WASHINGTON (CN) — Remanding questions about evidence to the Eighth Circuit on Monday, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to revive an excessive force case filed against the St. Louis Police Department.
The dispute stems from the arrest of Nicholas Gilbert in 2015. Taken in for trespassing in a condemned building and failing to appear in court for a traffic ticket, police officers say the 5-foot-3, 160-pound man was trying to hang himself from the bars of his cell when they intervened. As the officers struggled to handcuff and restrain Gilbert, he kicked one of them in the groin, which led to them shackling Gilbert’s legs together and calling for emergency medical personnel.
After handcuffing and shackling Gilbert, the officers placed him in a prone restraint, face down on the floor, three of them holding his shoulders, biceps, and legs in place and at least one other putting pressure on his back. Evidence indicates that Gilbert told the officers, “It hurts. Stop,” and struggled to raise his chest for about 15 minutes before his breathing became abnormal and he stopped moving. Officers attempts to resuscitate Gilbert were unsuccessful.
His parents sued, saying that the officers had used excessive force. The district court found the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because they did not violate a constitutional right at the time of the incident. The Eighth Circuit then affirmed, holding that the officers did not apply unconstitutionally excessive force.
However, the Supreme Court said Monday in an unsigned opinion that what the St. Louis-based appeals court deemed “insignificant” facts -- like how Gilbert was already handcuffed and leg shackled at the time officers placed him in the prone position, and that the officers kept him there for 15 minutes -- "could matter when deciding whether to grant summary judgment on an excessive force claim.”
“Record evidence (viewed in the light most favorable to Gilbert’s parents) shows that officers placed pressure on Gilbert’s back even though St. Louis instructs its officers that pressing down on the back of a prone subject can cause suffocation,” the opinion states. “The evidentiary record also includes well-known police guidance recommending that officers get a subject off his stomach as soon as he is handcuffed because of that risk. The guidance further indicates that the struggles of a prone suspect may be due to oxygen deficiency, rather than a desire to disobey officers’ commands.” (Parentheses in original.)
The high court's majority further noted that the Eighth Circuit was unclear about whether it thought the use of a prone restraint “is per se constitutional so long as an individual appears to resist officers’ efforts to subdue.”
“We express no view as to whether the officers used unconstitutionally excessive force or, if they did, whether Gilbert’s right to be free of such force in these circumstances was clearly established at the time of his death,” the four-page decision states.
Balking at the majority’s stance, Justice Samuel Alito meanwhile penned a five-page dissent Monday, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
“I cannot approve the court’s summary disposition because it unfairly interprets the Court of Appeals’ decision and evades the real issue that this case presents: whether the record supports summary judgment in favor of the defendant police officers and the city of St. Louis," Alito wrote.
He argued the court only had two “respectable” options: “deny review of the fact-bound question that the case presents or grant the petition, have the case briefed and argued, roll up our sleeves, and decide the real issue.”
“I favor the latter course, but what we should not do is take the easy out that the court has chosen,” Alito wrote, saying that the majority's decision to vacate the Eighth Circuit's judgment was unfair to the appeals court.
“If we expect the lower courts to respect our decisions, we should not twist their opinions to make our job easier,” he wrote. “When the Court of Appeals’ opinion is read in the way we hope our opinions will be interpreted, it is clear that the Court of Appeals understood and applied the correct standard for excessive-force claims.”
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