NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
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of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 19–292

															_________________

															ROXANNE TORRES, PETITIONER v. JANICE
MADRID, et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the tenth circuit

															[March 25, 2021]

															Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of
the Court.

															The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable
“seizures” to safeguard “[t]he right of the people to be secure in
their persons.” Under our cases, an officer seizes a person when he
uses force to apprehend her. The question in this case is whether a
seizure occurs when an officer shoots someone who temporarily
eludes capture after the shooting. The answer is yes: The
application of physical force to the body of a person with intent
to restrain is a seizure, even if the force does not succeed in
subduing the person.

															I

															At dawn on July 15, 2014, four New Mexico
State Police officers arrived at an apartment complex in
Albuquerque to execute an arrest warrant for a woman accused of
white collar crimes, but also “suspected of having been involved in
drug trafficking, murder, and other violent crimes.” App. to Pet.
for Cert. 11a. What happened next is hotly contested. We recount
the facts in the light most favorable to petitioner Roxanne Torres
because the court below granted summary judgment to Officers Janice
Madrid and Richard Williamson, the two respondents here. Tolan v. Cotton , 572 U.S.
650 , 655–656 (2014) ( per curiam ).

															The officers observed Torres standing with
another person near a Toyota FJ Cruiser in the parking lot of the
complex. Officer Williamson concluded that neither Torres nor her
companion was the target of the warrant. As the officers approached
the vehicle, the companion departed, and Torres—at the time
experiencing methamphetamine withdrawal—got into the driver’s seat.
The officers attempted to speak with her, but she did not notice
their presence until one of them tried to open the door of her
car.

															Although the officers wore tactical vests marked
with police identification, Torres saw only that they had guns. She
thought the officers were carjackers trying to steal her car, and
she hit the gas to escape them. Neither Officer Madrid nor Officer
Williamson, according to Torres, stood in the path of the vehicle,
but both fired their service pistols to stop her. All told, the two
officers fired 13 shots at Torres, striking her twice in the back
and temporarily paralyzing her left arm.

															Steering with her right arm, Torres accelerated
through the fusillade of bullets, exited the apartment complex,
drove a short distance, and stopped in a parking lot. After asking
a bystander to report an attempted carjacking, Torres stole a Kia
Soul that happened to be idling nearby and drove 75 miles to
Grants, New Mexico. The good news for Torres was that the hospital
in Grants was able to airlift her to another hospital where she
could receive appropriate care. The bad news was that the hospital
was back in Albuquerque, where the police arrested her the next
day. She pleaded no contest to aggravated fleeing from a law
enforcement officer, assault on a peace officer, and unlawfully
taking a motor vehicle.

															Torres later sought damages from Officers Madrid
and Williamson under 42 U. S. C. §1983, which provides a
cause of action for the deprivation of constitutional rights by
persons acting under color of state law. She claimed that the
officers applied excessive force, making the shooting an
unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The District Court
granted summary judgment to the officers, and the Court of Appeals
for the Tenth Circuit affirmed on the ground that “a suspect’s
continued flight after being shot by police negates a Fourth
Amendment excessive-force claim.” 769 Fed. Appx. 654, 657 (2019).
The court relied on Circuit precedent providing that “no seizure
can occur unless there is physical touch or a show of authority,”
and that “such physical touch (or force) must terminate the
suspect’s movement” or otherwise give rise to physical control over
the suspect. Brooks v. Gaenzle , 614 F.3d 1213, 1223
(2010).

															We granted certiorari. 589 U. S. ___
(2019).

															II

															The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of
the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” This case
concerns the “seizure” of a “person,” which can take the form of
“physical force” or a “show of authority” that “in some way
restrain[s] the liberty” of the person. Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S.
1 , 19, n. 16 (1968). The question before us is whether the
application of physical force is a seizure if the force, despite
hitting its target, fails to stop the person.

															We largely covered this ground in California v. Hodari D. , 499
U.S. 621 (1991). There we interpreted the term “seizure” by
consulting the common law of arrest, the “quintessential ‘seizure
of the person’ under our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” Id. , at 624. As Justice Scalia explained for himself and six
other Members of the Court, the common law treated “the mere
grasping or application of physical force with lawful authority” as
an arrest, “whether or not it succeeded in subduing the arrestee.” Ibid. ; see id. , at 625 (“merely touching” sufficient
to constitute an arrest). Put another way, an officer’s application
of physical force to the body of a person “ ‘for the purpose
of arresting him’ ” was itself an arrest—not an attempted arrest—even if the person did not yield. Id. , at 624 (quoting Whithead v. Keyes , 85
Mass. 495, 501 (1862)).

															The common law distinguished the application of
force from a show of authority, such as an order for a suspect to
halt. The latter does not become an arrest unless and until the
arrestee complies with the demand. As the Court explained in Hodari D. , “[a]n arrest requires either physical
force . . . or , where that is absent, submission to the assertion of authority.” 499 U. S.,
at 626 (emphasis in original). Hodari D. articulates two pertinent
principles. First, common law arrests are Fourth Amendment
seizures. And second, the common law considered the application of
force to the body of a person with intent to restrain to be an
arrest, no matter whether the arrestee escaped. We need not decide
whether Hodari D. , which principally concerned a show of
authority, controls the outcome of this case as a matter of stare decisis , because we independently reach the same
conclusions.

