Supreme Court examines how police deal with the mentally ill

By some estimates, about half the people killed by law enforcement have a mental illness of some kind, according to 30 years of data from the National Sheriffs’ Association. A recent U.S. Supreme Court case asked whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to police encounters with the mentally ill.

A pattern emerged from the National Sheriffs’ Association Data: Someone was in a crisis, the police were called, the person didn’t follow police instruction due to his or her mental illness, the situation escalated. And that held true in the case of 56-year-old Teresa Sheehan, a San Francisco womanwho lived in a group home for the mentally disabled. She was off her medication during an evaluation by a social worker, and she pulled a knife. Police first pepper-sprayed Sheehan, but when that failed to subdue her, they shot her. She was hit five times and survived. Sheehan sued the city of San Francisco, arguing she was the victim of excessive force and police had an obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to accommodate her mental illness. Lawyer Christine Van Aken, arguing for the city, said no accommodation is required if an individual presents a significant threat.

“Any accommodation that increases a safety risk isn’t reasonable as a matter of law,” Van Aken said.

Sheehan’s lawyer, Leonard Feldman, countered by saying police should consider mental illness when deciding how much force to use.

“They’re trained in accommodation techniques, so I don’t think that’s really the issue,” Feldman said. “There’s no dispute that the way to interact with mentally disabled individuals is through communication and time. Police officers know that, and they’re trained that way.”

Justice Elena Kagan posed a scenario in which an officer tells a deaf person. “Put your hands up or I will shoot. … I guess you are saying that the ADA has nothing to do with that case,” she told Van Aken.

“If the person is dangerous in that moment, and it is necessary to shoot to protect public safety, such as if the armed and violent deaf individual is raising a gun at the officer, then, yes,” Van Aken answered.

Feldman then said the case should be dismissed because facts are in dispute, and juries decide facts, not Supreme Court justices. The case was fraught with high emotions given the national conversation about the use of excessive force by police and the rights of disabled persons. However the justices decide, advocates for the disabled want more training for police to prevent these increasingly common encounters from turning violent.

Listen to Legal Docket on The World and Everything in It.