Tennessee v. Garner was a civil case brought forward in 1984 by the father of a fifteen-year-old boy named Edward Garner. The father sought a closer look into the law following the murder of his son. Garner was killed in 1973 by a police officer because he escaped custody. Officer Elton Hymon was within the law's provisions when he shot dead the petty burglar for attempting to climb a fence and run away. However, the impact of Garner's death questioned the efficiency of the law. Garner had stolen ten dollars and a purse from the house and was not likely to be a direct danger to himself or others. Officer Hymon admitted to having seen his arms and feet before he shot him and was sure he was unarmed. While it is illegal to flee from police custody, the argument in the case was that Garner's crime and actions while fleeing did not necessitate the use of deadly force. The shot's outcome was also a concern since Garner was young and, given his crime, would have served a short sentence and leave in time to make something good of his life. The US Supreme Court, in March 1985, agreed with the prosecution's argument and held that "laws authorizing police use of deadly force to apprehend fleeing, unarmed, non-violent felony suspects violate the Fourth Amendment, and therefore states should eliminate them" ( Tennessee v. Garner , 1985). I agree with the prosecution's argument and, consequently, with the Court's decision. The issue of police brutality has significantly been debated upon since the wake of civilization. There is a tug of war between police officers whose job is to protect civilians from dangerous community members and the civilians who mourn the loss of one of them too often. The law is the mediator between the two parties, and it does so by providing rules that keep each of them in order. The major impact of Tennessee v. Garner is that it saved lives. Whether the spared lives are innocent or not is for the law to determine. Police officers' role is only to arrest suspected criminals, not to determine their guilt, and kill them based on their judgment. Statistics show that after the ruling, the police homicides' rate reduced by thirteen percent in constitutional states and twenty-four percent in unconstitutional states (Tennenbaum, 1994). Overall, the rate declined by sixteen percent. These statistics prove that the ruling protected and continues to save lives lost under police officers' arms. Secondly, the provision served to keep a check on police officers. The Court ruled that violence may be used in pursuing a suspect "only if the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others" (Tennenbaum, 1994). The justifiability of a police homicide then comes down to the police officers' instinct on the danger the suspect poses to society. However, after Tennessee v. Garner , police officers' reasons for using deadly force were tightened. For instance, Officer Hymon was not justified to shoot Garner based on the information he had gathered within the pursuit period. He could tell that he was a teenager and that he was unarmed. Garner's crime was also an indication of his level of danger to officer Hymon and the community.
The death of Edward Garner was as saddening as it was pivotal. His father's bold decision to legally pursue the injustice surrounding it prevented so many similar deaths from ever happening.
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Works Cited
Tennenbaum, A. N. (1994). The influence of the Garner decision on police use of deadly
force. J. Crim. L. & Criminology , 85 , 241. https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/jclc85§ion=13
Tennessee v. Garner , 471 U.S. 1, 105 S. Ct. 1694, 85 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1985).
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