															At the adoption of the Fourth Amendment, a
“seizure” was the “act of taking by warrant” or “of laying hold on
suddenly”—for example, when an “officer seizes a thief.” 2 N.
Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language 67 (1828)
(Webster) (emphasis deleted). A seizure did not necessarily result
in actual control or detention. It is true that, when speaking of
property, “[f]rom the time of the founding to the present, the word
‘seizure’ has meant a ‘taking possession.’ ” Hodari D. ,
499 U. S., at 624 (quoting 2 Webster 67). But the Framers
selected a term—seizure—broad enough to apply to all the concerns
of the Fourth Amendment: “persons,” as well as “houses, papers, and
effects.” As applied to a person, “[t]he word ‘seizure’ readily
bears the meaning of a laying on of hands or application of
physical force to restrain movement, even when it is ultimately
unsuccessful.” 499 U. S., at 626. Then, as now, an ordinary
user of the English language could remark: “She seized the
purse-snatcher, but he broke out of her grasp.” Ibid. The “seizure” of a “person” plainly refers to an
arrest. That linkage existed at the founding. Samuel Johnson, for
example, defined an “arrest” as “[a]ny . . . seizure of
the person.” 1 A Dictionary of the English Language 108 (4th ed.
1773). And that linkage persists today. As we have repeatedly
recognized, “the arrest of a person is quintessentially a seizure.” Payton v. New York , 445 U.S.
573 , 585 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Hodari D. , 499 U. S., at 624.

															Because arrests are seizures of a person, Hodari D. properly looked to the common law of arrest for
“historical understandings ‘of what was deemed an unreasonable
search and seizure when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.’ ” Carpenter v. United States , 585 U. S. ___, ___
(2018) (slip op., at 6) (quoting Carroll v. United
States , 267 U.S.
132 , 149 (1925); alteration omitted). Sometimes the historical
record will not yield a well-settled legal rule. See, e.g. , Atwater v. Lago Vista , 532 U.S.
318 , 327–328 (2001); Payton , 445 U. S., at 593–596.
We do not face that problem here. The cases and commentary speak
with virtual unanimity on the question before us today.

															The common law rule identified in Hodari
D. —that the application of force gives rise to an arrest, even
if the officer does not secure control over the arrestee—achieved
recognition to such an extent that English lawyers could
confidently (and accurately) proclaim that “[a]ll the authorities,
from the earliest time to the present, establish that a corporal
touch is sufficient to constitute an arrest, even though the
defendant do not submit.” Nicholl v. Darley , 2 Y.
& J. 399, 400, 148 Eng. Rep. 974 (Exch. 1828) (citing Hodges v. Marks , Cro. Jac. 485, 79 Eng. Rep. 414
(K. B. 1615)). The slightest application of force could
satisfy this rule. In Genner v. Sparks , 6 Mod. 173,
87 Eng. Rep. 928 (Q. B. 1704), the defendant did not submit to
the authority of an arrest warrant, but the court explained that
the bailiff would have made an arrest if he “had but touched the
defendant even with the end of his finger.” Ibid. , 87 Eng.
Rep., at 929. So too, if a “bailiff caught one by the hand (whom he
had a warrant to arrest) as he held it out of a window,” that alone
would accomplish an arrest. Anonymus , 1 Vent. 306, 86 Eng.
Rep. 197 (K. B. 1677). The touching of the person—frequently
called a laying of hands—was enough. See Dunscomb v. Smith , Cro. Car. 164, 79 Eng. Rep. 743 (K. B. 1629).
Only later did English law grow to recognize arrest without
touching through a submission to a show of authority. See Horner v. Battyn , Bull. N. P. 62 (K. B.
1738), reprinted in W. Loyd, Cases on Civil Procedure 798 (1916).
Even so, the traditional rule persisted that all an arrest required
was “corporal seising or touching the defendant’s body.” 3 W.
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 288 (1768)
(Blackstone).

															Early American courts adopted this mere-touch
rule from England, just as they embraced other common law
principles of search and seizure. See Wilson v. Arkansas , 514 U.S.
927 , 933 (1995). Justice Baldwin, instructing a jury in his
capacity as Circuit Justice, defined an arrest to include “touching
or putting hands upon [the arrestee] in the execution of process.” United States v. Benner , 24 F. Cas. 1084, 1086–1087
(No. 14,568) (CC ED Pa. 1830). State courts agreed that “any
touching, however slight, is enough,” Butler v. Washburn , 25 N. H. 251, 258 (1852), provided the
officer made his intent to arrest clear, see Jones v. Jones , 35 N. C. 448, 448–449 (1852). Courts continued
to hold that an arrest required only the application of force—not
control or custody—through the framing of the Fourteenth Amendment,
which incorporated the protections of the Fourth Amendment against
the States. See Whithead , 85 Mass., at 501; Searls v. Viets , 2 Thomp. & C. 224, 226 (N. Y. Sup. Ct.
1873); State v. Dennis , 16 Del. 433, 436–437, 43 A.
261, 262 (1895); see also H. Voorhees, The Law of Arrest in Civil
and Criminal Actions §74, p. 44 (1904).

