Case No. 19-292 | 10th Cir.
October 14, 2020
Preview by Emma Liggett, Online Editor
In this case, the Court will resolve a circuit split regarding what constitutes a seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes. The U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh circuits hold that an attempt to detain a suspect by use of physical force is a seizure, regardless of whether that attempt is successful. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals hold that an attempt to detain a suspect by the use of physical force must be successful to be considered a seizure.
In July of 2014, petitioner Roxanne Torres was operating a vehicle in the parking lot of an apartment complex where respondents, officers Janice Madrid and Richard Williamson, were attempting to locate the subject of their arrest warrant—an individual unrelated to Torres. As the officers approached her car, Torres tried to drive away, subsequently claiming that she thought the officers were carjackers. The officers, later claiming that they feared for their lives, collectively fired thirteen shots at Torres, two of which hit her in the back. Despite the injuries, Torres continued driving and evaded arrest.
In October of 2015, Torres filed a civil-rights complaint in federal court against the officers, alleging they violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures when they used excessive force and shot her twice in the back. The district court held that the Fourth Amendment had no application to Torres’s case because she was never seized, which is required for an excessive force claim. The Tenth Circuit affirmed, holding that Torres was not seized because she “did not stop or otherwise submit to the officers’ authority.” Torres v. Madrid, 769 F. App’x. 654, 657 (10th Cir. 2019), cert. granted, 140 S. Ct. 680.
Torres advocates for interpreting seizures as occurring when an officer applies physical force with intent to restrain an individual. She contends that this interpretation is consistent with the original meaning of seizure in the Fourth Amendment, which encompassed the common law interpretation of arrest. At common law, an arrest was made when there was an “application of physical force with the intent to restrain,” whether or not the force resulted in successful restraint. Brief for Petitioner at 9, Torres v. Madrid, No. 19-292 (U.S. filed Jan. 31, 2020). Furthermore, Torres points out that the Court’s precedent compels this interpretation. In California v. Hodari D., the Court acknowledged that a police officer’s intentional use of physical force is a seizure “even though the subject does not yield.” 499 U.S. 621, 626 (1991). Torres argues that this conclusion is further supported by the Court’s other Fourth Amendment precedents, which emphasize violation into an individual’s personal space as the harm the Amendment aims to protect. See Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. 435, 446 (2013); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 (1968).
The officers advocate for the Tenth Circuit’s interpretation requiring officers to actually take possession, custody, or control of a subject before being considered a seizure for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Like Torres, the officers reference the Court’s precedent to support this interpretation. They first argue that the Court’s Mendenhall test compels a finding of no seizure. Under Mendenhall, a police officer has seized an individual if, “in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.” United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554 (1980). The officers focus on the necessity of there being a restraint of movement or liberty, which they argue was not present here because Torres “fled, without pause, from the scene.” Brief of Respondents at 11, Torres v. Madrid, No. 19-292 (U.S. filed Mar. 2, 2020).
The officers further argue that Brower v. County of Inyo dictates the outcome of the case. 489 U.S. 593 (1989). In Brower, the Court held that a seizure only occurs “when there is a governmental termination of freedom of movement.” Id. at 596–97. The Court should follow this precedent rather than Hodari D., the officers argue, because the language in Hodari D. that Torres relies on is dicta “referencing mere common law principles, not constitutional ones.” Brief of Respondents at 25, Torres v. Madrid, No. 19-292 (U.S. filed Mar. 2, 2020). Brower, in contrast, is on point and has an actual constitutional holding.
This case presents an opportunity for the Court to clarify past holdings and either enlarge or limit the scope of protections civilians have against government actors. The case drew amicus briefs from the ACLU, the Cato Institute, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, among others. Civil rights advocates will be closely watching its outcome.