New York Times

Justices, in 2 Cases, Side With Law Enforcement Officials

By ADAM LIPTAK MAY 27, 2014

WASHINGTON — In a pair of unanimous decisions favoring law enforcement officials, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled for Arkansas police officers who had used deadly force to end a high-speed chase and for Secret Service agents who had moved protesters away from President George W. Bush.

The first case, Plumhoff v. Rickard, No. 12-1117, arose from a chase in 2004 that started in West Memphis, Ark., continued at high speeds on a highway and ended in a hail of 15 bullets in a parking lot in Memphis. The driver, Donald Rickard, and Kelly Allen, his passenger, were killed.

Whitne Rickard, the driver’s daughter, sued, saying the officers had used excessive force. The officers responded that they were entitled to qualified immunity, a doctrine that shields officials from suits over violations of constitutional rights that were not clearly established at the time of the episode.

The officers had acted lawfully and prudently, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.wrote for the court. (Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen G. Breyer, though they voted with the majority, did not join all of Justice Alito’s analysis.)

“The chase in this case exceeded 100 miles per hour and lasted over five minutes,” Justice Alito wrote. “During that chase, Rickard passed more than two dozen other vehicles, several of which were forced to alter course. Rickard’s outrageously reckless driving posed a grave public safety risk.”

The passenger’s presence in the car, Justice Alito added, was irrelevant to Ms. Rickard’s suit. “After all, it was Rickard who put Allen in danger by fleeing and refusing to end the chase,” he wrote, “and it would be perverse if his disregard for Allen’s safety worked to his benefit.”

The case was similar, Justice Alito wrote, to the court’s 2007 decision in Scott v. Harris, in which the court ruled against a Georgia man who was paralyzed when his car was rammed by the police during a chase.

“It is beyond serious dispute,” Justice Alito wrote, “that Rickard’s flight posed a grave public safety risk, and here, as in Scott, the police acted reasonably in using deadly force to end that risk.”

The case involving the Secret Service, Wood v. Moss, No. 13-115, arose from a 2004 campaign stop by Mr. Bush in Jacksonville, Ore. After Mr. Bush made an impromptu decision to have dinner on a restaurant’s outdoor patio, Secret Service agents forced protesters to move farther away. Those supporting Mr. Bush were allowed to stay where they were.

The protesters sued, saying the differing treatment of the two groups violated the First Amendment. As in the Arkansas case, the officers said they were entitled to qualified immunity.

Justice Ginsburg, writing for the court, acknowledged the substantial free speech issue in the case. “It is uncontested and uncontestable,” she wrote, “that government officials may not exclude from public places persons engaged in peaceful expressive activity solely because the government actor fears, dislikes, or disagrees with the views those persons express.”

Here, she said, security considerations justified the agents’ action. “Safeguarding the president is also of overwhelming importance in our constitutional system,” she wrote.

The court’s opinion included two diagrams showing the protesters’ locations, and it discussed lines of sight and distances necessary to protect the president from handguns and explosives.

“Faced with the president’s sudden decision to stop for dinner,” Justice Ginsburg wrote, “the Secret Service agents had to cope with a security situation not earlier anticipated. No decision of this court so much as hinted that their on-the-spot action was unlawful because they failed to keep the protesters and supporters, throughout the episode, equidistant from the president.”