 (5th Cir. 2004) (“It is objectively unreasonable to
use deadly force ‘unless it is necessary to prevent [a suspect’s] escape and
the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant
threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.’”) (quoting
Garner, 471 U.S. at 3); Lytle v. Bexar Cnty., 560 F.3d 404, 417-18 (5th Cir.
2009) (it is unreasonable to use deadly force against felony suspect who is
fleeing by car if suspect does not pose immediate, substantial threat of harm
to officer or others).
       For example, far from “refusing” to follow the officers’ commands,
as the majority finds when it impermissibly puts on its “juror” hat, plaintiffs
have presented evidence that they did not hear the officers’ commands since
they were asleep—it was around three in the morning and the officers only
made their commands at a distance. Even if the officers subjectively believed
Dawes to be attempting to flee, the video evidence reveals that she was boxed
in and would not have been able to escape—especially at the slow speed at
which her vehicle was moving. Indeed, plaintiffs presented expert
testimony—supported by the video footage—that Dawes was driving at a
speed of under three miles per hour when the officers supposedly believed
her to be fleeing. Hess testified that Dawes’s vehicle was “slowly revving”
and that he did not perceive her to be attempting to reverse at a high level of
speed. Even if the officers believed Dawes to be making a slow, futile attempt
to flee by reversing slowly while boxed-in by other cars, our caselaw is clear
that it is unjustified to use deadly force against a fleeing felon who poses no
safety risk. Garner, 471 U.S. at 11 (use of deadly force to prevent the escape
of a felony suspect who poses no immediate threat to the officer or threat to
others is unjustified).
       The slow speed of Dawes’s vehicle also belies the officers’ assertion
that they believed she posed any safety risk—much less the type of
“substantial and immediate” threat required to justify use of deadly force.

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Scott, 550 U.S. at 386 (use of deadly force justified where suspect poses “a
substantial and immediate risk of serious physical injury to others”); see also
Garner, 471 U.S. at 11 (“Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the
officer . . . the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify
the use of deadly force to do so.”). It is undisputed that no one was in the
path of Dawes’s slow-moving vehicle at the time the officers killed Dawes
and injured Rosales; indeed, both officers testified that when they used
deadly force they did not observe anyone in danger and did not tell anyone to
get out of the way. In his deposition testimony, Hess agreed that Dawes’s
vehicle was moving at less than three miles per hour when he fired his first
round of shots, and that any officer in the path of Dawes’s vehicle could have
moved out of the way by the time he fired his second round of shots. Reyes v.
Bridgwater, 362 F. App’x 403, 409 (5th Cir. 2010) (“The cases on deadly
force are clear: an officer cannot use deadly force without an immediate
serious threat to himself or others.”).
        Even if the officers incorrectly believed other officers to be
endangered, their subjective beliefs are wholly irrelevant to the Fourth
Amendment inquiry into whether a “reasonable officer on the scene” would
have believed that a boxed-in vehicle moving at less than three miles per hour
presented an imminent, significant danger to other officers. Graham, 490
U.S. at 396–99. Moreover, the City of Dallas found Kimpel’s claim that he
believed other officers to be in danger untruthful and suspended him for
thirty days—calling into question the reliability of the officers’ after-the-fact
assertion that they shot into the Dawes vehicle thirteen times to protect other
officers from a car moving at slow, near walking speed.1 While the court
        _____________________
        1
          While the City’s finding that the officers violated the police department’s use-of-
force policy after Dawes’s death cannot alone establish a constitutional violation, the City’s
finding that one of the officers lied in asserting that he believed other officers to be in danger
at the time he fired eleven shots at Dawes is certainly relevant to the credibility of the

