City & Cnty. of S.F. v. Sheehan

• Decision Date: 18 May 2015
• Docket Number: No. 13–1412.,13–1412.
• Parties: CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, et al., Petitioners v. Teresa SHEEHAN.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

575 U.S. 600

135 S.Ct. 1765

191 L.Ed.2d 856

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, et al., Petitioners

v.Teresa SHEEHAN.

No. 13–1412.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued March 23, 2015.

Decided May 18, 2015.

Christine Van Aken, San Francisco, CA, for petitioners.

Ian H. Gershengorn for the United States as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting vacatur in part and reversal in part.

Leonard Feldman, Seattle, WA, for respondent.

Dennis J. Herrera, City Attorney, Christine Van Aken, Chief of Appellate Litigation, Peter J. Keith, Counsel of Record, Deputy City Attorney, San Francisco, CA, for Petitioners.

Ben Nisenbaum, Law Offices of John Burris, Oakland, CA, Jill D. Bowman, Hunter O. Ferguson, Stoel Rives LLP, Seattle, WA, Leonard J. Feldman, Counsel of Record, Peterson Wampold, Rosato Luna Knopp, Seattle, WA, for Respondent.

Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.

We granted certiorari to consider two questions relating to the manner in which San Francisco police officers arrested a woman who was suffering from a mental illness and had become violent. After reviewing the parties' submissions, we dismiss the first question as improvidently granted. We decide the second question and hold that the officers are entitled to qualified immunity because they did not violate any clearly established Fourth Amendment rights.

I

Petitioners are the City and County of San Francisco, California (San Francisco), and two police officers, Sergeant Kimberly Reynolds and Officer Kathrine Holder. Respondent is Teresa Sheehan, a woman who suffers from a schizoaffective disorder. Because this case arises in a summary judgment posture, we view the facts in the light most favorable to Sheehan, the nonmoving party. See, e.g., Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. ––––, –––– – ––––, 134 S.Ct. 2012, 2017, 188 L.Ed.2d 1056 (2014).

In August 2008, Sheehan lived in a group home for people dealing with mental illness. Although she shared common areas of the building with others, she had a private room. On August 7, Heath Hodge, a social worker who supervised the counseling staff in the building, attempted to visit Sheehan to conduct a welfare check. Hodge was concerned because Sheehan had stopped taking her medication, no longer spoke with her psychiatrist, and reportedly was no longer changing her clothes or eating. See 743 F.3d 1211, 1218 (C.A.9 2014) ; App. 23–24.

Hodge knocked on Sheehan's door but received no answer. He then used a key to enter her room and found Sheehan on her bed. Initially, she would not respond to questions. But she then sprang up, reportedly yelling, "Get out of here! You don't have a warrant! I have a knife, and I'll kill you if I have to." Hodge left without seeing whether she actually had a knife, and Sheehan slammed the door shut behind him. See 743 F.3d, at 1218.

Sheehan, Hodge realized, required "some sort of intervention," App. 96, but he also knew that he would need help. Hodge took steps to clear the building of other people and completed an application to have Sheehan detained for temporary evaluation and treatment. See Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code Ann. § 5150 (West 2015 Cum. Supp.) (authorizing temporary detention of someone who "as a result of a mental health disorder, is a danger to others, or to himself or herself, or gravely disabled"). On that application, Hodge checked off boxes indicating that Sheehan was a "threat to others" and "gravely disabled," but he did not mark that she was a danger to herself. 743 F.3d, at 1218. He telephoned the police and asked for help to take Sheehan to a secure facility.

Officer Holder responded to police dispatch and headed toward the group home. When she arrived, Holder reviewed the temporary-detention application and spoke with Hodge. Holder then sought assistance from Sergeant Reynolds, a more experienced officer. After Reynolds arrived and was brought up to speed, Hodge spoke with a nurse at the psychiatric emergency services unit at San Francisco General Hospital who said that the hospital would be able to admit Sheehan.

Accompanied by Hodge, the officers went to Sheehan's room, knocked on her door, announced who they were, and told Sheehan that "we want to help you." App. 36. When Sheehan did not answer, the officers used Hodge's key to enter the room. Sheehan reacted violently. She grabbed a kitchen knife with an approximately 5–inch blade and began approaching the officers, yelling something along the lines of "I am going to kill you. I don't need help. Get out." Ibid. See also id ., at 284 ("[Q.] Did you tell them I'll kill you if you don't get out of here? A. Yes"). The officers—who did not have their weapons drawn—"retreated and Sheehan closed the door, leaving Sheehan in her room and the officers and Hodge in the hallway." 743 F.3d, at 1219. The officers called for backup and sent Hodge downstairs to let in reinforcements when they arrived.

