Former Texas police officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson seeks qualified immunity from civil suit

(CN) — An attorney for former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean told the Fifth Circuit Tuesday that a lower court erred in denying his client qualified immunity in a lawsuit over the killing of Atatiana Jefferson.

Dean shot and killed Jefferson in her Fort Worth, Texas, home in 2019 after police received a non-emergency call from a neighbor reporting that Jefferson’s front door was open. Officers went to the house to investigate, and Dean saw Jefferson in the window holding a handgun, causing him to shoot. The shooting led to widespread protests, and in 2022, Dean was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 11 years and 10 months in prison.

Jefferson’s estate is suing Dean and the City of Fort Worth, claiming Dean violated Jefferson’s constitutional rights by shooting her and by entering her side yard without a warrant. In 2023, the city agreed to pay Jefferson’s family a partial settlement of $3.5 million.

Dean’s attorney, Kenneth East, told a three-judge panel that the lower court erred by denying Dean’s motion to dismiss the claims against him. Although Jefferson’s death was a “tragedy,” East said, Dean did not violate her constitutional rights.

The arguments over the shooting centered largely on whether Dean reasonably feared for his safety in his encounter with Jefferson.

Devi Rao, an attorney representing Jefferson’s estate, said that Jefferson “posed no threat,” but East argued Dean was just following his training and that Fort Worth police policy was to treat open structure calls the same as reports of a burglary in progress.

“If she had a weapon, would it not be just as reasonable an inference that she heard someone crawling around outside of her house, and whether or not it was a police officer, she may have thought that that was an intruder or burglar or someone there up to no good?” U.S Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt asked.

“That’s kind of the true dual nature of this case that’s sort of a tragedy,” East responded. “I’m not suggesting that she didn’t have the right to go to her window and see what she was hearing, but Officer Dean was following his training, orders and reasonable police procedure and looking around that house, and then he looks and he’s suddenly confronted by this armed figure, and based on what he saw, he felt that he was threatened.”

A large portion of the oral arguments focused on the estate’s illegal search claim. East argued that courts have recognized a distinction between police conducting searches to look for evidence and actions taken in a protective capacity. He said Dean entered the yard to investigate a possible burglary, which he argued either should not be considered a search at all or, given the open front door, was justified by exigent circumstances.

U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho questioned Rao about whether there were exigent circumstances.

“Say we’re talking about your home or my home,” Ho said. “A neighbor sees the front door open at 2 a.m., the officer sees that as well, surely we would say that the homeowner would want that to be investigated?”

Rao said Dean could have gone to the front door and knocked, but Ho seemed skeptical of this argument.

“I’m not a police officer. I assume one reason not to is that then alerts the would-be burglar that somebody’s there,” Ho said.

U.S Circuit Judge Dana Douglas, a Biden appointee, joined Engelhardt and Ho, both Trump appointees, on the panel.