Deadly Force in Felony casesTennessee v

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Deadly Force in Felony casesTennessee v. Garner, 411 U.S. 1 (1985), sets the following guideline on the use of deadly force to arrest a suspect: It is constitutionally reasonable for a police officer to use deadly force if the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others.In Garner, two Memphis, Tennessee, police officers answered a “prowler inside” call one evening. Upon arriving at the scene, they saw a woman standing on her porch and gesturing toward the adjacent house where, she said, she heard glass shattering and was certain that someone was breaking in. One officer radioed the dispatcher to say they were on the scene, while the other officer went into the yard behind the neigh-boring house. The officer heard a door slam and saw someone run across the backyard. The suspect, Edward Garner, stopped at a six-foot-high chain-link fence at the edge of the yard. With the aid of a flashlight, the officer saw Garner’s face and hands. He saw no sign of a weapon and admitted later that he was reasonably sure Garner was unarmed. While Garner was crouched at the base of the fence, the officer called out, “Police, halt,” and took a few steps toward him. Garner then began to climb over the fence. The officer shot him. Garner died; $10 and a purse taken from the house were found on his body.The Court in Garner concluded that the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of an apparently unarmed suspected felon was constitutionally unreasonable. It empha-sized that “where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force,” adding that “a police officer may not seize an unarmed nondanger-ous suspect by shooting him dead.” The Garner decision rendered unconstitutional the then-existing “fleeing felon” statutes in nearly half of the states, insofar as those statutes allowed the use by the police of deadly force to prevent the escape of a fleeing felon regardless of the circumstances. Fleeing felon statutes are constitutional only if they comport with the requirements set in Garner.Tennessee v. Garner set the following guideline on the use of deadly force to arrest a suspect: “It is constitutionally reasonable for a police officer to use deadly force when the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others” (emphasis added). But then the Court adds:. . . if the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if, where feasible, some warning has been given.The Court in Garner also said that the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of an apparently unarmed suspected felon was unconstitutionally unreasonable. It emphasized that “where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force,” adding that “a police officer may not seize an unarmed nondan-gerous suspect by shooting him dead.”Tennessee v. Garner was not a criminal prosecution case; the officer who killed the suspect was not being prosecuted for murder or manslaughter. Instead, it was a civil case, in which the plaintiffs sought money damages from the department and the state of Tennessee for Garner’s death. Nonetheless, Garner is the only case decided by the Court thus far that sets guidelines for the use of deadly force by the police.