Court rules that fleeing motorist endangered others on the road

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a Coweta County sheriff’s deputy should not be sued for ramming a fleeing motorist who caused a danger to others in running from deputies on a chase that ended in Peachtree City.

The pursuit ended when the deputy, Timothy Scott, bumped the car driven by Victor Harris, then 19, after it had gone past TDK Boulevard and Crosstown Road on Ga. Highway 74. Harris’s vehicle flipped and the accident left him a quadriplegic.

Harris wanted to sue Scott under the fourth amendment for an unreasonable seizure, but in its 8-1 ruling the U.S. Supreme Court justices noted that Harris “posed a substantial and immediate risk of serious physical injury to others.”

The chase, which entered Peachtree City on Ga. Highway 54 and led police through The Avenue shopping center after most stores were closed, reached 85 mph. It began when Harris’s car was clocked at 73 mph in a 55 zone in Coweta.

The Supreme Court ruled that Deputy Scott is entitled to qualified immunity from the Harris lawsuit because Scott’s actions didn’t violate Harris’s constitutional rights. In doing so, the Supreme Court overturned the decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals noting that the videotape from the deputy’s patrol car “clearly contradicts” the version of events provided by Harris’s attorney.

Referring to Harris’s car, the court noted: “We see it swerve around more than a dozen other cars, cross the double-yellow line, and force cars traveling in both directions to their respective shoulders to avoid being hit. We see it run multiple red lights and travel for considerable periods of time in the occasional center left-turn-only lane, chased by numerous police cars forced to engage in the same hazardous maneuvers just to keep up. Far from being the cautious and controlled driver the lower court depicts, what we see on the video more closely resembles a Hollywood-style car chase of the innocent bystanders alike at great risk of serious injury.”

Associate Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion, arguing that the oncoming cars which pulled to the side of the highway could have done so simply because they saw the police officers’ blue lights or heard their siren. He also argued that it was not clear whether any innocent bystanders had been threatened by the pursuit.

“In my view, the risks inherent in justifying unwarranted police conduct on the basis of unfounded assumptions are unacceptable, particularly when less drastic measures — in this case the use of stop sticks or a simple warning issued from a loudspeaker — could have avoided such a tragic result,” Stevens wrote.

In addition to posting its opinion on its web site, the Supreme Court also posted a link to the entire video of the pursuit.

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