															Stated simply, the cases “abundantly shew that
the slightest touch [was] an arrest in point of law.” Nicholl , 2 Y. & J., at 404, 148 Eng. Rep., at 976.
Indeed, it was not even required that the officer have, at the time
of such an arrest, “the power of keeping the party so arrested
under restraint.” Sandon v. Jervis , El. Bl. & El.
935, 940, 120 Eng. Rep. 758, 760 (Q. B. 1858). The
consequences would be “pernicious,” an English judge worried, if
the question of control “were perpetually to be submitted to a
jury.” Ibid. ; cf. 3 Blackstone 120 (describing how “[t]he
least touching of another’s person” could satisfy the common law
definition of force to commit battery, “for the law cannot draw the
line between different degrees of violence”).

															This case, of course, does not involve “laying
hands,” Sheriff v. Godfrey , 7 Mod. 288, 289, 87 Eng.
Rep. 1247 (K. B. 1739), but instead a shooting. Neither the
parties nor the United States as amicus curiae suggests that
the officers’ use of bullets to restrain Torres alters the analysis
in any way. And we are aware of no common law authority addressing
an arrest under such circumstances, or indeed any case involving an
application of force from a distance.

															The closest decision seems to be Countess of
Rutland’s Case , 6 Co. Rep. 52b, 77 Eng. Rep. 332 (Star Chamber
1605). In that case, serjeants-at-mace tracked down Isabel
Holcroft, Countess of Rutland, to execute a writ for a judgment of
debt. They “shewed her their mace, and touching her body with it,
said to her, we arrest you, madam.” Id. , at 54a, 77 Eng.
Rep., at 336. We think the case is best understood as an example of
an arrest made by touching with an object, for the
serjeants-at-mace announced the arrest at the time they touched the
countess with the mace. See, e.g. , Hodges , Cro. Jac.,
at 485, 79 Eng. Rep., at 414 (similar announcement upon laying of
hands). Maybe the arrest could be viewed as a submission to a show
of authority, because a mace served not only as a weapon but also
as an insignia of office. See Kelly, The Great Mace, and Other
Corporation Insignia of the Borough of Leicester, 3 Transactions of
the Royal Hist. Soc. 295, 296–301 (1874). But that view is
difficult to reconcile with the fact that English courts did not
recognize arrest by submission to a show of authority until the
following century. See supra , at 6.[ 1 ]*

															However one reads Countess of Rutland , we
see no basis for drawing an artificial line between grasping with a
hand and other means of applying physical force to effect an
arrest. The dissent (though not the officers) argues that the
common law limited arrests by force to the literal placement of
hands on the suspect, because no court published an opinion
discussing a suspect who continued to flee after being hit with a
bullet or some other weapon. See post , at 18–20 (opinion of
Gorsuch, J.). This objection calls to mind the unavailing defense
of the person who “persistently denied that he had laid hands upon
a priest, for he had only cudgelled and kicked him.” 2 S.
Pufendorf, De Jure Naturae et Gentium 795 (C. Oldfather & W.
Oldfather transl. 1934). The required “corporal seising or touching
the defendant’s body” can be as readily accomplished by a bullet as
by the end of a finger. 3 Blackstone 288.

															We will not carve out this greater intrusion on
personal security from the mere-touch rule just because
founding-era courts did not confront apprehension by firearm. While
firearms have existed for a millennium and were certainly familiar
at the founding, we have observed that law enforcement did not
carry handguns until the latter half of the 19th century, at which
point “it bec[a]me possible to use deadly force from a distance as
a means of apprehension.” Tennessee v. Garner , 471 U.S.
1 , 14–15 (1985). So it should come as no surprise that neither
we nor the dissent has located a common law case in which an
officer used a gun to apprehend a suspect. Cf. post , at 20
(discussing Dickenson v. Watson , Jones, T. 205, 84
Eng. Rep. 1218, 1218–1219 (K. B. 1682), in which a tax
collector accidentally discharged hailshot into a passerby’s eye).
But the focus of the Fourth Amendment is “the privacy and security
of individuals,” not the particular manner of “arbitrary
invasion[ ] by governmental officials.” Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco , 387 U.S.
523 , 528 (1967). As noted, our precedent protects “that degree
of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth
Amendment was adopted,” Kyllo v. United States , 533 U.S.
27 , 34 (2001)—a protection that extends to “[s]ubtler and more
far-reaching means of invading privacy” adopted only later, Olmstead v. United States , 277
U.S. 438 , 473 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). There is
nothing subtle about a bullet, but the Fourth Amendment preserves
personal security with respect to methods of apprehension old and
new.

															We stress, however, that the application of the
common law rule does not transform every physical contact between a
government employee and a member of the public into a Fourth
Amendment seizure. A seizure requires the use of force with
intent to restrain . Accidental force will not qualify. See County of Sacramento v. Lewis , 523 U.S.
833 , 844 (1998). Nor will force intentionally applied for some
other purpose satisfy this rule. In this opinion, we consider only
force used to apprehend. We do not accept the dissent’s invitation
to opine on matters not presented here—pepper spray, flash-bang
grenades, lasers, and more. Post , at 23.