The officers were concerned that the door to Sheehan's room was closed. They worried that Sheehan, out of their sight, might gather more weapons—Reynolds had already observed other knives in her room, see App. 228—or even try to flee through the back window, id ., at 227. Because Sheehan's room was on the second floor, she likely would have needed a ladder to escape. Fire escapes, however, are common in San Francisco, and the officers did not know whether Sheehan's room had such an escape. (Neither officer asked Hodge about a fire escape, but if they had, it seems he "probably" would have said there was one, id ., at 117). With the door closed, all that Reynolds and Holder knew for sure was that Sheehan was unstable, she had just threatened to kill three people, and she had a weapon.¹

Reynolds and Holder had to make a decision. They could wait for backup—indeed, they already heard sirens. Or they could quickly reenter the room and try to subdue Sheehan before more time elapsed. Because Reynolds believed that the situation "required [their] immediate attention," id ., at 235, the officers chose reentry. In making that decision, they did not pause to consider whether Sheehan's disability should be accommodated. See 743 F.3d, at 1219. The officers obviously knew that Sheehan was unwell, but in Reynolds' words, that was "a secondary issue" given that they were "faced with a violent woman who had already threatened to kill her social worker" and "two uniformed police officers." App. 235.

The officers ultimately decided that Holder—the larger officer—should push the door open while Reynolds used pepper spray on Sheehan. With pistols drawn, the officers moved in. When Sheehan, knife in hand, saw them, she again yelled for them to leave. She may also have again said that she was going to kill them. Sheehan is "not sure" if she threatened death a second time, id ., at 284, but "concedes that it was her intent to resist arrest and to use the knife," 743 F.3d, at 1220. In any event, Reynolds began pepper-spraying Sheehan in the face, but Sheehan would not drop the knife. When Sheehan was only a few feet away, Holder shot her twice, but she did not collapse. Reynolds then fired multiple shots.² After Sheehan finally fell, a third officer (who had just arrived) kicked the knife out of her hand. Sheehan survived.

Sometime later, San Francisco prosecuted Sheehan for assault with a deadly weapon, assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon, and making criminal threats. The jury acquitted Sheehan of making threats but was unable to reach a verdict on the assault counts, and prosecutors decided not to retry her.

Sheehan then brought suit, alleging, among other things, that San Francisco violated the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 104 Stat. 327, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., by subduing her in a manner that did not reasonably accommodate her disability. She also sued Reynolds and Holder in their personal capacities under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for violating her Fourth Amendment rights. In support of her claims, she offered testimony from a former deputy police chief, Lou Reiter, who contended that Reynolds and Holder fell short of their training by not using practices designed to minimize the risk of violence when dealing with the mentally ill.

The District Court granted summary judgment for petitioners. Relying on Hainze v. Richards, 207 F.3d 795 (C.A.5 2000), the court held that officers making an arrest are not required "to first determine whether their actions would comply with the ADA before protecting themselves and others." App. to Pet. for Cert. 80. The court also held that the officers did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The court wrote that the officers "had no way of knowing whether [Sheehan] might escape through a back window or fire escape, whether she might hurt herself, or whether there was anyone else in her room whom she might hurt." Id., at 71. In addition, the court observed that Holder did not begin shooting until it was necessary for her to do so in order "to protect herself" and that "Reynolds used deadly force only after she found that pepper spray was not enough force to contain the situation." Id., at 75, 76–77.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit vacated in part. Relevant here, the panel held that because the ADA covers public "services, programs, or activities," § 12132, the ADA's accommodation requirement should be read to "to encompass ‘anything a public entity does,’ " 743 F.3d, at 1232. The Ninth Circuit agreed "that exigent circumstances inform the reasonableness analysis under the ADA," ibid. , but concluded that it was for a jury to decide whether San Francisco should have accommodated Sheehan by, for instance, "respect[ing] her comfort zone, engag[ing] in non-threatening communications and us[ing] the passage of time to defuse the situation rather than precipitating a deadly confrontation." Id., at 1233.

As to Reynolds and Holder, the panel held that their initial entry into Sheehan's room was lawful and that, after the officers opened the door for the second...