Segura Mercado SA 20-002 FINAL August 6 2020_Redacted

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8 an honest fear and conviction that he/she or another person is about to suffer bodily injury, to act in self-defense or defense of others upon such appearances, and from such fear and honest convictions. The person’s right of self-defense is the same whether the danger is real or merely apparent. (People v. Jackson (1965) 233 Cal.App.2d 639, 641-642.) Nevertheless, the above justifications must be interpreted in light of United States Supreme Court precedent that limits the right of a police officer to use deadly force. (People v. Martin (1985) 168 Cal.App.3d 1111, 1124.) Thus, in Tennessee v. Garner (1985) 471 U.S. 1, 3, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a police officer is entitled to use deadly force only when “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.” This limitation was, however, clarified subsequently by the United States Supreme Court in the seminal case of Graham v. Connor (1989) 490 U.S. 386, wherein the Supreme Court explained that an officer’s right to use force [i.e., his/her weapon] is to be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment’s “objective reasonableness” standard. The Supreme Court further stated that the determination of the reasonableness of an officer’s use of force “must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation” (Id. at 396-397.) The United States Supreme Court’s analysis and teachings in Graham are very much applicable to the circumstances surrounding the interactions of SAPD Officers Roelofs and Espadas with Miguel Segura Mercado. LEGAL ANALYSIS The facts in this case are determined mainly by considering Body Worn Cameras, all witness statements to OCDASAU investigators, and all available evidence that was collected. The issue in this case is whether the conduct of Officers Roelofs and/or Espadas on January 20, 2020 was criminally culpable and without justification. As stated above, to charge Officers Roelofs and/or Espadas with a criminal violation, it is required that the prosecution be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that no legal justification existed for the police officers’ conduct. Therefore, to lawfully charge Officers Roelofs and/or Espadas with a crime, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did not act in lawful self-defense or defense of others. If the actions of Officers Roelofs and/or Espadas were justifiable and necessary as lawful self-defense or defense of others, then criminal charges will not be warranted. The Court of Appeal held that it is well settled that “unlike private citizens, police officers act under color of law to protect the public interest. They are charged with acting affirmatively and using force as part of their duties, because ‘the right to make an arrest or investigatory stop necessarily carries with it the right to use some degree of physical coercion or threat thereof to effectuate it.’ Police officers are, in short, not similarly situated to the ordinary battery defendant and need not be treated the same. In these cases, then, the [ ] police officer is in the exercise of the privilege of protecting the public peace and order and he is entitled to the even greater use of force than might be in the same circumstances required for self-defense.” (Brown v. Ransweiler (2009) 171 Cal.App.4th 516, 527.) Where potentially dangerous, emergency conditions or other exigent circumstances exist, the California Court of Appeal has noted that the United States Supreme Court's definition of