Supreme Court appears poised to reject limitation on excessive force prosecutions against police officers

The Supreme Court appeared poised Wednesday to reject a legal theory that places strict limits on lawsuits seeking to hold police officers accountable for their use of deadly force.

The case arose, wrote an appeals court judge, from a banal event. “A routine traffic stop,” the judge wrote, “once again resulted in the death of an unarmed black man.”

The question for the justices was to what extent courts should limit their review to the “moment of the threat” rather than the broader context of the encounter.

There was something of a consensus that the theory focused too narrowly on the seconds before a shooting.

“Everyone agrees that this is wrong,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said. “What’s the harm in saying that?”

The case began one afternoon in April 2016, when Ashtian Barnes, 24, was driving on a highway outside Houston in a car his girlfriend had rented. He was going to pick up his daughter from daycare.

Although Mr Barnes did not know it, the car’s number plate was linked to unpaid tolls incurred by another driver. The Roberto Felix Jr. Office of the Harris County Police Bureau arrested the car based on these unpaid tolls.