Third Circuit Holds Officer's Mistaken Belief Suspect Was Armed Was Reasonable in Deadly Force Shooting

The Third Circuit upheld a lower court’s grant of summary judgment to a Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed Justin Paul Smith during a response to a 911 call, ruling that the officer’s use of deadly force was objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

The court concluded that Officer Curt McKee’s belief that Smith was armed and charging at him was reasonable, even though it was not definitively established whether Smith actually possessed a knife. The court emphasized that an officer who uses deadly force in a mistaken but reasonable belief that a suspect is armed will be forgiven if the circumstances otherwise justify such force.

The dispute centers on an incident where McKee responded to a call involving Smith, who had entered a home and was confronted by a distressed resident yelling at him to leave while children cried in the background.

McKee concluded Smith was in the kitchen, where Smith repeatedly failed to obey lawful orders to show his hands, which were behind his back. Instead, Smith yelled and moved toward McKee.

McKee attempted to deploy a taser for non-lethal force, but the device malfunctioned. McKee then shot Smith once after seeing him grab a knife from the kitchen counter and lunge toward him.

The opinion notes that it is not definitively established whether Smith actually possessed a knife, but the court held this factual dispute was immaterial. The relevant inquiry is whether McKee’s belief that Smith was armed and charging at him was reasonable.

Citing established precedent, the court affirmed that an officer who uses deadly force in a mistaken but reasonable belief that a suspect is armed will be forgiven if the circumstances otherwise justify such force.

The court held that circumstantial evidence supported McKee’s testimony, including a resident who also saw Smith holding a knife and a recovered knife with overwhelming evidence of Smith’s DNA.

Appellants argued McKee should have used his taser or retreated, but the court rejected these theories. The record showed McKee backed up before firing, and the law does not require an officer to exhaust every possible way to defuse a split-second, life-or-death confrontation.

The Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s judgment. The court noted it need not address arguments regarding qualified immunity because McKee’s use of force was reasonable, and it dismissed state-law wrongful-death claims as merely procedural vehicles rather than substantive causes of action.