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A split 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a district court’s ruling and determined that a Marion County police officer was entitled to qualified immunity after being accused of impermissibly using deadly force in Broad Ripple.
According to court records, on April 10, 2021, Jason Lee, a reserve deputy sheriff for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, heard a dispatch request to execute an out-of-state arrest warrant for William Manery from Rutherford County, Tennessee.
Tennessee authorities had tracked Manery to Broad Ripple. He was wanted on Tennessee warrant for aggravated assault with a vehicle, evasion of arrest, and violation of probation.
Police dispatch in Indianapolis relayed this information and noted that Manery might be armed, was a flight risk and had previously threatened “suicide by cop.”
A police team proceeded to an apartment complex in Broad Ripple where, according to information received from Tennessee authorities, they would find Manery.
Police found him sleeping in his car.
Manery attempted to flee the scene, and his vehicle collided with a police car.
Within seconds of the collision, Lee opened fire. He fired five shots, paused briefly, then fired four more through the driver’s side door. He hit Manery in the arm, hip, chest, and stomach.
Manery filed a lawsuit in state court against Lee, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, and the Consolidated City of Indianapolis and Marion County.
He alleged that Lee’s use of deadly force had violated his Fourth Amendment rights. He also pleaded excessive force, negligence claims under state law, and claimed that the sheriff’s office and the city had failed to train adequately their law enforcement officers
The defendants moved the case to the district court, and Lee filed a summary judgment motion in which he argued that he was entitled to qualified immunity.The district court denied his request.
The district court expressed concern that deadly force may no longer have been justified once Manery hit a police car.
The court concluded that the inquiry into whether qualified immunity was clearly established was “intertwined with factual disputes concerning threat level” at the time Lee discharged his revolver. These factual disputes, concluded the district court, had to be resolved by the jury.
Lee appealed to the 7th Circuit.
In its opinion, the 7th Circuit noted that the record demonstrated that Lee was in a position where he had to determine immediately whether Manery continued to pose a threat.
“Lieutenant Lee did not know whether Mr. Manery might well continue his escape attempt, either in the automobile or on foot, and whether any further resistance would include the use of the weapon which Lieutenant Lee had been advised he possessed. Lieutenant Lee also had been informed that Mr. Manery might well attempt ‘suicide by cop.’ Lieutenant Lee did not have to take the “apparent surrender at face value, a split second after” Mr. Manery’s vehicle stopped,” the 7th Circuit’s opinion stated.
The appellate court found that a reasonable officer in Lee’s position would not have known that the use of deadly force could run afoul of Manery’s Fourth Amendment rights. It also found it was not clearly established that Lee’s use of deadly force was unreasonable, and, accordingly, he was entitled to qualified immunity.
The case has been sent back to U.S. District Court in Indianapolis for further proceedings.
Judge John Lee dissented in a lengthy opinion.
Judge Lee wrote that to secure appellate jurisdiction, Lieutenant Lee’s qualified immunity argument must rest entirely on undisputed facts or disputed facts that are construed in Manery’s favor, something the judge argued was not the case.
“Indeed, if we take Mr. Manery’s version of events (rather than Lieutenant Lee’s), the officer’s actions are clearly proscribed by precedent,” Judge Lee wrote in arguing for the dismissal of the police officer’s appeal, due to lack of jurisdiction.
The case is William Manery v. Jason Lee, 24-1292.
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