Supreme Court unanimously reiterates “totality of the circumstances” approach to Fourth Amendment

The Supreme Court this morning handed down a short opinion in Barnes v. Felix, No. 23–1239 (S. Ct. May 15, 2025) (available here).  The unanimous ruling, authored by Justice Kagan for the Court, breaks no new ground, but reiterates prior doctrines in reversing the Fifth Circuit.  Here is how the nine-page opinion for the Court starts:

A police officer’s use of deadly force violates the Fourth Amendment when it is not “objectively reasonable.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 397 (1989). And that inquiry into reasonableness, we have held, requires assessing the “totality of the circumstances.” Id., at 396 (quoting Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 9 (1985)).

The question here is whether that framework permits courts, in evaluating a police shooting (or other use of force), to apply the so-called moment-of-threat rule used in the courts below.  Under that rule, a court looks only to the circumstances existing at the precise time an officer perceived the threat inducing him to shoot. Today, we reject that approach as improperly narrowing the requisite Fourth Amendment analysis.  To assess whether an officer acted reasonably in using force, a court must consider all the relevant circumstances, including facts and events leading up to the climactic moment.

Justice Kavanaugh authored a six-page concurring opinion that was joined by Justices Thomas, Alito and Barrett. Here is its first paragraph:

I join the Court’s opinion.  I agree that the officer’s actions during the traffic stop in this case should be assessed based on the totality of the circumstances.  I write separately to add a few points about the dangers of traffic stops for police officers, particularly when as here the driver pulls away in the midst of the stop.

I will leave it to Fourth Amendment experts to determine if there is anything doctrinally consequential in this rulings. For me and perhaps other sentencing fans, some of the broader vibes seem worth noting. For example, it seems interesting (but perhaps unsurprising) who joined and who did not join Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence. In addition, I find notable that both opinions include much discussion of modern Fourth Amendment caselaw, as well as modern policing realities, but seemingly do not engage at all the text, history and tradition of the actual Fourth Amendment.