"The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a “provocation rule” developed by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that gave victims of police shootings an additional route to sue for alleged excessive force.
Justice Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. wrote the opinion (PDF) for a unanimous court. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch didn’t participate in the case.
The rule had held that police who use force not deemed excessive may be liable nonetheless because they provoked the victims to respond in a way that makes officers reasonably fear for their safety. Under the rule, the provocation had to be a separate Fourth Amendment violation.
The rule “provides a novel and unsupported path to liability” and is incompatible with the court’s excessive force jurisprudence, Alito wrote. “The rule’s fundamental flaw is that it uses another constitutional violation to manufacture an excessive force claim where one would not otherwise exist.” Instead, Alito said, such cases should be resolved using a proximate cause analysis."
Blue Lives Matter
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