New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled for a police officer who shot and killed a fleeing suspect from a highway overpass. The court’s decision was unsigned and issued without full briefing and oral argument, an indication that the majority found the case to be easy.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling endorsed “a ‘shoot first, think later’ approach to policing.”

The case concerned an 18-minute high-speed car chase near Tulia, Tex., in 2010 that started when a police officer tried to serve an arrest warrant on Israel Leija Jr. at a drive-in restaurant.

Mr. Leija fled on Interstate 27, at speeds between 85 and 110 miles an hour, twice calling the police dispatcher to threaten to shoot at the officers pursuing him. Other officers set up a spike strip to try to disable his car.

A state trooper, Chadrin L. Mullenix, took a position on a highway overpass, where he was told to “stand by” and “see if the spikes work first.” Mr. Mullenix instead fired six shots, killing Mr. Leija. The car then hit the spike strip and rolled over twice.

Mr. Leija’s family sued, saying Mr. Mullenix had used excessive force, and lower courts let the case proceed.

But the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Mullenix was 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 conduct in question. The majority did not decide whether Mr. Mullenix’s actions violated the Constitution, but it did say there was no clear precedent that would have alerted him that his tactics amounted to unconstitutionally excessive force.

The Supreme Court has twice before considered high-speed chases that ended in the death or paralysis of the fleeing driver.

Last year, in Plumhoff v. Rickard, it ruled for officers from West Memphis, Ark., who killed a driver and his passenger in a hail of 15 bullets in a parking lot in Memphis. The shootings were lawful, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the court, saying the chase had posed a grave risk to bystanders.

In 2007, in Scott v. Harris, the court ruled against a Georgia man who was paralyzed when his car was rammed by the police during a chase. There, too, the majority cited the risks to others.

Monday’s case, Mullenix v. Luna, No. 14-1143, was different, the majority acknowledged, because “traffic was light on I-27.” But it added that there existed “no case from this court denying qualified immunity because officers entitled to terminate a high-speed chase selected one dangerous alternative over another.”

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor said the chosen alternative amounted to “rogue conduct.”

“Chadrin Mullenix fired six rounds in the dark at a car traveling 85 miles per hour,” she wrote. “He did so without any training in that tactic, against the wait order of his superior officer, and less than a second before the car hit spike strips deployed to stop it.”