In the wake of George Floyd’s death, legislators in Minnesota and across the United States have been working to try to find ways to curtail the use of deadly force by police to subdue suspects that could be managed in other ways. Locally, a St. Paul legislator believes that changing the wording of the current use of deadly force statute would have the intended effect, but others aren’t so sure. In today’s blog, we look at the current statute, what is being proposed and share our thoughts on whether that would be enough.
New Language Proposed
Rep. Rena Moran, DFL-St. Paul, is sponsoring a bill that would tweak the language of the law regarding a police officer’s discretion to use deadly force. Here’s a look at the current language and the newly proposed language.
Current – The use of deadly force by a peace officer in the line of duty is justified only when necessary:
1. to protect the peace officer or another from apparent death or great bodily; or
2. to effect the arrest or capture, or prevent the escape, of a person whom the peace officer knows or has reasonable grounds to believe has committed or attempted to commit a felony; or
3. to effect the arrest or capture, or prevent the escape, of a person whom the officer knows or has reasonable grounds to believe has committed or attempted to commit a felony if the officer reasonably believes that the person will cause death or great bodily harm if the person’s apprehension is delayed.
Proposed – The use of deadly force by a peace officer in the line of duty is justified only when the officer reasonably believes, based on the totality of the circumstances, that such force is necessary:
1. to protect the peace officer or another from imminent death or great bodily harm; or
2. to effect the arrest or capture, or prevent the escape, of a person whom the peace officer knows or has reasonable grounds to believe has committed or attempted to commit a felony; or and the officer reasonably believes that the person will cause death or great bodily harm to another person unless immediately apprehended.
3. (Section 3, as proposed above, has been removed and replaced with section 3B.)
3B. A peace officer shall not use deadly force against a person based on the danger the person poses to self if an objectively reasonable officer would believe the person does not pose an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to the peace officer or to another person.
Differences and Shortcomings
So what are the main differences between the old and the newly proposed bill? The biggest difference that Moran points to is the change from the word “apparent” to “imminent” in section 1. She believes that tweaking this language would help ensure officers only used deadly force to stop an actual imminent threat in the moment, while the word “apparent” leaves it a little more open to interpretation.
It may tighten it a bit, but as a lawyer, we don’t really see this one word change making a huge difference in the courtroom should a court be making a determination into an officer’s use of force. A good lawyer can argue semantics over the interpretation of what is “apparent” and what is “imminent,” so even if this measure passes, it seems unlikely we’d see an officer charged under the new law where they wouldn’t have also faced charges under the old language.
However, there is another aspect of the proposed change that we think could make a difference. That’s the addition of the language in the law’s pretext that says deadly use of force is only justified when “the officer reasonably believes, based on the totality of the circumstances, that such force is necessary.” Applied to George Floyd’s death, the totality of the circumstances clearly suggest that at that moment, deadly force in the form of a knee to the neck was no longer necessary. This line of thinking could be applied to future cases where a suspect may have performed an action that could have warranted use of deadly force, but that moment has since passed and they are no longer an imminent threat, so now if deadly force is used by the officer, they could be held accountable.
The changes also state that police can’t use deadly force against someone who is only an imminent threat to themselves. Better handling of mental health calls has been demanded for a while, and this proposal may help address that by preventing the escalation of situations where there is no direct threat to safety other than to the vulnerable individual.
Hopefully these changes push us in the right direction, but much more needs to be done to curtail police violence in certain situations.
