Court Opinion

ID: 9822652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 09:15:42.563772+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:08.488347
License: Public Domain

MORITZ, Circuit Judge,
joined by KELLY, HARTZ, GORSUCH, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en bane.
With the issuance of the panel majority’s opinion, the clearly, established .law in this circuit requires an officer who has taken some form of cover to hesitate and call out a warning before using deadly force — even as a suspect points a gun directly at that officer, even as a second suspect is loose and has fired shots near a second officer, and even as a third officer has already shot and missed the suspect pointing the gun at the first officer. The majority acknowledges the Court’s admonitions against second-guessing officers’ split-second judgments and' defining clearly established law at a high level of generality. But then it flouts them, first by finding Officer White’s use of deadly force objectively unreasonable, and second by finding his actions violated - clearly established law. The majority’s fundamentally flawed decision doesn’t just violate existing precedent; it creates new precedent with potentially deadly ramifications for law enforcement officers in this circuit.