Robert Sanchez Turner v. Al Thomas, Jr., et al.
SocialSecurity DueProcess Privacy JusticiabilityDoctri
What analytical framework applies to the state-created danger doctrine?
QUESTIONS PRESENTED The following questions stem from the Fourth Circuit’s Published Opinion regarding claims asserted by Mr. Turner: 1. What analytical framework applies to the statecreated danger doctrine regarding (1) what constitutes an affirmative act; (2) whether a government action must create a risk of harm to a specific individual or the public at large; (3) whether a government actor must possess actual knowledge of a danger; (4) whether a government’s affirmative action must shock the conscience to constitute state-created danger; and (5) whether a government’s affirmative action must cut off all avenues of recourse available to a person? 2. Did the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals err by reasoning that a verbal order to law enforcement officers to stand down in front of racially-charged felonious assaults is not an affirmative act under precedent of this Court and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, when the considered-true facts demonstrated that law enforcement officials sent subordinate law enforcement officers to the location of anticipated racial violence with orders to stand down in front of felonious assault until the violence reached a level to justify declaring a state of emergency so that the subject ‘rally’ could be moved to a preferred location? u 3. Did the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals err by defining the right at issue in this case at an unlawfully high level of generality that did not take into account the considered-true facts of this case nor the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ own binding precedent, which expressly delineates the contours of qualified immunity in the context of the state-created danger doctrine?