Cite as: 523 U. S. 833 (1998)
Rehnquist, C. J., concurring
Smith was faced with a course of lawless behavior for which the police were not to blame. They had done nothing to cause Willard's high-speed driving in the first place, nothing to excuse his flouting of the commonly understood law enforcement authority to control traffic, and nothing (beyond a refusal to call off the chase) to encourage him to race through traffic at breakneck speed forcing other drivers out of their travel lanes. Willard's outrageous behavior was practically instantaneous, and so was Smith's instinctive response. While prudence would have repressed the reaction, the officer's instinct was to do his job as a law enforcement officer, not to induce Willard's lawlessness, or to terrorize, cause harm, or kill. Prudence, that is, was subject to countervailing enforcement considerations, and while Smith exaggerated their demands, there is no reason to believe that they were tainted by an improper or malicious motive on his part.
Regardless whether Smith's behavior offended the reasonableness held up by tort law or the balance struck in law enforcement's own codes of sound practice, it does not shock the conscience, and petitioners are not called upon to answer for it under § 1983. The judgment below is accordingly reversed.
It is so ordered.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court in this case. The first question presented in the county's petition for certiorari is:
"Whether, in a police pursuit case, the legal standard of conduct necessary to establish a violation of substanicy choices . . . must be made by locally elected representatives [or by courts enforcing the common law of torts], rather than by federal judges interpreting the basic charter of Government for the entire country"). Cf. Thomas v. City of Richmond, 9 Cal. 4th 1154, 892 P. 2d 1185 (1995) (en banc) (discussing municipal liability under California law for injuries caused by police pursuits).
855
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