From the United States Supreme Court

May 15, 2025

Barnes v. Felix

605 U.S. ___(2025)

No. 23-1239

The Ruling: Use of Force must be judged by the totality of circumstances and not just the “moment of threat” but Court did not decide “whether or how an officer’s own ‘creation of a dangerous situation’ factors into the reasonableness analysis.”

The Court outlined the facts in Barnes v. Felix, as follows:

On the afternoon of April 28, 2016, Roberto Felix, Jr., a law enforcement officer patrolling a highway outside Houston, received a radio alert about an automobile on the road with outstanding toll violations. Felix soon spotted the car, a Toyota Corolla, and turned on his emergency lights to initiate a traffic stop. The driver, Ashtian Barnes, pulled over to the highway’s shoulder.

Parking his own car just behind, Felix walked to the Corolla’s driver-side door and asked Barnes for his license and proof of insurance. [*5]  Barnes replied that he did not have his license with him, and that the car was a rental in his girlfriend’s name. As he spoke, Barnes rummaged through some papers inside the car, causing Felix to tell him several times to stop “digging around.” Felix also commented that he smelled marijuana, and asked if there was anything in the car he should know about. Barnes responded that he might have some identification in the trunk. So Felix told him to open the trunk from his seat. Barnes did so, while also turning off the ignition. All that happened (as a dashcam recording of the incident shows) in less than two minutes.

Then things began moving even faster. With his right hand resting on his holster, Felix told Barnes to get out of the car. Barnes opened the door but did not exit; instead, he turned the ignition back on. Felix unholstered his gun and, as the car began to move forward, jumped onto its doorsill. He twice shouted, “Don’t fucking move.” And with no visibility into the car (because his head was above the roof), he fired two quick shots inside. Barnes was hit, but managed to stop the car. Felix then radioed for back-up. By the time it arrived, Barnes was dead. All told, about [*6]  five seconds elapsed between when the car started moving and when it stopped. And within that period, two seconds passed between the moment Felix stepped on the doorsill and the moment he fired his first shot.

Barnes’s mother, Janice Barnes, sued Felix on her son’s behalf. The suit, brought under 42 U. S. C. §1983, alleged that Felix had violated Ashtian Barnes’s Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force against him.

The Federal District Court had granted summary judgment to Felix noting that the analysis of deadly force cases in the 5th Circuit was limited to the “moment of the threat.”  “The District Court identified that moment as “the two seconds before Felix fired his first shot,” when he was standing on the doorsill of a moving vehicle…(cite omitted)… At that moment, the court found, an officer could reasonably think himself ‘at risk of serious harm.’”

The United States Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court noting, “the ‘inquiry is confined to whether the officer’ was ‘in danger at the moment of the threat that resulted in [his] use of deadly force.’  Any prior events ‘leading up to the shooting,’ including actions the officer took, were simply ‘not relevant.’ And here, as the District Court found, the ‘precise moment of the threat’ was the ‘two seconds’ when Felix was clinging to a moving car. Because Felix could then have reasonably believed his life in danger, the panel concluded, his decision to shoot “did not violate Barnes’s constitutional rights.” (cites omitted).

The United States Supreme Court granted an appeal to determine whether; in resolving excessive force claims under the Fourth Amendment, courts could apply a “moment-of-threat” analysis rather than a “totality of circumstances” analysis.

The Court noted, So the question in a case like this one, as this Court has often held, is whether the force deployed was justified from ‘the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene,’ taking due account of both the individual interests and the governmental interests at stake.”

The Court asserted:

That inquiry into the reasonableness of police force requires analyzing the “totality of the circumstances.” There is no “easy-to-apply legal test” or “on/off switch” in this context. Rather, the Fourth Amendment requires, as we once put it, that a court “slosh [its] way through” a “factbound morass.” Or said more prosaically, deciding whether a use of force was objectively reasonable demands “careful attention to the facts and circumstances” relating to the incident, as then known to the officer. For example, the “severity of the crime” prompting the stop can carry weight in the analysis. So too can actions the officer took during the stop, such as giving warnings or otherwise trying to control the encounter. And the stopped person’s conduct is always relevant because it indicates the nature and level of the threat he poses, either to the officer or to others.

Most notable here, the “totality of the circumstances” inquiry into a use of force has no time limit. Of course, the situation at the precise time of the shooting will often be what matters most; it is, after all, the officer’s choice in that moment that is under review. But earlier facts and circumstances may bear on how a reasonable officer would have understood and responded to later ones. Or as the Federal Government puts the point, those later, “in-the-moment” facts “cannot be hermetically sealed off from the context in which they arose.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14. Taking account of that context may benefit either part in an excessive-force case. Prior events may show, for example, why a reasonable officer would have perceived otherwise ambiguous conduct of a suspect as threatening. Or instead they may show why such an officer would have perceived the same conduct as innocuous. The history of the interaction, as well as other past circumstances known to the officer, thus may inform the reasonableness of the use of force.