															Moreover, the appropriate inquiry is whether the
challenged conduct objectively manifests an intent to
restrain, for we rarely probe the subjective motivations of police
officers in the Fourth Amendment context. See Nieves v. Bartlett , 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 10).
Only an objective test “allows the police to determine in advance
whether the conduct contemplated will implicate the Fourth
Amendment.” Michigan v. Chesternut , 486 U.S.
567 , 574 (1988). While a mere touch can be enough for a
seizure, the amount of force remains pertinent in assessing the
objective intent to restrain. A tap on the shoulder to get one’s
attention will rarely exhibit such an intent. See INS v. Delgado , 466 U.S.
210 , 220 (1984); Jones , 35 N. C., at 448–449.

															Nor does the seizure depend on the subjective
perceptions of the seized person. Here, for example, Torres claims
to have perceived the officers’ actions as an attempted carjacking.
But the conduct of the officers—ordering Torres to stop and then
shooting to restrain her movement—satisfies the objective test for
a seizure, regardless whether Torres comprehended the governmental
character of their actions.

															The rule we announce today is narrow. In
addition to the requirement of intent to restrain, a seizure by
force—absent submission—lasts only as long as the application of
force. That is to say that the Fourth Amendment does not recognize
any “ continuing arrest during the period of fugitivity.” Hodari D. , 499 U. S., at 625. The fleeting nature of
some seizures by force undoubtedly may inform what damages a civil
plaintiff may recover, and what evidence a criminal defendant may
exclude from trial. See, e.g. , Utah v. Strieff , 579 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 4).
But brief seizures are seizures all the same.

															Applying these principles to the facts viewed in
the light most favorable to Torres, the officers’ shooting applied
physical force to her body and objectively manifested an intent to
restrain her from driving away. We therefore conclude that the
officers seized Torres for the instant that the bullets struck
her.

															III

															In place of the rule that the application of
force completes an arrest even if the arrestee eludes custody, the
officers would introduce a single test for all types of seizures:
intentional acquisition of control. This alternative rule is
inconsistent with the history of the Fourth Amendment and our
cases.

															A

															The officers and their amici stress
that common law rules are not automatically “elevated to
constitutional proscriptions,” Hodari D. , 499 U. S., at
626, n. 2, especially if they are “distorted almost beyond
recognition when literally applied,” Garner , 471 U. S.,
at 15. In their view, the common law doctrine recognized in Hodari D. is just “a narrow legal rule intended to govern
liability in civil cases involving debtors.” Brief for National
Association of Counties et al. as Amici Curiae 12. The
dissent presses the same argument. See post , at 14–17.

															But the common law did not define the arrest of
a debtor any differently from the arrest of a felon. Whether the
arrest was authorized by a criminal indictment or a civil writ,
“there must be a corporal seizing, or touching the defendant’s
person; or, what is tantamount, a power of taking immediate
possession of the body, and the party’s submission thereto, and a
declaration of the officer that he makes an arrest.” 1 J. Backus, A
Digest of Laws Relating to the Offices and Duties of Sheriff,
Coroner and Constable 115–116 (1812). Treatises on the law
governing criminal arrests cited Genner v. Sparks , 6
Mod. 173, 87 Eng. Rep. 928—the preeminent mere-touch case involving
a debtor—for the proposition that, “[i]n making the arrest, the
constable or party making it should actually seize or touch the
offender’s body, or otherwise restrain his liberty.” 1 R. Burn, The
Justice of the Peace 275 (28th ed. 1837). When English courts
confronted arrests for criminal offenses, they too relied on
precedents concerning arrests for civil offenses. See Bridgett v. Coyney , 1 Man. & Ryl. 1, 5–6
(K. B. 1827); Arrowsmith v. Le Mesurier , 2 Bos.
& Pul. 211, 211–212, 127 Eng. Rep. 605, 606 (C. P. 1806).
American courts likewise articulated a materially identical
definition in criminal cases—that “[t]he arrest itself is the
laying hands on the defendant,” State v. Townsend , 5
Del. 487, 488 (Ct. Gen. Sess. 1854), or that an arrest is “the
taking, seizing, or detaining of the person of another, either by
touching him or putting hands on him,” McAdams v. State , 30 Okla. Crim. 207, 210, 235 P. 241, 242 (1925).

															This uniform definition also explains why an
arrest by mere touch carried legal consequences in both the
criminal and civil contexts. The point of an arrest was of course
to take custody of a person to secure his appearance at a
proceeding. But some arrests did not culminate in actual control of
the individual, let alone a trip to the gaol or compter. See Nicholl , 2 Y. & J., at 403–404, 148 Eng. Rep., at
975–976. When an officer let an arrestee get away, the officer
risked becoming a defendant himself in an action for “escape.” See
Perkins, The Law of Arrest, 25 Iowa L. Rev. 201, 204 (1940).
The laying of hands constituted a taking custody and would expose
the officer to liability for the escape of felons and debtors
alike. See 1 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown 590–591, 597, 603 (1736);
2 id. , at 93 (no liability for escape “if the felon were not
once in the hands of an officer”); see also Perkins, 25 Iowa
L. Rev., at 206.

