Tennessee v. Garner 1985 Essay -- Supreme Court Decision Essays Case

NameTennessee v. GarnerCitationNo. 83-1035, 83-1070 (1985)FactsOn October 3, 1974, Memphis jurisprudence Officers Hymon and Wright were dispatched to answer a prowler inside call. When the police arrived at the scene, a neighbor gestured to the house where she had heard glass breaking and that someone was breaking into the house. While one of the ships officer radioed that they were on the scene, the other officer went to the rear of the house hearing a door slam and saw someone run across the backyard. The suspect, Edward Garner halt at a 6-feet-high fence at the edge of the yard and proceeded to climb the fence as the police officer called out police, halt. The police officer figure that if Garner made it over the fence he would get away and also figured that Garner was unarmed. Officer Hymon then shot him, hitting him in the back of the head. In using deadly force to prevent the escape of Garner, Hymon used the argument that actions were made under the authority of the Tenness ee statute and pursuant to Police Department policy. Although the departments policy was slightly more restrictive than the statute it still allowed the use of deadly force in cases of burglary. Garners fathers argument was made that his son was shot unconstitutionally because he was captured and shot possessing ten dollars that he had stolen and being unarmed showing no threat of insecurity to the officer. The incident was then reviewed by the Memphis Police Firearms Revie...