■ Left: The courts
have ruled that
suitable warning
announcements
should be given
before a K- 9 is
released to search
for a suspect.
bodily harm, this ruling would seem to resolve the issue of
whether the use of a K- 9 can constitute deadly force. That
is where most writers end their discussion of Robinette, and
where they miss the most important point of the decision.
PHO TOGRAPH: COURTES Y OF ACEK9. COM
determined by examining “the intent of the officer to inflict
death or serious bodily harm and the probability, known to
the officer, but regardless of the officer’s intent, that the law-
enforcement tool, when employed to facilitate an arrest,
creates a ‘substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily
harm.’ ” [Id at 913.]
Although it acknowledged that the K- 9 deployment
resulted in a fatality, the Robinette court nevertheless noted
that “this tragic event was an extreme aberration from the
outcome intended or expected... Given the remote chance
that this particular scenario would occur, we cannot
conclude that Barnes released the dog with the knowledge
that by doing so, he was creating ‘a substantial risk’ that the
dog might kill Briggs.” [Id at 913.]
Because K-9s are not deployed to kill or cause serious
Reasons for the Ruling
Robinette’s ruling that the deployment of K- 9 Casey did not
constitute deadly force was limited to the facts of that particular
case. The court made it clear that deadly force determinations will be made on a case-by-case basis when it ruled that
“The totality of the factors present in a particular case
determine whether deadly force was used to apprehend a
suspect.” [Id at 913.] More importantly, the Robinette court
qualified its ruling that the deployment did not constitute
deadly force: “When a properly trained police dog is used in