															The tort of false imprisonment, which the
dissent rightly acknowledges as the “ ‘closest analogy’ to an
arrest without probable cause,” post , at 12 (quoting Wallace v. Kato , 549 U.S.
384 , 388–389 (2007)), reinforces the conclusion that the common
law considered touching to be a seizure. Stated generally, false
imprisonment required “confinement,” such as “taking a person into
custody under an asserted legal authority.” Restatement of Torts
§§35, 41 (1934); see 3 Blackstone 127. But that element of
confinement demanded no more than that the defendant “had for one
moment taken possession of the plaintiff ’s person”—including,
“for example, if he had tapped her on the shoulder, and said, ‘You
are my prisoner.’ ” Simpson v. Hill , 1 Esp. 431,
431–432, 170 Eng. Rep. 409 (N. P. 1795); see Restatement of
Torts §41, Comment h (noting that “the touching alone of the
person against whom [legal authority] was asserted would be
sufficient to constitute” confinement by arrest when the authority
was valid). While the dissent emphasizes that “the court [in Simpson ] proceeded to reject the plaintiff ’s
claim for false imprisonment,” post , at 13, that was only
because “the constable never touched the plaintiff, or took her
into custody.” 1 Esp., at 431, 170 Eng. Rep., at 409.

															To be sure, the mere-touch rule was particularly
well documented in cases involving the execution of civil process.
An officer pursuing a debtor could not forcibly enter the debtor’s
home unless the debtor had escaped arrest, such as by fleeing after
being touched. See Semayne’s Case , 5 Co. Rep. 91a, 91b, 77
Eng. Rep. 194, 196 (K. B. 1604); see also Miller v. United States , 357 U.S.
301 , 307 (1958). Officers seeking to execute criminal process,
on the other hand, possessed greater pre-arrest authority to enter
a felon’s home. See Payton , 445 U. S., at 598. But the
fact that the common law rules of arrest generated more litigation
in the civil context proves only that creditors had ready recourse
to the courts to pursue escape actions for unsatisfactory arrests.
There is no reason to suspect that English jurists silently adopted
a special definition of arrest only for debt collection—indeed,
they told us just the opposite. See supra , at 12. Nothing
specific to debt collection elevated escape from arrest into a
justification for entry of the home. Whenever a person was
“lawfully arrested for any Cause and afterwards escape[d],
and shelter[ed] himself in a House,” the officer could break open
the doors of the house. 2 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 87 (1721)
(emphasis added).

															In any event, the officers and the dissent
misapprehend the history of the Fourth Amendment by minimizing the
role of practices in civil cases. “[A]rrests in civil suits were
still common in America” at the founding. Long v. Ansell , 293 U.S.
76 , 83 (1934). And questions regarding the legality of an
arrest “typically arose in civil damages actions for trespass or
false arrest.” Payton , 445 U. S., at 592. Accordingly,
this Court has not hesitated to rely on such decisions when
interpreting the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g. , United
States v. Jones , 565 U.S.
400 , 404–405 (2012); Boyd v. United States , 116 U.S.
616 , 626 (1886). We see no reason to break with our settled
approach in this case.

															B

															The officers and the dissent derive from our
cases a different touchstone for the seizure of a person: “an
intentional acquisition of physical control.” Brower v. County of Inyo , 489 U.S.
593 , 596 (1989). Under their alternative rule, the use of force
becomes a seizure “only when there is a governmental termination of
freedom of movement through means intentionally applied.” Id. , at 597 (emphasis deleted); see Brief for Respondents
12–15; post , at 6–7.

															This approach improperly erases the distinction
between seizures by control and seizures by force . In
all fairness, we too have not always been attentive to this
distinction when a case did not implicate the issue. See, e.g. , Brendlin v. California , 551 U.S.
249 , 254 (2007). But each type of seizure enjoys a separate
common law pedigree that gives rise to a separate rule. See Hodari D. , 499 U. S., at 624–625; A. Cornelius, The Law
of Search and Seizure §47, pp. 163–164 (2d ed. 1930)
(contrasting actual control with “constructive detention” by
touching).

															Unlike a seizure by force, a seizure by
acquisition of control involves either voluntary submission to a
show of authority or the termination of freedom of movement. A
prime example of the latter comes from Brower , where the
police seized a driver when he crashed into their roadblock. 489
U. S., at 598–599; see also, e.g. , Scott v. Harris , 550 U.S.
372 , 385 (2007) (ramming car off road); Williams v. Jones , Cas. t. Hard. 299, 301, 95 Eng. Rep. 193, 194
(K. B. 1736) (locking person in room). Under the common law
rules of arrest, actual control is a necessary element for this
type of seizure. See Wilgus, Arrest Without a Warrant, 22 Mich.
L. Rev. 541, 553 (1924). Such a seizure requires that “a
person be stopped by the very instrumentality set in motion or put
in place in order to achieve that result.” Brower , 489
U. S., at 599. But that requirement of control or submission
never extended to seizures by force. See, e.g. , Sandon , El. Bl. & El., at 940–941, 120 Eng. Rep., at
760.

