explaining that "liability for deliberate indifference to [an individual's] welfare rests upon the luxury enjoyed by ... officials of having time to make unhurried judgments, upon the chance for repeated reflection, largely uncomplicated by the pulls of competing obligations. When such extended opportunities to do better are teamed with protracted failure even to care, indifference is truly shocking. But when unforeseen circumstances demand an officer's instant judgment, even precipitate recklessness fails to inch close enough to harmful purpose to spark the shock that implicated the large concerns of the governors and the governed.” (citation omitted)
How later courts described this case
- explaining that "liability for deliberate indifference to [an individual's] welfare rests upon the luxury enjoyed by ... officials of having time to make unhurried judgments, upon the chance for repeated reflection, largely uncomplicated by the pulls of competing obligations. When such extended opportunities to do better are teamed with protracted failure even to care, indifference is truly shocking. But when unforeseen circumstances demand an officer's instant judgment, even precipitate recklessness fails to inch close enough to harmful purpose to spark the shock that implicated the large concerns of the governors and the governed.” (citation omitted)
- explaining that “the substantive component of the Due Process Clause is violated by executive action only when it ‘can properly be characterized as ‘arbitrary, or conscience shocking, in a constitutional sense’” (quoting Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 128 (1992)). In Gottlieb ex rel. Calabria v. Laurel Highlands Sch. Dist., 272 F.3d 168 (3d Cir. 2001), the Third Circuit identified four elements of the shocks the conscience standard when addressing a claim of excessive force by public school officials: a
- explaining that “the substantive component of the Due Process Clause is violated by executive action only when it can properly be characterized as arbitrary, or conscience shocking, in a constitutional sense.” (internal quotation marks (continued...) No. 07-2133 21 Conclusion For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is denied. P ETITION FOR R EVIEW D ENIED 6 (...continued) and citation omitted)
- stating that “[law enforcement] had done nothing to cause [the driver’s] high-speed driving in the first place, nothing to excuse his flouting of the commonly understood law enforcement authority to control traffic, and nothing (beyond a refusal to call off the chase) to encourage him to race through traffic at breakneck speed forcing other drivers out of their travel lanes”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Declined to follow by JAMES TERRELL, AS TRUSTEE FOR THE HEIRS AND NEXT OF KIN OF TALENA TERRELL, — v. BREK ANDREW LARSON SHAWN AARON LONGEN, —, 396 F.3d 975 (2005)
In determining the requisite level of culpability in this case, we reject the panel majority's conclusion that the controlling force of Lewis is limited to high-speed police driving aimed at apprehending a suspected offender.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Adam Kanuszewski v. Mich. Dep't of Health & Human Servs., 927 F.3d 396 (2019)
However, Lewis is distinguishable because it concerned the vaguer "shocks the conscience" test of substantive due process, rather than a claim relating to a specific fundamental right like the right to direct one's medical care.
Distinguished by Galland v. City of Clovis, 103 Cal. Rptr. 2d 711 (2001)
The Gallands argue that County of Sacramento is inapposite inasmuch as it pertains to executive action, whereas Clovis's actions are what it characterizes as "quasi-judicial.
Distinguished by Galland v. City of Clovis, 24 Cal. 1003 (2001)
The Gallands argue that County of Sacramento is inapposite inasmuch as it pertains to executive action, whereas Clovis’s actions are what it characterizes as “quasi-judicial.
The opinion
Chief Justice Rehnquist,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court in this case. The first question presented in the county’s petition for certiorari is:
‘Whether, in a police pursuit ease, the legal standard of conduct necessary to establish a violation of substan *856 tive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment is ‘shocks the conscience’. . . or is ‘deliberate indifference’ or ‘reckless disregard.’ ” Pet. for Cert. i.
The county’s petition assumed that the constitutional question was one of substantive due process, and the parties briefed the question on that assumption. The assumption was surely not without foundation in our case law, as the Court makes clear. Ante, at 846-847. The Court is correct in concluding that “shocks the conscience” is the right choice among the alternatives posed in the question presented, and correct in concluding that this demanding standard has not been met here.