# County of Sacramento v. Lewis > Supreme Court of the United States · May 26, 1998 · 523 U.S. 833 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433651 ## Case - **Full name:** COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO Et Al. v. LEWIS, Et Al., Personal Representatives of the ESTATE OF LEWIS, DECEASED - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** May 26, 1998 - **Citations:** 523 U.S. 833; 118 S. Ct. 1708; 140 L. Ed. 2d 1043; 1998 U.S. LEXIS 3404 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Rehnquist - **Judges:** Scalia, Souter, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, Scaiia, Thomas - **Cited by:** 6,023 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** 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). - Negative treatments: 1 - Distinguished by: 3 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433651 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - 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. … - 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 (19… - 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 … - 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 encou… - holding that a state police officer did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of substantive due process by causing a person’s death in a high-speed automobile chase because “only a purpose to cause harm unrelated to the legitimate object of arrest will satisfy the … ## Opinion text 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. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433651. Public record. Not legal advice.