															As common law courts recognized, any such
requirement of control would be difficult to apply in cases
involving the application of force. See supra , at 7. At the
most basic level, it will often be unclear when an officer succeeds
in gaining control over a struggling suspect. Courts will puzzle
over whether an officer exercises control when he grabs a suspect,
when he tackles him, or only when he slaps on the cuffs. Neither
the officers nor the dissent explains how long the control must be
maintained—only for a moment, into the squad car, or all the way to
the station house. To cite another example, counsel for the
officers speculated that the shooting would have been a seizure if
Torres stopped “maybe 50 feet” or “half a block” from the scene of
the shooting to allow the officers to promptly acquire control. Tr.
of Oral Arg. 45. None of this squares with our recognition that
“ ‘[a] seizure is a single act, and not a continuous
fact.’ ” Hodari D. , 499 U. S., at 625 (quoting Thompson v. Whitman , 18 Wall. 457, 471 (1874)). For
centuries, the common law rule has avoided such line-drawing
problems by clearly fixing the moment of the seizure.

															IV

															The dissent sees things differently. It
insists that the term “seizure” has always entailed a taking of
possession, whether the officer is seizing a person, a ship, or a
promissory note. See post , at 6–7. But the facts of the
cases and the language of the opinions confirm that the concept of
possession included the “constructive detention” of persons “never
actually brought within the physical control of the party making an
arrest.” Wilgus, 22 Mich. L. Rev., at 556 (emphasis deleted);
see, e.g. , Nicholl , 2 Y. & J., at 404, 148 Eng.
Rep., at 976 (explaining that the “slightest touch” can constitute
“custody”); Anonymus , 1 Vent., at 306, 86 Eng. Rep., at 197
(describing a touch as a “taking” of a person). Even the dissent
acknowledges that a touch can establish a form of constructive
possession. See post , at 20.

															The dissent says that “common law courts never
contemplated” that the touching itself could effect a seizure. Post, at 18.  But one need only look at the many
decisions adopting that definition of
arrest.  See supra , at 5–8, 12–13. The
dissent can offer no case expressing doubt about the rule that the
touching constitutes an arrest, much less refusing to apply that
rule in any context—felon or debtor.  And we have, as noted,
definitively stated that “the arrest of a person is
quintessentially a seizure.” Payton , 445 U. S., at 585
(internal quotation marks omitted). The dissent’s attempt to ignore
arrests it appraises as “unfortunate” or “peculiar,” post ,
at 15, 16, pays insufficient regard to the complete history
underlying the Fourth Amendment.

															The dissent argues that we advance a
“schizophrenic reading of the word ‘seizure.’ ” Post ,
at 7. But our cases demonstrate the unremarkable proposition that
the nature of a seizure can depend on the nature of the object
being seized. It is not surprising that the concept of constructive
detention or the mere-touch rule developed in the context of
seizures of a person—capable of fleeing and with an interest in
doing so—rather than seizures of “houses, papers, and effects.”

															The dissent also criticizes us for “posit[ing]
penumbras” of “privacy” and “personal security” in our analysis of
the Fourth Amendment. Post , at 24. But the text of
the Fourth Amendment expressly guarantees the “right of the people
to be secure in their persons ,” and our earliest
precedents recognized privacy as the “essence” of the Amendment—not
some penumbral emanation. Boyd , 116 U. S., at 630. We
have relied on that understanding in construing the meaning of the
Amendment. See, e.g. , Riley v. California , 573 U.S.
373 , 403 (2014).

															The dissent speculates that the real reason for
today’s decision is an “impulse” to provide relief to Torres, post , at 23, or maybe a desire “to make life easier for
ourselves,” post , at 22. It may even be, says the dissent,
that the Court “at least hopes to be seen as trying” to achieve
particular goals. Post , at 25. There is no call for such
surmise. At the end of the day we simply agree with the analysis of
the common law of arrest and its relation to the Fourth Amendment
set forth thirty years ago by Justice Scalia, joined by six of his
colleagues, rather than the competing view urged by the dissent
today.

															*  *  *

															We hold that the application of physical force
to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a seizure even
if the person does not submit and is not subdued. Of course, a
seizure is just the first step in the analysis. The Fourth
Amendment does not forbid all or even most seizures—only
unreasonable ones. All we decide today is that the officers seized
Torres by shooting her with intent to restrain her movement. We
leave open on remand any questions regarding the reasonableness of
the seizure, the damages caused by the seizure, and the officers’
entitlement to qualified immunity.

															The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated,
and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion.

															It is so ordered.

															Justice Barrett took no part in the
consideration or decision of this case. Notes 1 *The arrest was not Isabel’s
first brush with the law or money trou-bles. A decade earlier,
Elizabeth Charlton sued to recover for the estate of her husband,
the fourth Earl of Rutland, an assortment of jewels allegedly taken
by Isabel, the widow of the third Earl of Rutland. Elizabeth bested
Isabel in the clash of the countesses, and Isabel was found liable
for 940 pounds, worth about $400,000 today. Elizabeth Countess
of Rutland v. Isabel Countess of Rutland , Cro. Eliz.
377, 78 Eng. Rep. 624 (C. P. 1595). SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 19–292

															_________________

															ROXANNE TORRES, PETITIONER v. JANICE
MADRID, et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the tenth circuit

															[March 25, 2021]

															Justice Gorsuch, with whom Justice Thomas and
Justice Alito join, dissenting.

															The majority holds that a criminal suspect can
be simultaneously seized and roaming at large. On the majority’s
account, a Fourth Amendment “seizure” takes place whenever an
officer “merely touches” a suspect. It’s a seizure even if the
suspect refuses to stop, evades capture, and rides off into the
sunset never to be seen again. That view is as mistaken as it is
novel.