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“must ‘be cautious about second-guessing [the] police officer’s assessment’
of the threat level[,]” we certainly should not be in the business of accepting
implausible ad hoc explanations for an officer’s objectively unreasonable use
of deadly force. Harmon v. City of Arlington, 16 F.4th 1159, 1163 (5th Cir.
2021) (quoting Ryburn v. Huff, 565 U.S. 469, 477 (2012)). A jury—not
judges—should hear the evidence and weigh the credibility of Kimpel’s
testimony. Here, the video footage, expert testimony, and the officers’
admissions could lead a reasonable jury to conclude that the officers violated
Dawes’s and Rosales’s Fourth Amendment rights by using deadly force in
the absence of any objective threat to officer safety.
        Second, “a body of relevant case law” gave the two officers notice that
their unwarranted use of deadly force violated the Constitution. Joseph v.
Bartlett, 981 F.3d 319, 330 (5th Cir. 2020) (internal citation omitted). While
the majority is certainly correct that “[a] clearly established right is one that
is sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that
what he is doing violates that right,” the “focus” of the qualified immunity
analysis is whether the officer had “fair notice” that his conduct was
unlawful. Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 11 (2015) (internal quotation marks

        _____________________
officers’ supposed motives for using deadly force. Moreover, the City’s finding that the
officers acted unreasonably in using deadly force supports plaintiffs’ contention that the
officers’ use of force was not reasonable. Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741-42 (2002)
(considering an Alabama Department of Corrections regulation in determining that
conduct violated “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a
reasonable person would have known”) (internal citation omitted); Rice v. ReliaStar Life
Ins. Co., 770 F.3d 1122, 1133 (5th Cir. 2014) (“[T]he fact that [the officer] allegedly failed
to follow departmental policy makes his actions more questionable, because it is
questionable whether it is objectively reasonable to violate such a departmental rule.”); see
also Irish v. Fowler, 979 F.3d 65, 77 (1st Cir. 2020) (“[W]hen an officer disregards police
procedure, it bolsters the plaintiff’s argument . . . that a reasonable officer in the officer’s
circumstances would have believed that his conduct violated the Constitution.”) (cleaned
up).

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omitted) (internal citation omitted); Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 198
(2004) (“focus” of qualified immunity analysis is “whether the officer had
fair notice that her conduct was unlawful”); Morgan v. Swanson, 659 F.3d
359, 372 (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (“The sine qua non of the clearly-
established inquiry is ‘fair warning.’”) (citing Hope, 536 U.S. at 741). “The
law can be clearly established ‘despite notable factual distinctions between
the precedents relied on and the cases then before the Court, so long as the
prior decisions gave reasonable warning that the conduct then at issue
violated constitutional rights.’” Trammell v. Fruge, 868 F.3d 332, 339 (5th
Cir. 2017) (quoting Ramirez v. Martinez, 716 F.3d 369, 379 (5th Cir. 2013)).
        Here, clearly established law gave the officers ample warning that
shooting a felony suspect in the absence of any danger to officers or others
violates the Fourth Amendment. As our court noted in Lytle, “[i]t has long
been clearly established that, absent any other justification for the use of
force, it is unreasonable for a police officer to [abruptly] use deadly force
against a fleeing felon who does not pose a sufficient threat of harm to the
officer or others.” Lytle, 560 F.3d at 417-18 (first citing Kirby v. Duva, 530
F.3d 475, 483–84 (6th Cir. 2008); and then citing Garner, 471 U.S. at 11-12);
see also Garner, 471 U.S. at 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.”). While
Lytle itself cannot form the clearly established law in this case, its rule
statement nonetheless reflects “a body of relevant case law”2 clearly
        _____________________
        2
          There is no bar on published circuit precedent constituting clearly established
law. See, e.g., Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna, 142 S. Ct. 4, 7 (2021) (“assuming” without
deciding “that controlling Circuit precedent clearly establishes law for purposes of §
1983”); Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 617 (1999) (plaintiffs must identify “controlling
authority in their jurisdiction at the time of the incident which clearly established the rule
on which they seek to rely” or “a consensus of cases of persuasive authority such that a
reasonable officer could not have believed that his actions were lawful”). Moreover, the

