The decision says that Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca, who was 15 when he was killed in 2010, was not protected by US laws against the use of force because at the time of the shooting he was on the side of Mexico.
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The Supreme Court expressed concern about the implications for US foreign policy if families of Mexican teenagers killed by Border Patrol agents were allowed in border shootings to sue here.
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The president of the Court, Judge John Roberts, said the Border Patrol investigation determined that agent Jesús Mesa had not violated the institution’s rules.
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“Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca, a 15-year-old Mexican citizen, was with a group of friends in a sewer … that separates El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The border crosses the center of the sewer. the Border Patrol, Jesús Mesa Jr., stopped one of Hernandez’s friends who had run into the side of the US sewer, after Hernandez, who was also on the US side, ran back through from the sewer on Mexican soil, agent Mesa shot Hernandez twice, one gave him and killed him on the other side of the border, “details the document of the decision.
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The plaintiffs and agent Mesa “disagree about what Hernandez and his friends were doing at the time of the shooting. According to the petitioners, they were simply playing, crossing the sewer, touching the fence on the US side … According to the Agent Mesa, Hernández and his friends were involved in an illegal attempt to cross the border, and threw it with stones, “the text explains.
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Steve Vladeck, a lawyer representing the young man’s family, said, according to quotes from The Washington Post, to the Supreme Court that allowing the lawsuit to continue would not undermine foreign relations or challenge Border Patrol policies, but there must be a way for victims’ families to hold individual officers responsible for using excessive force.
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Judge Samuel Alito wrote the opinion supported by the other four conservatives while the four liberal judges disagreed.
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The precedents of the Supreme Court are in a 1971 case when people were allowed to sue for unconstitutional actions of federal officials but with the decision on Tuesday the legal frameworks of that decision do not extend to violations of the constitution that cross the border .
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“The special factors presented by the Court relate, in general, to foreign policy and national security. But, as suggested above, no policies or policy makers are questioned in this case. The plaintiffs point to the dishonest actions of an officer, “Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her dissenting opinion.
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“I resist the conclusion that ‘nothing’ is the response required in this case. It would reverse the trial of the Fifth Circuit (court of appeals that had also rejected the family’s claim) and claim that plaintiffs can sue Mesa in federal court for violating the fourth and fifth amendments, “concluded the magistrate.
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