Tennessee v. Garner , 471 US 1 (1985) Video Tennessee v. Garner
Facts and procedural history
Around 10:45 am on October 3, 1974, Memphis police Leslie Wright and Elton Hymon were sent to answer the robbery call next door. Officer Hymon went to the back of the house when his colleague sent the radio back to the station. Hymon watched as someone ran across the yard. The escaping suspect, Edward Garner, stops at a 6ft (1.8m) chain fence. Using a flashlight, Hymon could see Garner's face and hands, and sure enough Garner was unarmed. Police testified that they believed Garner was 17 or 18 years old; Garner is actually 15 years old. After Hymon orders Garner to stop, Garner starts climbing over the fence. Believing that Garner would surely run away if he got past the fence, Hymon shot him. The bullet hit Garner at the back of his head, and he died shortly after the ambulance took him to the nearest hospital. Ten dollars and a wallet taken from the burglarized house was found in the person.
Hymon acted in accordance with Tennessee state laws and the policy of the official Memphis Police Department which authorized the lethal force against an escaped suspect. The law states that "if, after notice of intent to arrest the defendant, he either flees or is forcibly resisted, the officer may use all means necessary to make the arrest."
Garner's father was then taken to the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 USCÃ,§ 1983, naming the City of Memphis, the mayor, the Memphis Police Department, its director, and Hymon Officers as defendants. The District Court finds the law, and Hymon's actions, to be constitutional. On appeal, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. The Court of Appeal stated that the murder of a runaway suspect was "seizure" for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment, and therefore constitutional only if it made sense. The court later found that based on the facts in this case, the Tennessee law failed to limit the use of lethal force with reference to the seriousness of the crime.
Maps Tennessee v. Garner
Court Opinion
Justice White writes for the majority, first agreeing with the determination of the Sixth Circuit that understanding by using lethal force is a seizure, then framing the legal issue as to whether the totality of circumstances justifies seizure. To determine the constitutionality of foreclosure, White reasoned, the court should consider the intrusion nature of the Fourth Amendment right of the suspect against the interests of the government that justify the intrusion.
The use of lethal force against a subject is the most annoying type of foreclosure, since it deprives the suspect of his life, and White states that the state fails to provide evidence that his interest in shooting unarmed suspects escaped the suspects' interest in his own survival.
White examines the general legal rules on this issue and why. In general law, it is perfectly legitimate for law enforcement personnel to kill runaway criminals. By the time this rule was first established, most crimes were sentenced to death, and the difference between crime and minor crimes was relatively large. In modern American law, none of these circumstances exist. Furthermore, the rule of common law was developed at a time before modern firearms, and most law enforcement officers did not carry pistols. The context in which the rule of law develops is no longer applicable. White further noted that many jurisdictions have excluded him, and current research has shown that the use of lethal forces contributes little to crime prevention or public protection.
Based on the facts found by the district court, Hymon has no reason to believe that Garner is armed or dangerous. The court ordered that cases be submitted to determine the responsibilities of other defendants.
Dissent
In disagreement, Judge O'Connor highlighted the fact that police officers had to make frequent and quick decisions on patrol, and argued that the majority did not consider this aspect of the case correctly. In addition, many cases of rape, robbery, and assault are occurring at home associated with serious crimes of robbery. The Tennessee Statute represents a state legislative assessment that such crimes may require the use of lethal force to protect the public against those who commit such crimes. He also disagreed that the suspect's interest in his own life certainly allowed the right to escape from the scene when pursued, thereby escaping the legal process, although the majority did not discover or articulate "the right to escape."
Impact Limitations
Garner brought his suit under 42 U.S.C. Ã,§ 1983, which extends to the protection of citizens from violations of their civil rights by "persons," including persons acting in their official capacity as officers of the states. Therefore, the detention of Courts under this Section sets the standards that the state police department must adhere to. In practice, however, Garner's case has a lesser impact on state-level police practice than might have been anticipated. This is because Garner, and the next case, Graham v. Connor, 490 US 386 (1989), stipulates that the fairness of the use of an officer's power, whether against an escaped suspect or otherwise, must be determined from the perspective of the officer in a state clear to him at the time. As explained by the Graham court, this avoidance standard prevents most guesses from an officer's assessment of the use of force. Indeed, it is possible that Garner's inheritance did not so much change the use of lethal force by the police because it was the use of force policy and practice by transferring it from law to custom.
See also
- Graham v. Connor (1989)
- White v. Pauly (2017)
- List of US Supreme Court cases, volume 471
- Use of the power of the continuum
References
External links
- ^ Text from Tennessee v. Garner , 471 US 1 (1985) is available from: Findlaw Justia
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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