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establishing that the use of deadly force against a suspect fleeing in a motor
vehicle who poses no immediate, serious threat to others violates the Fourth
Amendment. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8-9; Kirby, 530 F.3d at 483–84; Vaughan v.
Cox, 343 F.3d 1323, 1333 (11th Cir. 2003); see also Cooper v. Brown, 844 F.3d
517, 525 n.8 (5th Cir. 2016) (where a case “does not constitute clearly
established law for purposes of QI,” it may still “aptly illustrate[] the
established right”).
        In Kirby v. Duva, for example, the Sixth Circuit found the decedent’s
Fourth Amendment rights clearly established where officers fired thirteen
rounds at a suspect that they said they believed to be fleeing despite the slow
speed at which he had been reversing his car at the time he was killed by
police. 530 F.3d at 483–84. Despite the significant differences in the
narratives provided by plaintiffs and defendants, on summary judgment, the
Sixth Circuit properly credited plaintiffs’ version of events to find that it was
clear enough to the officers that their use of deadly force during a roadside
execution of a search warrant was unconstitutional where (1) it was unclear
the suspect heard the officers’ orders to exit the car; (2) the suspect’s vehicle
was sandwiched on the side of the road and reversed in an apparent attempt
to pull out of the parallel parking position; (3) the vehicle was “not going very
fast”(seven to eight miles per hour) at the time it allegedly reversed towards
an officer; (4) and “none of the officers was ever in harm’s way.” Id. at 479,
484. Here, similarly, it was unclear that Dawes and Rosales heard the
officers’ commands delivered at a distance in the middle of the night,
Dawes’s vehicle was sandwiched between a patrol car, other vehicles, and a
        _____________________
Fifth Circuit en banc court has said that clearly established law may be based on
“controlling authority—or a ‘robust consensus of persuasive authority.’” Morgan, 659
F.3d at 371–72 (citing Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741–42 (2011)); see also In re Hidalgo
Cnty. Emergency Serv. Found., 962 F.3d 838, 841 (5th Cir. 2020) (“[A] panel of this court
is bound by circuit precedent.”).

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fence such that she could not flee, the vehicle was moving at under three
miles per hour at the time the officers shot at her, and no officer was ever in
harm’s way.
       In Vaughan v. Cox, similarly, the Eleventh Circuit found that it was
objectively unreasonable for an officer to use deadly force to apprehend the
occupant of an allegedly stolen vehicle fleeing at 85 miles per hour on a
highway with a speed limit of 70 miles per hour. 343 F.3d at 1326, 1330. In
“[a]pplying Garner in a common-sense way” to the facts of the case, the
Eleventh Circuit determined that a reasonable officer could have known that
the use of deadly force was unreasonable where: (1) the suspect did not
present a “an immediate threat” to officers or bystanders by driving more
than ten miles over the speed limit; (2) the suspect had made no menacing
gestures at the officers or others besides accelerating; (3) a prior collision
between the suspect’s car and the officer’s vehicle was accidental; and (4)
the suspect’s vehicle was “easily identifiable and could have been tracked”
and apprehended without the use of deadly force. Id. at 1330-31, 1333. Here,
similarly,     Dawes         did     not        pose    any      “immediate”
threat to officers, had made no “aggressive moves” besides attempting to
back out of the parking spot at a snail’s pace, accidentally bumped into the
squad car positioned at an angle close behind her vehicle, and could have
easily been apprehended without the use of deadly force since her vehicle was
boxed-in by the squad car.
       In light of Kirby and Vaughan’s guidance in interpreting Garner, it was
clearly established on the date of Dawes’s death that “police officers may not
fire at non-dangerous fleeing felons” where, as here, there are genuine
disputes of material fact as to whether the suspect heard the officers’ prior
commands, the at-issue vehicle was boxed-in such that the suspect could not
flee, the vehicle was not moving fast enough to objectively present any
immediate danger to officers, Dawes made no menacing gestures at the

