Larry E. Holtz, Esq.
In Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. ___ (5/15/2025), the United States Supreme Court determined that, in assessing whether an officer acted reasonably in using force, a court may not simply consider the precise moment of the threat. According to the Court, the “moment-of-threat” rule improperly narrows the proper Fourth Amendment analysis. “To assess whether an officer acted reasonably in using force, a court must consider all the relevant circumstances, including facts and events leading up to the climactic moment.”
The facts of the case unfolded in late April when Officer Roberto Felix, Jr. was patrolling a highway outside Houston when he received a radio alert about an automobile on the road with outstanding toll violations. The officer spotted the car, a Toyota® Corolla, and initiated a traffic stop. The driver, Ashtian Barnes, pulled over to the highway’s shoulder. Officer Felix approached the driver’s side door and asked Barnes for his driving credentials. “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 f—ing 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 backup. By the time it arrived, Barnes was dead. All told, about 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 sued Felix on her son’s behalf. The suit, brought under 42 U.S.C. §1983, alleged that Felix had violated Barnes’s Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force against him.
“A police officer’s use of deadly force violates the Fourth Amendment when it is not ‘objectively reasonable.’ … And that inquiry into reasonableness…requires assessing the ‘totality of the circumstances.’”
“The question here is whether that framework permits courts, in evaluating a police shooting (or other use of force), to apply the so-called moment-of-threat rule used in the courts below. Under that rule, a court looks only to the circumstances existing at the precise time an officer perceived the threat inducing him to shoot.” In the court below, the Fifth Circuit determined that the assessment inquiry is confined to whether the officer was “in danger at the moment of the threat that resulted in [his] use of deadly force.” According to that court, any prior events “leading up to the shooting,” including actions the officer took, were simply “not relevant.” Here, the lower courts found that 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 lower courts concluded, his decision to shoot “did not violate Barnes’s constitutional rights.” The United States Supreme Court disagreed.
In this case, the United States Supreme Court rejected the moment-of-threat rule “as improperly narrowing the requisite Fourth Amendment analysis. To assess whether an officer acted reasonably in using force, a court must consider all the relevant circumstances, including facts and events leading up to the climactic moment.”
It is important to note that under the “totality of the circumstances,” the “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. However, earlier facts and circumstances may bear on how a reasonable officer would have understood and responded to later ones… [T]hose later, ‘in-the-moment’ facts ‘cannot be hermetically sealed off from the context in which they arose.’ 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 moment-of-threat rule applied in the courts below conflicts with the Supreme Court’s instruction to analyze the totality of the circumstances. “Recall that the District Court and Fifth Circuit limited their view to the two seconds before the shooting, after Felix had stepped onto the doorsill of Barnes’s car. Those courts believed that, under Fifth Circuit precedent, they could not take into account anything preceding that final moment. … So, for example, they could not consider the reasons for the stop or the earlier conduct of, and interactions between, the suspect and officer. And, because of that limit, they could not address whether the final two seconds of the encounter would look different if set within a longer timeframe… [Indeed,] some of those facts may not be relevant at all. But, no rule that precludes consideration of prior events in assessing a police shooting is reconcilable with the fact-dependent and context-sensitive approach [the Court has] prescribed. A court deciding a use-of-force case cannot review the totality of the circumstances if it has put on chronological blinders.”
Accordingly, a court cannot “narrow” the totality of the circumstances inquiry to focus on only a single moment. “It must look, too, in this and all excessive force cases, at any relevant events coming before.”As a result, the Court remanded the case to the courts below to now consider the reasonableness of the shooting using the lengthier timeframe set forth above.
Larry E. Holtz has served as a Detective Sergeant with the Atlantic City, New Jersey, Police Department; a Deputy Attorney General for the state of New Jersey, and an Assistant County Prosecutor. Presently, Mr. Holtz is a leading author for Blue360° Media, the largest US provider of legal information which is solely focused on serving law enforcement. Mr. Holtz is a certified police trainer and teaches on a regular basis. He is a member of the bar in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia and is admitted to practice before the federal bar in the District of New Jersey and the Third Circuit.