By Zoe Tillman and Marcia Coyle, From Legal Times
Police officers who shot a mentally ill woman armed with a knife are immune against claims that they failed to accommodate her health issues, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
The justices, in a 6-2 decision, said the officers did not violate a “clearly established” right when they entered Teresa Sheehan’s room a second time after she threatened to kill them with a knife the first time they tried to enter.
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr.
Justice Samuel Alito Jr. (left), writing for the majority, said the officer’s use of force the second time they entered Sheehan’s room also was reasonable. Pepper spray didn’t stop Sheehan from advancing towards the officers with a knife, justifying the use of potentially deadly force, Alito wrote.
The case before the justices—City of San Francisco v. Sheehan—was closely watched by law enforcement and mental health advocates for guidance on whether the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires police to take special steps in arresting an armed and violent mentally ill person.
The court did not rule on the ADA question, however. The city of San Francisco made a different argument on that issue than what they were expected to argue, Alito wrote, and “the court does not ordinarily decide questions that were not passed on below.”
The high court expected San Francisco to argue, as it did in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, that Title II of the ADA did not apply to an officer’s “on-the-street responses” to incidents before securing the scene, regardless of whether persons with mental disabilities were involved.
San Francisco put forward a different argument in the Supreme Court, Alito said: that a person who posed a direct threat to others didn’t qualify for accommodations under the disabilities law.
“Because certiorari jurisdiction exists to clarify the law, its exercise ‘is not a matter of right, but of judicial discretion,’ ” Alito wrote. “Exercising that discretion, we dismiss the first question presented as improvidently granted.”
Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, partially dissented, writing that he would have dismissed both issues on appeal. Scalia said the court should not reward San Francisco’s “bait-and-switch tactics.”
“In fact, there is in this case an even greater reason to decline: to avoid being snookered, and to deter future snookering,” Scalia wrote.
Justice Stephen Breyer did not participate in the decision.
The case began in 2008 when Sheehan, who lived in a group home for people with mental illness, threatened a social worker who had entered her private room to check on her. She had been off her schizophrenia medication for more than a year.
Sheehan told him to leave and warned that she had a knife. The worker ordered the home evacuated and called the police for help to transport Sheehan to a hospital for evaluation.
Two officers responded and, using a key provided by the worker, entered Sheehan’s room. Sheehan reportedly grabbed a knife, thrust it at the officers and told them to leave her alone. They left and called for backup. But instead of waiting for help to arrive, they forcibly re-entered the room with guns drawn. They later testified that Sheehan moved toward them with a knife. They administered pepper spray and shot her five times.
Sheehan survived the shooting and sued the city and the two officers. She claimed the second entry violated her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. She also alleged that the officers violated her rights under the ADA by not making a reasonable accommodation, such as delaying arrest and waiting for backup or nonthreatening communications, before forcing the re-entry.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a jury could decide whether the officers violated the ADA or were entitled to immunity on the Fourth Amendment claim.
The justices focused primarily on the ADA during arguments in March.
San Francisco deputy city attorney Christine Van Aken argued that “if the individual is dangerous, if there is a direct threat,” no ADA accommodation is required.
“In exigent circumstances that rise to the level they did here, you don’t provide an accommodation,” she said, adding that the Ninth Circuit gave almost no weight to the exigent circumstances.
Representing Sheehan, Leonard Feldman of Seattle’s Peterson Wampold Rosato Luna Knopp, said he “strongly disagreed” with the need for the “special or exigent circumstances” test urged by his opponents. The ADA imposes a “direct threat” test, he said.
“And that’s language that police officers understand, because they are doing that already in the Fourth Amendment,” he argued. “Is there a direct threat here? Can it be mitigated through reasonable accommodations?”
Unless there is a direct threat, Feldman said, the police must accommodate the person’s disability.
Attorney John Burris, center, representing Teresa Sheehan, accompanied by fellow attorneys Ben Nisenbaum, right, and Leonard J. Feldman, speaks outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Monday, March 23, 2015, after the court heard arguments in San Francisco v. Sheehan case.
To read he Supreme Court’s ruling in San Francisco v. Sheehan go to link below
Photo: Molly Riley/AP
For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/id=1202726715423/Officers-Immune-In-Shooting-of-Mentally-Ill-Woman-Supreme-Court-Rules#ixzz3bFkYNfmJ