Court Opinion

ID: 9575489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:14:14.751988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:14.581099
License: Public Domain

HANSON, Justice
(concurring and dissenting).
Although I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the police officers are not entitled to qualified immunity from Morn-son’s Fourth Amendment claim and are not entitled to common law official immunity from Mornson’s and Mumm’s common law claims, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that Mumm does not adequately state a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claim.
Although the legal standards for liability and immunity for a Fourth Amendment claim differ to some degree from that for a Fourteenth Amendment claim, under the unique facts of this case they merge into the identical dispositive fact issue. This is because the justification offered by the police officers for the use of deadly force in response to the Fourth Amendment claim *494is the same justification they offer to establish a legitimate law enforcement purpose under the Fourteenth Amendment. As noted in the majority opinion, both Lappegaard and Brickley testified that “they applied deadly force not to help Mornson but rather to protect the public from Mornson’s unstable condition and dangerous driving.” That justification is flatly rejected in the majority’s Fourth Amendment analysis but is given controlling credibility in the majority’s Fourteenth Amendment analysis. Just as the majority concludes under the Fourth Amendment objective analysis that a reasonable officer would have known that there was no probable cause to use deadly force against Mornson, I would conclude under the Fourteenth Amendment subjective analysis that these officers knew they did not have a legitimate law enforcement purpose to use deadly force against Morn-son.
While discussing the Fourth Amendment claim, the majority states that “one could conclude that Lappegaard and Brick-ley did not have probable cause to believe that Mornson posed a significant threat of serious injury to those around her.” In fact, in discussing whether this lack of probable cause was clearly established under constitutional law, the majority concludes that “[wjhen viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Mornson, a reasonable officer would have known, at the time deadly force was used, that there was not probable cause to believe that Mornson posed a significant threat of serious injury to others.” These conclusions reject Lappegaard’s and Brickley’s reliance on Mornson’s “dangerous driving” as providing them with “a legitimate law enforcement purpose” to pursue or use deadly force. And the majority similarly rejects Mornson’s “unstable condition” as providing a legitimate basis to pursue or use deadly force, stating that “the mere risk of suicide does not'justify the use of deadly force.” The majority concludes that “the facts of this case demonstrate that any risk that Mornson may have posed to the officers was largely due to their pursuit of her.”
This Fourth Amendment analysis stands in sharp contrast to the majority’s analysis, under the Fourteenth Amendment, where the majority accepts Lappegaard’s and Brickley’s testimony at face value to conclude that “[pjrotecting the public from a mentally disturbed individual’s dangerous driving and unlawful flight from police is a legitimate law enforcement purpose.” This difference in analysis is not justified by the use of an objective standard for the Fourth Amendment and a subjective one for the Fourteenth Amendment for two reasons. First, the subjective inquiry under the Fourteenth Amendment analysis is whether the officers had a “purpose to cause harm.” Here, the officers acknowledged that they understood that their use of deadly force would cause harm to Morn-son. Although the full statement of the text under Lewis is “a purpose to cause harm unrelated to the legitimate object of arrest,” in my view the question of whether the officers had a legitimate law enforcement purpose for their actions depends on the facts known to the officers, not on their intent. Those facts, as the majority concludes, do not support probable cause to believe that Mornson posed a threat of serious injury to others.
Second, even if the officers’ intent was relevant to whether they were pursuing a legitimate law enforcement purpose, an injured party should not be bound by the officers’ self-serving statements of their intent, but should be permitted to disprove those statements by circumstantial evidence. In that connection, I disagree with the majority’s suggestion that Mumm did not present evidence to contradict the *495statements of Lappegaard and Brickley that there was a need to protect the public from Mornson’s unstable condition and dangerous driving. The majority elsewhere agrees that the evidence shows that any mental disturbance Mornson may have been suffering did not reflect itself in her driving which, but for the effects of the pursuit by police, was under control and consistent with all traffic laws. More importantly, Mumm presented substantial evidence that the pursuit and the use of deadly force by Lappegaard and Brickley were not related to a legitimate law enforcement purpose.
I doubt that there could be a legitimate law enforcement purpose to pursue and use deadly force against someone where there is no probable cause to believe that the person either had committed a crime or posed a significant threat to others. The majority agrees that the evidence shows that neither is present here.
Further, Mumm has shown that the officers’ pursuit was in violation of a clear Minneapolis Police Department policy which required them to discontinue the pursuit where the pursuit itself might create an unreasonable risk to the officers or the public and the officer can establish the identification of the person being pursued. Similarly, the use of deadly force was in violation of the statutory prohibition against the use of deadly force by a peace officer where not necessary to “protect the peace officer or another from apparent death or great bodily harm.” Minn.Stat. § 609.066, subd. 2 (2004). Although violations of policy and law may not necessarily show intent to injure, they certainly show that the actions were not pursuant to any “legitimate” law enforcement purpose.
The illegitimacy of the officers’ actions is even more clearly demonstrated by the evidence that Sergeant Kjos, a Minneapolis police supervisor, twice ordered the officers to discontinue the pursuit and that Lieutenant Lawrence Doyle of the Minneapolis Police Department ordered the officers to monitor Mornson without lights and sirens and never authorized the officers to resume a pursuit. Yet, as the state patrol video dramatically shows, the pursuit continued with full lights and sirens in violation of directives from supervisors.
Finally, Mumm provided evidence that Brickley, who had been trained in crisis intervention for assisting people with mental problems, understood that sirens were not to be used because they would irritate and aggravate someone who is suffering from a mental disturbance. Yet, Brickley not only used full lights and sirens, he sought permission to “take her out,” meaning to use deadly force against Mornson. And then Brickley disregarded the denial of his request. Ultimately, Lieutenant Doyle directed the officers to attempt “stop sticks” and only to “take out” Morn-son if the stop sticks are not working. The video records that, within only a few blocks of the ultimate crash, an unidentified officer asked “do we have authorization to take her out?” and the response he received from another unidentified officer was “negative, assist only-stop sticks only.”
Fifth, although the majority sees some ambiguity in Brickley’s acknowledgement that the pursuit became “personal” to him, Brickley’s deposition testimony makes the meaning of that acknowledgement clear. He said he had decided to do whatever it took to stop the chase, including taking out a gun and shooting Mornson. In fact, when asked whether he meant he would have used his gun to shoot her tires, he responded “I wouldn’t have shot out the tires, I would have shot her.”
This evidence shows that Lappegaard and Brickley had an intent to injure Morn-son. This evidence also shows that the *496officers did not have any legitimate law enforcement purpose in continuing the pursuit or in using deadly force. As a result, I would conclude that Mumm has stated a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claim against the police officers. As to the second step of the Fourteenth Amendment qualified immunity analysis, I would conclude that the right to be free from a police officer’s use of deadly force without probable cause and without any legitimate law enforcement purpose is so clear under the constitution that it does not warrant discussion. Accordingly, I would hold that the police officers are not entitled to qualified immunity with respect to Mumm’s Fourteenth Amendment claim and that the court of appeals properly affirmed the district court’s denial of the officers’ motion for summary judgment on that claim.