No. 19-529

Robert Sanchez Turner v. Al Thomas, Jr., et al.

Lower Court: Fourth Circuit
Docketed: 2019-10-22
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Response Waived
Tags: actual-knowledge-of-danger affirmative-act civil-rights constitutional-rights cut-off-all-avenues-of-recourse due-process law-enforcement public-safety qualified-immunity racial-violence shock-the-conscience specific-individual-or-public state-created-danger
Latest Conference: 2020-01-10
Question Presented (from Petition)

The following questions stem from the Fourth
Circuit's Published Opinion regarding claims asserted
by Mr. Turner:

1. What analytical framework applies to the statecreated danger doctrine regarding (1) what
c o ns ti tu tes an affirma ti v e act ; ( 2 ) w h e th e r a
government action must create a risk of harm
to a specific individual or the public at large;
(3) whether a government actor must possess
actual knowledge of a danger; (4) whether a
government's affirmative action must shock the
conscience to constitute state-created danger;
and (5) whether a government's affirmative action
must cut off all avenues of recourse available to
a person?

2. Did the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals err by
reasoning that a verbal order to law enforcement
officers to stand down in front of racially-charged
felonious assaults is not an affirmative act under
precedent of this Court and the Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals, when the considered-true facts
demonstrated that law enforcement officials
sent subordinate law enforcement officers to the
location of anticipated racial violence with orders
to stand down in front of felonious assault until
the violence reached a level to justify declaring
a state of emergency so that the subject 'rally'
could be moved to a preferred location?

3. Did the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals err
by defining the right at issue in this case at
an unlawfully high level of generality that did
not take into account the considered-true facts
of this case nor the Fourth Circuit Court of
Appeals' own binding precedent, which expressly
delineates the contours of qualified immunity in
the context of the state-created danger doctrine?

Question Presented (AI Summary)

What analytical framework applies to the state-created danger doctrine?

Docket Entries

2020-01-13
Petition DENIED.
2019-12-04
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/10/2020.
2019-10-23
Waiver of right of respondent W. Steven Flaherty to respond filed.
2019-10-23
Waiver of right of respondent Al Thomas, Jr. to respond filed.
2019-10-17
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due November 21, 2019)

Attorneys

Al Thomas, Jr.
David Patrick CorriganHarman Claytor Corrigan & Wellman, Respondent
Robert Turner
Mario Bernard WilliamsNDH LLC, Petitioner
W. Steven Flaherty
Toby Jay HeytensOffice of the Attorney General, Respondent