The Court’s decision in Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U. S. 765 (2014), well illustrates the point. The excessive-force claim there concerned the fatal shooting of a driver at the end of a “dangerous car chase” lasting more than five minutes. The driver had sped away from a traffic stop on a well-used road, and tried to outrun as many as six police cruisers at speeds sometimes exceeding 100 miles per hour. Eventually, the fleeing car ran into one of the cruisers and came “to a near standstill.” The driver, though, still tried to escape, pumping the gas in a way that sent his wheels “spinning” and then putting the car into reverse.  At that point, one of the officers fired several shots into the car. In a suit brought against the officer, the driver’s daughter contended that those shots were taken when the chase was “already over.” But this Court rejected that claim based on everything that had happened during the incident—the driver’s “outrageously reckless” behavior over the prior “five minutes,” as well as his last-second efforts to again take flight. Given all of those events, the Court explained, a reasonable officer would have concluded that the driver was “intent on resuming” his getaway and, if allowed to do so, would “again pose a deadly threat for others.” In short, the shooting was justified “at the moment” it occurred partly because of what had transpired in the preceding period. (cites omitted).

The Court noted that the officer agreed that some pre-shooting facts ad circumstances are considered as part of the totality of circumstances however, the moment of threat analysis should be used to prohibit allegations that mistakes by the officer created the need for deadly force, often called “officer-created-jeopardy.” The officer’s attorney argued that “An officer doesn’t lose his right to defend himself just because he previously made a mistake.”

The Court concluded that the “moment-of-threat” analysis was not consistent with the “totality of circumstances” analysis and overturned the 5th Circuit and that analysis.

The Court then noted:

We do not address here the different question Felix raises about use-of-force cases: whether or how an officer’s own “creation of a dangerous situation” factors into the reasonableness analysis. As in another of our recent Fourth Amendment cases, that issue is not properly before us. The courts below never confronted the issue, precisely because their inquiry was so time-bound. In looking at only the two seconds before the shot, they excluded from view any actions of the officer that allegedly created the danger necessitating deadly force. So, to use the obvious example, the courts below did not address the relevance, if any, of Felix stepping onto the doorsill of Barnes’s car. And because they never considered that issue, it was not the basis of the petition for certiorari. The question presented to us was one of timing alone: whether to look only at the encounter’s final two seconds, or also to consider earlier events serving to put those seconds in context.

Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion where he was joined by Justice Thomas, Justice Alito and Justice Barrett where he outlined the dangers of traffic stops for officers.

Justice Kavanaugh also noted:

“A driver speeding away from a traffic stop could easily endanger bystanders and other drivers—especially if the fleeing driver is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, as might well be the case when a driver flees. Moreover, the very ‘fact that a suspect flees when suspected of a minor offense,” such as speeding or a failure to pay tolls, “could well be indicative of a larger danger.’  Fleeing from the traffic stop could suggest that the driver is preparing to commit or has committed a more serious crime—and is attempting to evade detection or arrest. The driver may have illegal drugs or an illegal gun in the car. Or the driver may be unlawfully in the country and fear removal if apprehended. He might have a warrant out for his arrest. He could have an abducted child in the car.  The possibilities are many. But the key point is a commonsense one: A driver who speeds away from a traffic stop can pose significant dangers to both the officer and the surrounding community.

The question when a driver flees, therefore, is not merely whether the underlying [*18]  traffic violation “presents risks to public safety”—it is also “whether flight,” and what that flight might indicate or enable, “does so.” Lange, 594 U. S., at 331 (Roberts, C. J., concurring in judgment). In those circumstances, in other words, it is not only the “severity of the crime” that prompted the stop that is relevant to the “totality of the circumstances” inquiry. Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, 396 (1989) (quotation marks omitted). The Fourth Amendment analysis must also take account of the suspect’s attempt “to evade” the officer “by flight.” Ibid.

What should the officer do when a driver flees from a traffic stop? There are no easy or risk-free answers. Every feasible option poses some potential danger to the officer, the driver, or the public at large—and often to all three. And an officer in that situation must make a split-second choice among those various dangerous options.

