Roque v. Harvel
| Decision Date | 01 April 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 20-50277,20-50277 |
| Citation | 993 F.3d 325 |
| Parties | Albina ROQUE, individually, as heir at law to the Estate of Jason Roque, and on behalf of all wrongful death beneficiaries; Vincente Roque, individually, as heir at law to the Estate of Jason Roque, and on behalf of all wrongful death beneficiaries, Plaintiffs—Appellees, v. James HARVEL, in his individual capacity, Defendant—Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Jeff S. Edwards, David James, Scott Charles Medlock, Michael C. Singley, Edwards Law, Austin, TX, Steven C. Lee, Austin, TX, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
Henry Gray Laird, III, Esq., City of Austin Law Department, Litigation Division, Austin, TX, Katherine Icenhauer-Ramirez, Law Office of Katie Icenhauer-Ramirez, Austin, TX, Robert E. Icenhauer-Ramirez, Ph. D., Law Offices of Robert Icenhauer-Ramirez, Austin, TX, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before King, Elrod, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
This qualified-immunity case involves the police shooting and killing of Jason Roque, a suicidal man experiencing a mental-health crisis. Roque's parents sued James Harvel, the officer who killed their son, alleging a violation of their son's Fourth Amendment right against the use of excessive force.
The Fourth Amendment turns on reasonableness. And "[t]he calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation."1 This allowance is particularly understandable when police officers encounter suicidal suspects. At some point, however, and even in the most difficult circumstances, the reasonableness rope ends. Here, the district court decided a jury should determine whether it ended after Officer Harvel's first shot. We agree and therefore affirm the district court's denial of summary judgment.
The Austin Police Department received two related 911 calls on the morning of May 2, 2017. Jason Roque made the first call to report a shirtless, Hispanic man "just going crazy" with a black pistol—not pointing it at anybody but "all up in the air and whatnot." Jason was speaking about himself but didn't disclose that fact to the 911 operator. Jason's mother, Albina, then called 911. While crying and pleading with Jason, she told the operator that her son wanted to kill himself. Both Jason and Albina called to report the incident from their home address.
During the 911 calls, Officer Harvel was on patrol in northeast Austin, where the Roques live. Harvel learned of the 911 calls through his radio and the dispatch report. Dispatch first described the calls as "Gun Urgent" but changed the reported problem to "Attempted Suicide." Dispatch also noted that Jason's only recent involvement with law enforcement was an allegation of criminal mischief the year before.
Multiple officers, including Harvel, responded to the situation. Harvel and the other officers positioned themselves at the end of Jason's street about 75 yards from Jason's house. Jason was pacing the sidewalk in front of his home with a black gun in his waistband. He was repeatedly saying, "Shoot me!" Albina was standing on the porch imploring Jason not to kill himself. The officers could hear—but not see—Albina from where they were standing. One officer yelled, "Put your hands up!" Jason put his arms out to the side and continued walking on the sidewalk. He yelled at the officers to shoot and kill him.
Jason then pulled out the gun, which was later determined to be a BB gun. Jason pointed the gun at his head then turned away from the officers and said, "I'll f---ing kill myself!" An officer then yelled (for the first time): "Put the gun down!"
The parties dispute what happened next. Video evidence (taken from two different home-surveillance systems)2 shows that, after the officer's order to put his gun down, Jason turned around to face the officers with the gun pointed in the air. All of the officers claim, however, that they didn't know where the gun was and didn't see Jason point it in their general direction. Nonetheless, in the split second between the officer's command to put the gun down and Jason's turning his body toward the officers with his arm and the gun in the air, Harvel shot Jason with a semi-automatic rifle. The video shows Jason immediately double over, drop the gun, and stumble from the sidewalk toward the street (away from his mother and the officers). The video also shows the black gun hitting the white sidewalk in broad daylight. Harvel claims that he didn't see the gun fall and considered Jason to be a continuing threat to his mother.
About two seconds after the first shot, while Jason was stumbling into the street, Harvel fired another shot that missed Jason. Jason continued floundering into the street, and two seconds later, Harvel took a final and fatal shot. The police officers then approached Jason's body and unsuccessfully attempted CPR. Paramedics took Jason to the emergency room; he died soon after. Harvel maintains that he took each shot because he thought Jason was a threat to his mother's life and safety.
Jason's parents, Albina and Vincente Roque, sued Officer Harvel as well as the City of Austin under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of Jason's Fourth Amendment rights. Both Harvel and the City moved for summary judgment. The City argued that it could not be liable under § 1983 because the Roques failed to show any official policy or custom that caused the alleged constitutional violation.3 The district court agreed with the City and granted its motion. Harvel raised the defense of qualified immunity. The district court granted Harvel's motion as to the first shot but denied the motion as to the second and third shots. Harvel timely filed this interlocutory appeal.
Qualified immunity "attempts to balance two competing societal interests: ‘the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.’ "4 The defense of qualified immunity therefore protects public officials "sued in their individual capacities ‘from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.’ "5 A court's decision on qualified immunity involves two questions: (1) whether the defendant violated the plaintiff's constitutional or statutory rights; and (2) whether those rights were clearly established at the time of the violation "such that the officer was on notice of the unlawfulness of his or her conduct."6
The unique nature and purpose of qualified immunity affects both our jurisdiction and the lens with which we review a district court's denial of the defense. We first discuss the changes to our jurisdiction and then the scope of our review.
When a district court denies summary judgment, that order "is generally not a final decision within the meaning of [ 28 U.S.C] § 1291 and is thus generally not immediately appealable."7 But an exception, the collateral-order doctrine, applies when the summary-judgment motion is based on qualified immunity.8 That's because immunity is collateral to the merits.9 And an immunity determination cannot be "effectively reviewed on appeal from a final judgment because by that time the immunity from standing trial will have been irretrievably lost."10 Accordingly, a district court's immunity decision is akin to a final decision, and a defendant who loses on the qualified-immunity defense can bring an interlocutory appeal.11
Qualified immunity also affects the scope of our review. The summary-judgment question is whether the movant has shown "that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law."12 When the district court answers this question, it inherently makes two separate findings regarding whether there are genuine fact disputes and whether those fact disputes are material to the outcome of the case.13 Typically, we review the district court's analysis de novo, asking the same questions the district court does regarding genuineness and materiality.14 But on interlocutory appeal following the denial of qualified immunity, the scope of our review is limited to "whether the factual disputes that the district court identified are material to the application of qualified immunity."15 Our review therefore involves only "whether a given course of conduct would be objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established law."16 We do not review the district court's determination that there are genuine fact disputes.17
Plaintiffs argue that we lack jurisdiction over this entire appeal because the district court found that genuine fact disputes precluded summary judgment. As explained above, however, "[w]e do have jurisdiction, but only to the extent that the appeal concerns the purely legal question whether the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity on the facts that the district court found sufficiently supported in the summary judgment record."18
Although qualified immunity raises two distinct questions (whether the conduct was unconstitutional and whether the unconstitutionality was clearly established), we have discretion "to decline entirely to address the" first question.19 We can "skip straight to the second question concerning clearly established law."20 But we have repeatedly emphasized that there is value in addressing both questions "to develop robust case law on the scope of constitutional rights."21 In that vein, we first address Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claim and then discuss the clearly established law at the time of the shooting.
The Fourth Amendment's right to be free from unreasonable seizures governs excessive-force claims.22 To prove an...
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