US Supreme Court Sides with Cop's Testimony, Blocks Jury Trial

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday decided to uphold the decision of a lower court in a case involving a Texas police officer involved in shooting a man in the back, blocking the possibility of a trial.

RELATED:
Florida Police Shoot Twice as Many Blacks as Whites: Report

The case, Salazar-Limon v. City of Houston, questioned whether the police officer, Chris Thompson, shot the unarmed man, Ricardo Salazar-Limon, in the back while he was walking away as the victim described or whether he was reaching for his waistband as the officer described, according to the Supreme Court of the U.S. blog.

In 2010 during a traffic stop, Houston police officer Thompson shot unarmed Salazar-Limon in the back leaving him partially paralyzed. Thompson later claimed that he shot Salazar-Limon for fear of his own life justifying the use of "excessive force." Salazar-Limon sued, leaving it to the jury to decide the validity of Thompson’s claims.

The top court sided with the Thompson's version of events, saying his testimony amounted to "undisputed facts" effectively blocking a jury trial.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the majority opinion, calling it a "disturbing trend" of protecting cops from lawsuits, making them less accountable for their actions.

"The question whether the officer used excessive force in shooting Salazar-Limon thus turns in large part on which man is telling the truth," Sotomayor wrote. "Our legal system entrusts this decision to a jury," she added.

"Our failure to correct the error made by the courts below leaves in place a judgment that accepts the word of one party over the word of another," Sotomayor added.

RELATED:
Family of Suicidal Latino Man Shot by Police Sues City

"It also continues a disturbing trend regarding the use of this court's resources. We have not hesitated to summarily reverse courts for wrongly denying officers the protection of qualified immunity in cases involving the use of force," she said, according to the Washington Examiner.

Given the officer and the suspect disagreed on so much of the encounter, the Supreme Court should have reinstated the case, Sotomayor said.
"The most natural inference to be drawn from Salazar-Limon's testimony was that he neither turned nor reached for his waistband before he was shot, especially as no gun was ever recovered," Sotomayor said.

According to the Houston Chronicle, between 2008 and 2012, Houston police shot 121 people, 52 of them fatally, and during the same time, the Harris County grand juries cleared Houston Police Department officers of criminal wrongdoing in all shootings.