In late March 2010, Israel Leija Jr. was parked at a drive-in restaurant in Tulia, Texas. A police officer who knew there was an arrest warrant out for Leija approached him and informed him that he was under arrest. Leija took off, leading police officers on a car chase that reached speeds up to 110 miles an hour. During the chase, Leija called the police dispatcher and said that he had a gun and would shoot at the officers pursuing him if they did not stop the pursuit. A Texas trooper who had been informed by radio of Leija's threat took a position on an overpass that Leija was expected to drive under. The trooper was aware that another police officer had taken up a position under the overpass, although the trooper could not see the other officer from his vantage point. As Leija approached the overpass, the trooper fired six rounds at his oncoming car. Leija continued under the overpass, hit the tire-spike strips that the other officer had set up there, lost control and crashed. He died at the scene. It was later determined that Leija had died of a bullet wound to the neck and that he did not have a gun.
Plaintiffs brought a civil suit alleging that the trooper had violated Leija's civil rights by using deadly force without justification. To be successful, the plaintiffs would have to establish that a "reasonable officer on the scene" in the same position and with the same knowledge as the trooper would not have had cause to believe that there was an immediate threat of serious physical harm to the officer or others (see Graham v. Connor, 1989). Both the district court and 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the risk to others posed by Leija at the time he was shot was not sufficient to justify the trooper's actions. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to hear an appeal from the 5th Circuit's ruling in the case, Mullenix v. Luna.
A great deal of empirical research has examined juror decision-making and the mental states of defendants in criminal cases, but the mental states of police officers and the reasonableness of their conduct has received less attention. There are similarities between the legal standard for insanity and the legal standard at issue in Mullenix. While the "reasonable officer" standard is considered to be an objective one by the law, evaluating what a fictitious "reasonable" officer would have believed is challenging. It is impossible to mimic the highly charged and sometimes life-or-death conditions under which police officers must make decisions. However, social science research could help to elucidate the processes underlying and influencing the later assessments of reasonableness in such complex circumstances. For example, having data about what the public and legal professionals tend to view as reasonable in such situations could help law enforcement agencies as they evaluate protocols about the use of lethal force.
Such insights would have been particularly useful in light of the recent highly publicized shooting deaths of unarmed Americans by police officers. Part of the disconnect between law enforcement and citizens may stem from a lack of agreement on what "reasonable" behavior is. When applying legal standards, law enforcement agencies and the courts may wish to consider societal norms. Any protocol for deadly force that departs too markedly from societal norms may have the unintended consequence of undermining public support for the legal system and undermining trust of police officers charged with protecting us.
“Judicial Notebook” is a project of APA Div. 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues).
