Justices Likely to Back Woman Whose Son Was Killed by Police (1)

The US Supreme Court appeared likely to revive a woman’s claim that a Texas police officer acted unreasonably when he shot and killed her son during a routine traffic stop.

At arguments on Wednesday, the justices seemed to agree that the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit applied the wrong test in assessing whether the officer’s use of deadly force was justified.

The appeals court used the moment of the threat doctrine, which looks only at police actions when their safety was threatened, instead of the totality of the circumstances. The latter approach requires courts to consider other factors like the severity of the crime and whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to others.

Civil Rights advocates are watching the case closely. They fear a ruling that upholds the Fifth Circuit’s analysis could make it much harder to hold officers responsible when they kill people at a time of persistent racial justice issues in policing. The Southern Poverty Law Center told the court in a brief that police violence is disproportionately inflicted on Black people.

Justice Neil Gorsuch said he thinks everyone agrees the Fifth Circuit’s moment of threat analysis was wrong.

“What’s the harm in saying that?” he asked.

The case stems from a lawsuit Janice Hughes Barnes brought seeking to hold Officer Roberto Felix and Harris County liable for Felix’s use of excessive force. She said it violated her son Ashtian Barnes’ Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizure.

Felix killed Ashtian Barnes in 2016 after pulling him over on a highway outside Houston. An unpaid freeway toll had been linked to the license plate of the rental car he was driving to pick up his girlfriend’s daughter from daycare.

Felix argued his use of force was justified at that moment because he feared for his safety and the safety of others. Police footage shows that Ashtian Barnes tried to drive off while Felix was partially in the vehicle.

But attorneys for Janice Barnes said in court briefs that it’s objectively unreasonable for an officer to jump onto a moving vehicle, shoot the driver a heartbeat later, and claim the action was justified just because the officer could’ve been injured.

Justice Elena Kagan said the lower courts expressed a desire to look beyond the two seconds prior to Felix shooting Ashtian Barnes, but said they couldn’t.

“You seem to be saying, ‘well that is wrong, I mean, you can look back beyond the prior two seconds,’” she told Felix’s attorney Charles McCloud, of Williams & Connolly LLP. “So that suggests to me that there is an easy way of just vacating and remanding and giving it back to the courts below.”

There was disagreement over whether Felix created, or at least contributed to, the threatening situation that led to his use of deadly force when he jumped on the sill of the car door, and whether that’s a factor courts should consider.

McCloud said the other side wants to include arguments that Felix escalated or created the danger within the totality of circumstances assessment.

“But I thought he said he wants to argue that later, when it goes back,” Justice Clarence Thomas corrected.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, however, seemed to suggest there are times when it might be appropriate for an officer to jump onto a car that’s trying to flee a traffic stop.

“And if someone’s pulling away, they could be a danger to others on the road,” he said. “Who knows what’s going on, right?”

Whether or not it was reasonable for Felix to jump on the side of the car, is precisely the issue the lower courts couldn’t evaluate “because they applied this legal amnesia and only look at the fact that the officer was on the moving vehicle,” said Barnes’ attorney Nathaniel Zelinsky, of Hogan Lovells.

“We want the opportunity for a court to be able to look at that and for us to be able to litigate that core claim,” he said.

The case is Barnes v. Felix, U.S., No. 23-1239, arguments 1/22/25.