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officers besides accelerating her car to a speed of approximately three miles
per hour, and any prior collision between the suspect’s vehicle and a police
vehicle was accidental. Garner, 471 U.S. at 11 (in the absence of an
“immediate” threat to officer or bystander safety the “use of deadly force to
prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is
constitutionally unreasonable”); Kirby, 530 F.3d at 483 (“Garner made plain
that deadly force cannot be used against an escaping suspect who does not
pose an immediate danger to anyone.”); Vaughan, 343 F.3d at 1330 (“[A]
reasonable jury could find that [the suspects’] escape did not present an
immediate threat of serious harm to [the police officer] or others on the
road.”); Wilson, 526 U.S. at 617 (explaining that clearly established law may
consist of “a consensus of cases of persuasive authority such that a
reasonable officer could not have believed that his actions were lawful”).
        Moreover, the officers’ grotesque, unwarranted killing of Dawes
presents such an egregious case of unreasonable use of deadly force so as to
excuse plaintiffs’ need to identify prior case law. In “an obvious case” like
this one,3 the Graham excessive-force factors themselves can clearly establish

        _____________________
        3
           The majority opinion posits the obvious case exception as requiring both
“extraordinarily egregious facts” and “a complete absence of exigency.” Maj. Op. at 6 n.2
(citing Ducksworth v. Landrum, 62 F.4th 209, 218 (5th Cir. 2023) (Oldham, J., concurring
in part and dissenting in part)). This is incorrect. In Taylor v. Riojas, the Supreme Court
certainly noted the absence of “necessity or exigency” in determining that “any reasonable
officer should have realized” that the conditions of confinement in that case were
unconstitutional, yet nowhere did it purport to make a lack of necessity or exigency a
requirement under the obvious case doctrine. 592 U.S. 7, 9 (2020). In any event, there was
no exigency here justifying the use of deadly force against Dawes given that there was no
“imminent risk of death or serious injury” or that “a suspect [would] escape.” Kentucky v.
King, 563 U.S. 452, 473 (2011) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (“Circumstances qualify as
‘exigent’ when there is an imminent risk of death or serious injury, or danger that evidence
will be immediately destroyed, or that a suspect will escape . . . the exception should govern
only in genuine emergency situations.”) (citing Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403
(2006).

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the right at issue without a body of relevant case law. Cooper, 844 F.3d at 524
(“Graham excessive-force factors themselves can clearly establish the
answer, even without a body of relevant case law.”) (internal citation
omitted); see also White v. Pauly, 580 U.S. 73, 79 (2017) (“Of course, general
statements of the law are not inherently incapable of giving fair and clear
warning to officers, but in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must
be apparent.”) (internal citation omitted). As discussed above, a jury could
conclude that no reasonable officer could have believed Dawes was resisting
arrest or posed a safety threat by reversing her car at under three miles per
hours. Therefore, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Dawes, the
defendant officers acted objectively unreasonable in light of clearly
established law in shooting at an occupied vehicle thirteen times in the
absence of any threat to officer safety.
       In light of the use of deadly force deemed unreasonable by the
Supreme Court in Garner and elaborated on by circuit courts, the defendant
officers had “fair notice” that using deadly force against Dawes where no
reasonable officer could conclude that she posed any immediate safety threat
to anyone would violate her Fourth Amendment right to be free from
unreasonably excessive force. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8-9; Kirby, 530 F.3d at 483–
84; Vaughan, 343 F.3d at 1333; see also Brosseau, 543 U.S. at 198 (“focus” of
qualified immunity analysis is “whether the officer had fair notice that her
conduct was unlawful”); Hope, 536 U.S. at 731 (“Qualified immunity
operates to ensure that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice
that their conduct is unlawful.”). In light of clearly established law, as
announced in Garner and elucidated in Kirby and Vaughn, it is “beyond
debate” that the officers’ use of deadly force against Dawes was
unconstitutional. Ashcroft, 563 U.S. at 741. Moreover, the unconstitutionality
of the officers’ use of deadly force against Dawes was plainly obvious under
the factors laid out in Graham. 490 U.S. at 396. The panel should reverse and

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remand the district court’s grant of qualified immunity in favor of the
defendant officers. I respectfully, but emphatically, dissent.

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