By Sheldon Nahmod [originally posted on the Nahmod Law blog on June 25, 2020]
The Intervention Question
Suppose a police officer continues to use life-endangering force even after it is obvious that a misdemeanor arrestee (who has no weapon) is under control and not a danger to others, including police officers. As a result of this use of excessive force, the arrestee dies. This is a violation of clearly settled Fourth Amendment law in every circuit and exposes that officer to potential section 1983 damages liability. If these turn out to be the facts in the George Floyd case, as appears likely at the time of this writing, the result would be the same.
Suppose further that other police officers are present, witness this behavior, have a realistic opportunity to stop the first officer’s unconstitutional use of force but do not act to prevent it. Are they also potentially liable for section 1983 damages for the death of the arrestee because they failed to intervene when they could have, and thus failed to prevent what happened?
The Short Answer
The short answer is YES: they have breached their constitutional duty to stop the first police officer from continuing to use life-endangering force against the arrestee, thereby rendering them potentially liable for section 1983 damages. Again, if these turn out to be the facts in the George Floyd case, the result would be the same: these police officers would potentially be liable for damages under section 1983 for their failure to intervene and to prevent what happened. Moreover, they would not be protected by qualified immunity because they would have violated clearly settled law.
The Longer Answer: The Clearly-Established Legal Background
This is not a new issue. In the seminal decision in Byrd v. Brishke, 466 F.2d 6 (7th Cir. 1972), the Seventh Circuit held that police officers have a due process duty to protect persons from the unwarranted brutality of their fellow officers that occurs in their presence. According to the court, non-involvement will not do where intervention is possible.
Significantly, this duty to intervene even requires subordinates to protect persons from the unconstitutional conduct of superiors or supervisors. In this regard, Byrd was read broadly by the Eighth Circuit in Putman v. Gerloff, 639 F.2d 415 (8th Cir. 1981), to impose liability on a subordinate police officer for failure to intervene against his superior where the subordinate was present and knew what his superior was doing.
Along the same lines, the Eleventh Circuit declared: “If a police officer, whether supervisory or not, fails or refuses to intervene when a constitutional violation such as an unprovoked beating takes place in his presence, the officer is directly liable under Section 1983.” Byrd v. Clark, 783 F.2d 1002, 1007 (11th Cir. 1986).
In a useful statement of the general rule, the Second Circuit said in Anderson v. Branen, 17 F.3d 552, 557 (2d Cir. 1994) (citations omitted):
It is widely recognized that all law enforcement officials have an affirmative duty to intervene to protect the constitutional rights of citizens from infringement by other law enforcement officers in their presence. An officer who fails to intercede is liable for the preventable harm caused by the actions of the other officers where that officer observes or has reason to know: (1) that excessive force is being used; (2) that a citizen has been unjustifiably arrested; or (3) that any constitutional violation has been committed by a law enforcement official. In order for liability to attach, there must have been a realistic opportunity to intervene to prevent the harm from occurring. Whether an officer had sufficient time to intercede or was capable of preventing the harm being caused by another officer is an issue of fact for the jury unless, considering all the evidence, a reasonable jury could not possibly conclude otherwise.
What is a Realistic Opportunity to Intervene?
Consider Grider v. Bowling, 785 F.3d 1248 (8th Cir. 2015), where the plaintiff sued a police officer—the relevant defendant here—who had arrested and handcuffed him, followed by another police officer who arrived in his vehicle, ran toward the plaintiff and the arresting police officer and kicked the plaintiff in the head, causing serious harm. The arresting officer and the kicking officer did not communicate before the attack and the arresting officer did not stop the attack. Reversing the district court in this regard, the Eighth Circuit found that the arresting officer was not liable for the kicking officer’s use of excessive force on a failure to protect theory: there was no evidence that the defendant was aware of the kick before it occurred or that he had the opportunity to prevent it. The kicking officer said nothing before he attacked the plaintiff and there was only one kick.
Comment
1. While the Seventh Circuit’s seminal Byrd decision put the duty to intervene in due process terms, the Eighth Circuit, in Hicks v. Norwood, 640 F.3d 839 (8th Cir. 2011), put an officer’s duty to intervene to protect an arrestee from the use of excessive force by another officer in Fourth Amendment terms. However, in the case before it, the court found that there was no Fourth Amendment liability for failing to intervene because the other officer did not use excessive force.
2. There are relatively few affirmative federal constitutional duties imposed on state and local governments and their officials and employees. See, for example, DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989), which declared that “nothing in the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors.” The George Floyd case and cases like it are distinguishable because they involve police officers, state actors, who fail to prevent “invasions” by other police officers who are also state actors.
2. I expect that any section 1983 damages claims against the police officers in the George Floyd case will settle. There may even be a viable section 1983 damages claim against the city for failure to train, a topic beyond the scope of this post.
3. I discuss the duty to intervene in much more detail in Chapter 3 of my treatise, CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES LITIGATION: THE LAW OF SECTION 1983 (2020; West/Westlaw).
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