Supreme Court Uses Video to Review Police Actions in High Speed Chase
The United States Supreme Court recently used a video of a high speed chase to forbid a suspect from suing a police officer that ran him off the road, leaving the suspect a quadriplegic. In the case of Scott v. Harris (April 30, 2007), the U.S. Supreme Court justices used a novel approach to help them rule on whether the officer's bumping of the suspect's vehicle was reasonable.
After refusing to pull over for a Georgia county deputy, Victor Harris led police officers on a high-speed chase, ending after ten miles, when officer Timothy Scott bumped the rear end of Harris' vehicle.
Harris sued Scott, claiming his constitutional rights were violated when Scott bumped his vehicle. Scott conceded that bumping Harris' vehicle was a form of seizure (preventing someone from freely leaving the scene) according to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Scott argued that Harris could not sue him because he had "qualified immunity." A police officer generally has qualified immunity when he acts reasonably in his official duties.
The Supreme Court, after viewing the video (Real Video format) filmed from the dashboard of a squad car, agreed with Scott. Scott had requested from the trial court a grant of summary judgment, a ruling in the defendant's favor because there are no laws or facts in controversy. To grant summary judgment, a court must find that, giving the plaintiff (Harris) the benefit of the doubt on every fact in question, no reasonable jury could rule in favor of the plaintiff. The Court declined to give the benefit of the doubt to Harris' claim that he was driving carefully because no reasonable jury, having watched the video, could see anything but a dangerous high-speed chase.
Having found that Harris was leading Scott in a high-speed chase, the Court needed only to determine whether Scott's bump of Harris' car was reasonable. After Harris had struck Scott's patrol car in a parking lot, during the chase, Scott chased Harris for ten miles. He called his commanding officer to ask for permission to end the chase by employing a Precision Intervention Technique ("PIT") maneuver, which causes the fleeing vehicle to spin to a stop. Scott was given the go-ahead, but opted to merely bump the rear of Harris' car. Unfortunately, Harris went out of control and flipped the vehicle. The Court found that Scott had reasonably balanced the risk Harris was posing to pedestrians and other drivers with the risk posed to Harris by Scott's bump.
Having ruled in Scott's favor, that he could not be sued, the Court made a couple of additional comments about vehicle chases. First, the Court said that Harris' claim that Scott could have protected the public by calling off the chase made little sense. Even if Scott turned off his lights and stopped, there was no way Scott could have relied on Harris believing the officers had ended the chase rather than just changing tactics. Second, the Court refused to create a rule where police officers would have to allow a fleeing suspect get away just because his driving had become reckless.
