Case law is a fascinating thing. Sometimes, something a judge says in the course of a ruling has far-reaching effects that have little to do with the initial case. While a recent statement in an Alabama case probably doesn’t change anything, it did go to an interesting place.

It all started in 2020 when Dustin Cody Martin of Birmingham ran from police officers who tried to pull him over for erratic driving. While fleeing from the cops, he struck a car in which 5-year-old Kamerynn Young was riding. Kamerynn was killed, and Martin was later apprehended. (In 2022, Martin pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 17 years in jail.)

Kamerynn’s family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Martin, his employer (which owned the truck he was driving), the City of Birmingham and the two officers who pursued him (who are no longer with the department). In July 2023, the City and the police officers filed a motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, which was denied by the lower court in September of that year. The case eventually made its way to the Alabama Supreme Court.

While the case is chock-full of discussion fodder, the truly noteworthy part happened when the justices issued their decision. Last month, the court denied the request for summary judgment, but one of the justices had some striking things to say.

Even though he voted with the majority, Justice Greg Cook felt compelled to issue a written opinion that questioned the Birmingham P.D.’s pursuit policy.

“We have no authority to rewrite this policy. Any changes to this policy lie with the City of Birmingham and the BPD. And, any changes to state law regarding police-pursuit policies (or immunity law) lie with our Legislature,” Cook wrote. “At this stage, our Court’s only role is to apply the procedural limitations of mandamus review to the invocation of the well-settled doctrine of peace-officer immunity.”

Still, Cook went on to say he was writing “specially to express my view that denying the petition given the circumstances in this case may be inconsistent with the underlying purpose of our peace-officer-immunity doctrine. Here, Officers Smith and Richardson contend that they observed a threat to public safety and made efforts to discharge their duty to protect the public from that threat. In my view, that is precisely the kind of conduct peace-officer immunity is designed to shield.”

Much of Cook’s concern lay with the “absolute nature” of Birmingham’s pursuit policy. In other words, the fact that the policy strictly forbade officers from pursuing fleeing drivers (instead of providing guidelines) meant that officers were deprived of the protection they were supposed to receive from qualified immunity.

Birmingham’s actual pursuit policy does not appear to be all that different from many other departments throughout the nation. According to news site AL.com, it simply “bars its officers from pursuing traffic offenders, including drivers fleeing from the police.” Much to the chagrin of officers everywhere, this type of policy is now relatively common. The issue, according to Cook, is that the absolute prohibition in the policy (versus guidelines) strips officers of the possibility of qualified immunity.

Cook’s statement may point to a larger issue with policy trends. While policy is generally meant to let a department regulate how its officers should respond to situations, it also ends up having an outsized influence when the department (or officers) is sued. Depending on how the policy is written, officers might be deprived of certain legal protections.