First, the officer could simply let the driver go. But because the fleeing driver might be a threat to the community, letting the driver go may exacerbate the dangers, rather than mitigate them. Encouraging officers to stand back and allow drivers to take off would also create “perverse incentives” for those who are stopped by the police. Scott v. Harris, 550 U. S. 372, 385 (2007). If doing nothing in response to a fleeing driver became a known and regular practice among police officers, that would presumably embolden some drivers who otherwise might have thought twice about taking off.

Of course, the officer could let the driver go in the moment [*19]  but then attempt to catch the driver by, for example, tracking the car’s license plate or reviewing surveillance footage. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 8. But after letting the driver go, the police may not be able to later track down the car or the driver of the car. Even if the police are able to do so, the escaped driver may pose a serious risk to the public in the interim. And given that the driver has already shown a propensity to evade law enforcement by fleeing a traffic stop, attempting to execute an arrest upon finding the driver could itself be dangerous for the police and others.

Second, the officer could get back in his police car and give chase, or could radio other officers to pursue the driver. But a high-speed chase likewise can be exceptionally dangerous to the officer, the driver, and others on the road. “Vehicular pursuits” are “often catastrophic.” Lange, 594 U. S., at 324 (Roberts, C. J., concurring in judgment). Many real-world examples demonstrate as much. Plumhoff v. Rickard involved a “‘dangerous car chase’” in which the driver “tried to outrun as many as six police cruisers at speeds sometimes exceeding 100 miles per hour,” ending in the “fatal shooting” of the driver. Ante, at 6 (quoting 572 U. S. 765, 768 (2014)). In Scott v. Harris, multiple police cars “with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring” chased the driver “for nearly 10 miles” while “he ignored their warning to stop,” culminating in an officer ramming the driver off the road. 550 U. S., at 384. Moreover, a recent study concluded that a significant percentage of those killed in police chases are not the fleeing drivers but rather are passengers or bystanders. From 2017 through 2022, more than 500 bystanders were reportedly killed as a result of police chases. 3

Third, the officer might try to shoot out the tires of the fleeing car, or otherwise try to hinder the car’s movement, in order to bring it to a stop. But shooting at a car, especially its tires, can be “dangerous” and is often “ineffective.” 4 Even if the officer manages to hit the tires, the driver could lose control and crash into others on the road. That course of action also poses the risk [*20] of the officer accidentally shooting the driver or innocent passengers.

Fourth, as happened here, the officer could attempt to stop the fleeing driver at the outset by jumping on or reaching into the car. The dangerousness of that option is readily apparent. Perhaps the driver will hit the brakes once he realizes an officer is clinging to the car or attempting to reach through the window. But if the driver does not slow down, then the officer may suffer serious and perhaps fatal injuries. The officer could try to fire his weapon to incapacitate the driver and bring the car safely to a stop. But the car may be just as likely to go careening into traffic, thereby threatening the safety of the officer, other drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and more.

I could go on. The point here is that when a driver abruptly pulls away during a traffic stop, an officer has no particularly good or safe options. None of the options available to the officer avoids danger to the community, and all of them require life-or-death decisions that must be made in a few seconds in highly stressful and unpredictable circumstances.

Of course, when an officer uses force against a fleeing driver, the judiciary still must assess any resulting Fourth Amendment claim under the standard of objective reasonableness. Under this Court’s precedents, that inquiry involves “a careful balancing of ‘the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests’ against the countervailing governmental interests at stake.” Graham, 490 U. S., at 396 (quoting Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1, 8 (1985)). In conducting that analysis, judges should keep in mind that it is one thing to dissect and scrutinize [*21]  an officer’s actions with the “20/20 vision of hindsight,” “in the peace of a judge’s chambers.” Graham, 490 U. S., at 396 (quotation marks omitted). It is quite another to make “split-second judgments” on the ground, “in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.” Id., at 397. In analyzing the reasonableness of an officer’s conduct at a traffic stop, particularly traffic stops where the driver has suddenly pulled away, courts must appreciate the extraordinary dangers and risks facing police officers and the community at large.

Bottom Line: 

  • All use of force including deadly force will be analyzed under a totality of circumstances approach and the “moment-of-threat” analysis is overturned 
  • There is no time constraint on the totality of circumstances 
  • THE COURT DID NOT DECIDE WHETHER OR HOW AN OFFICER’S ACTION THAT CREATES THE NEED TO USE DEADLY FORCE CAN IMPACT THE OBJECTIVE REASONABLENESS OF THE USE OF FORCE

 

3 See S. Neilson, J. Gollan, & J. Haseman, First-of-Its-Kind Database: Majority of People Killed in Police Chases Aren’t the Fleeing Drivers, San Francisco Chronicle (Feb. 2024).

4 Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Dept., Field Operations Support Services Newsletter: 15-14 – Shooting at Vehicle Tires (2025).