															Until today, a Fourth Amendment “seizure” has
required taking possession of someone or something. To reach its
contrary judgment, the majority must conflate a seizure with its
attempt and confuse an arrest with a battery. In the process, too,
the majority must disregard the Constitution’s original and
ordinary meaning, dispense with our conventional interpretive
rules, and bypass the main currents of the common law. Unable to
rely on any of these traditional sources of authority, the majority
is left to lean on (really, repurpose) an abusive and
long-abandoned English debt-collection practice. But there is a
reason why, in two centuries filled with litigation over the Fourth
Amendment’s meaning, this Court has never before adopted the
majority’s definition of a “seizure.” Neither the Constitution nor
common sense can sustain it.

															I

															A

															This case began when two Albuquerque police
officers approached Roxanne Torres on foot. The officers thought
Ms. Torres was the subject of an arrest warrant and suspected of
involvement in murder and drug trafficking. As it turned out, they
had the wrong person; Ms. Torres was the subject of a different arrest warrant. As she saw the officers walk
toward her, Ms. Torres responded by getting into her car and
hitting the gas. At the time, Ms. Torres admits, she was “tripping
out bad” on methamphetamine. Fearing the oncoming car was about to
hit them, the officers fired their duty weapons, and two bullets
struck Ms. Torres while others hit her car.

															None of that stopped Ms. Torres. She continued
driving—over a curb, across some landscaping, and into a street,
eventually colliding with another vehicle. Abandoning her car, she
promptly stole a different one parked nearby. Ms. Torres then drove
over 75 miles to another city. When she eventually sought medical
treatment, doctors decided she needed to be airlifted back to
Albuquerque for more intensive care. Only at that point, a day
after her encounter with the officers, was Ms. Torres finally
identified and arrested. Ultimately, she pleaded no contest to
assault on a police officer, aggravated fleeing from an officer,
and the unlawful taking of a motor vehicle.

															More than two years later, Ms. Torres sued the
officers for damages in federal court under 42 U. S. C.
§1983. She alleged that they had violated the Fourth Amendment by
unreasonably “seizing” her. After discovery, the officers moved for
summary judgment. The district court granted the motion, and the
court of appeals affirmed. Individuals like Ms. Torres are free to
sue officers under New Mexico state law for assault or battery.
They may also sue officers under the Fourteenth Amendment for
conduct that “shocks the conscience.” But under longstanding
circuit precedent, the courts explained, a Fourth Amendment
“seizure” occurs only when the government obtains “physical
control” over a person or object. Because Ms. Torres “managed to
elude the police for at least a full day after being shot,” the
courts reasoned, the officers’ bullets had not “seized” her; any
seizure took place only when she was finally arrested back in
Albuquerque the following day. Torres v. Madrid , 769
Fed. Appx. 654, 657 (CA10 2019).

															B

															Now before us, Ms. Torres argues that this
Court’s decision in California v. Hodari D. , 499 U.S.
621 (1991), “compel[s] reversal.” Brief for Petitioner 25. As
she reads it, Hodari D. held that a Fourth Amendment seizure
takes place whenever an officer shoots or even “mere[ly] touch[es]”
an individual with the intent to restrain. Brief for Petitioner
15.

															Whatever one thinks of Ms. Torres’s argument,
one thing is certain: Hodari D. has generated considerable
confusion. There, officers chased a suspect on foot. 499
U. S., at 623. Later, the suspect argued that he was “seized”
for purposes of the Fourth Amendment the moment the chase began.
See id. , at 625. Though he fled, the suspect argued,
a “reasonable person” would not have felt at liberty given the
officers’ “show of authority,” so a Fourth Amendment seizure had
occurred. Id. , at 627–628.

															The Court rejected this argument. In doing so,
it explained that, “[f]rom the time of the founding to the present,
the word ‘seizure’ has meant a ‘taking possession.’ ” Id. , at 624. Because the defendant did not submit to the
officers’ show of authority, the Court reasoned, the officers’
conduct amounted at most to an attempted seizure. See id. ,
at 626, and n. 2. And “neither usage nor common-law tradition
makes an attempted seizure a seizure.” Ibid. At the same time, and as Ms. Torres emphasizes,
the Court didn’t end its discussion there. It proceeded to imagine
a different and hypothetical case, one in which the officers not
only chased the suspect but also “appl[ied] physical force” to him.
In these circumstances, the Court suggested, “merely touching” a
suspect, even when officers fail to gain possession, might qualify
as a seizure. Id. , at 624–625.

															Unsurprisingly, these dueling passages in Hodari D. led to a circuit split. For the first time, some
lower courts began holding that a “mere touch” constitutes a Fourth
Amendment “seizure.” Others, however, continued to adhere to the
view, taken “[f]rom the time of the founding to the present,” that
the word “seizure” means “taking possession.” Id ., at 624
(internal quotation marks omitted). We took this case to sort out
the confusion.

