Tennessee v. Garner

Procedural History

The appellant in this case was the father of a 15-year-old who was shot and killed by a Memphis, Tennessee, police officer. Mr. Garner brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee pursuant to a federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. §1983 (the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, as amended) contending that the police, acting under the color of state law, violated his son's federally protected rights under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The district court dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the police officer was acting under a valid state law that was constitutional. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded the case to the trial court, holding that the Tennessee statute violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari and affirmed the decision of the court of appeals. Associate Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Associate Justices Blackmun, Brennan, Marshall, Powell, and Stevens. Associate Justice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Burger and Associate Justice Rehnquist, dissented.

Facts of the Case

On October 3, 1974, at approximately 10:45 p.m., two Memphis police officers were dispatched to a private residence to investigate a citizen complaint of a prowler inside. When they arrived at the scene, a neighbor standing on her porch pointed to an adjacent house and told the officers that she heard glass breaking and that someone was breaking into the house next door. One of the officers, Elton Hyman, went to the rear of the house, heard a door slam, and then saw someone—later identified as Edward Garner—run across the backyard. Garner stopped when he reached a 6-foot-high chain-link fence separating the yard from the neighbor's property. Using a flashlight, Hyman was able to see Garner's face and hands and was reasonably certain that Garner was unarmed and not carrying any weapons. Hyman later recalled that he thought Garner was crouched against the fence, and appeared to be a teenager, probably about 17 or 18 years old and about 5 feet, 6 inches [Page 799]tall. Hyman yelled, “police, halt,” and Garner started to climb over the fence. To keep Garner from eluding capture by climbing over the chain-link fence, Hyman shot him in the back of the head. Garner succumbed to his injuries and died at a local hospital. The police reported that a purse and $10 taken from the house were found on Garner's body.

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