(CN) - A divided Supreme Court on Monday said the Fifth Circuit must ultimately decide whether the family of a Mexican teen shot dead by a U.S. border agent can sue the agent for damages.
The court's unsigned opinion vacates a previous ruling by an en banc Fifth Circuit and sends the case back to it for further proceedings.
The case stems from a shooting that occurred on June 7, 2010. Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, a 15-year-old Mexican national, was with a group of friends in the cement culvert that separate El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
As recounted in the majority opinion, Hernandez and his friends were playing a game in which they ran up the embankment on the United States side, touched the fence, and then ran back down.
Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa, Jr., arrived on the scene by bicycle and detained one of Hernandez’s friends on the U.S. side of the embankment. Hernandez ran across the culvert and stood by a pillar on the Mexican side. Mesa fired two shots across the border, one of which struck Hernandez in the face, killing him.
The Justice Department investigated the incident and declined to bring federal civil rights charges against Mesa, finding there was insufficient evidence that Mesa “acted willfully and with the deliberate and specific intent to do something the law forbids.”
It also held that because Hernandez was not on U.S. soil when he was shot, the department had no jurisdiction to bring charges against the agent.
Hernandez's parents sued Mesa for damages, claiming that he violated their son's rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. They also said at the time of his death, their son was unarmed and in no way posed a threat to the officer.
A federal judge in the Western District of Texas granted Mesa's motion to dismiss. A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit later affirmed that ruling in part and reversed it in part.
It held Hernandez lacked any Fourth Amendment rights under the circumstances, but that the shooting violated his Fifth Amendment rights. On rehearing en banc, the Fifth Circuit unanimously affirmed the district court's dismissal of the family's claims against the officer.
The en banc court held that the family failed to state a claim for a violation of the Fourth Amendment because Hernanadez was "a Mexican citizen who had no ‘significant voluntary connection’ to the United States” and “was on Mexican soil at the time he was shot.”
In regard to the family's Fifth Amendment claim, the en banc court said it was “somewhat divided on the question of whether Agent Mesa’s conduct violated the Fifth Amendment,” but was unanimous in concluding that Mesa was entitled to qualified immunity.
In their petition for a writ of certiorari, the family asked the Supreme Court to determine whether they could assert claims for damages under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, in which the high court recognized for the first time an implied right of action for damages against federal officers alleged to have violated a citizen’s constitutional rights.