															II

															As an initial matter, Ms. Torres is mistaken
that Hodari D. ’s discussion of “mere touch” seizures compels
a ruling in her favor. Under the doctrine of stare decisis ,
we normally afford prior holdings of this Court considerable
respect. But, in the course of issuing their holdings, judges
sometimes include a “witty opening paragraph, the background
information on how the law developed,” or “digressions speculating
on how similar hypothetical cases might be resolved.” B. Garner
et al., The Law of Judicial Precedent 44 (2016). Such asides
are dicta. The label is hardly an epithet: “Dicta may afford
litigants the benefit of a fuller understanding of the court’s
decisional path or related areas of concern.” Id. , at 65.
Dicta can also “be a source of advice to successors.” Ibid. But whatever utility it may have, dicta cannot bind future
courts.

															This ancient rule serves important purposes. A
passage unnecessary to the outcome may not be fully considered.
Parties with little at stake in a hypothetical question may afford
it little or no adversarial testing. And, of course, federal courts
possess no authority to issue rulings beyond the cases and
controversies before them. If the respect we afford past holdings
under the doctrine of stare decisis may be justified in part
as an act of judicial humility, respecting that doctrine’s limits
must be too. Fewer things could be less humble than insisting our
every passing surmise constitutes a rule forever binding a Nation
of over 300 million people. No judge can see around every corner,
predict the future, or fairly resolve matters not at issue. See, e.g. , Cohens v. Virginia , 6 Wheat. 264,
399–400 (1821); Central Va. Community College v. Katz , 546 U.S.
356 , 363 (2006).

															On any account, the passage in Hodari D. Ms. Torres seeks to invoke was dicta. The only question presented
in that case was whether officers seize a defendant by a show of
authority without touching him. The Court answered that
question in the negative. The separate question whether a “mere
touch” also qualifies as a seizure was not presented by
facts of the case. No party briefed the issue. And the opinion
offered the matter only shallow consideration, resting on just
three sources: A state court opinion from the 1860s, a “comment” in
the 1934 Restatement of Torts, and a 1930s legal treatise. See 499
U. S., at 624–625.

															Already some lower courts, including those
below, have recognized that Hodari D. ’s aside does not
constitute a binding holding. See Brooks v. Gaenzle ,
614 F.3d 1213, 1220–1221 (CA10 2010); Henson v. United
States , 55 A.3d 859, 864–865 (D. C. 2012). Today’s
majority seems to accept the point too. It acknowledges that Hodari D. “principally concerned a show of authority.” Ante , at 4. And it says it intends to rule for Ms. Torres
“independently” of Hodari D. Ante , at 4.

															III

															Seeking to carry that burden, the majority
picks up where Hodari D .’s dicta left off. It contends that
an officer “seizes” a person by merely touching him with an “intent
to restrain.” Ante , at 9. We are told that a touch is a
seizure even if the suspect never stops or slows down; it’s a
seizure even if he evades capture. In all the years before Hodari D. ’s dicta, this conclusion would have sounded more
than a little improbable to most lawyers and judges—as it should
still today. A mere touch may be a battery. It may even be part of
an attempted seizure. But the Fourth Amendment’s text, its history,
and our precedent all confirm that “seizing” something doesn’t mean
touching it; it means taking possession.

															A

															Start with the text. The Fourth Amendment
guarantees that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated.” As at least part of Hodari
D. recognized, “[f ]rom the time of the founding to the
present,” the key term here—“seizure”—has always meant
“ ‘taking possession.’ ” 499 U. S., at 624.

															Countless contemporary dictionaries define a
“seizure” or the act of “seizing” in terms of possession.[ 1 ] This Court’s early cases reflect the
same understanding. Just sixteen years after the Fourth Amendment’s
adoption, Congress passed a statute regulating the “seizure” of
ships. See The Josefa Segunda , 10 Wheat. 312, 322 (1825).
This Court interpreted the term to require “an open, visible
possession claimed,” so that those previously possessing the ship
“understand that they are dispossessed, and that they are no longer
at liberty to exercise any dominion on board of the ship.” Id. , at 325. Nor did the Court’s view change over time. In Pelham v. Rose , 9 Wall. 103, 106 (1870), the Court
likewise explained that “[t]o effect [a] seizure” of something, one
needed “to take” the thing “into his actual custody and control.” Id. , at 107.

															Today’s majority disputes none of this. It
accepts that a seizure of the inanimate objects mentioned in the
Fourth Amendment (houses, papers, and effects) requires possession. Ante , at 4. And when it comes to persons, the majority
agrees (as Hodari D. held) that a seizure in response to a
“show of authority” takes place if and when the suspect submits to
an officer’s possession. Ante , at 15. The majority insists
that a different rule should apply only in cases where an
officer “touches” the suspect. Here—and here alone—possession is
not required. So, under the majority’s logic, we are quite
literally asked to believe the officers in this case “seized” Ms.
Torres’s person, but not her car, when they shot both and
both continued speeding down the highway.

															The majority’s need to resort to such a
schizophrenic reading of the word “seizure” should be a signal that
something has gone seriously wrong. The Fourth Amendment’s Search
and Seizure Clause uses the word “seizures” once in connection with
four objects (persons, houses, papers, and effects). The text thus
suggests parity, not disparity, in meaning. It is close to canon
that when a provision uses the same word multiple times, courts
must give it the same meaning each time. Ratzlaf v. United States , 510 U.S.
135 , 143 (1994). And it is canonical that courts cannot
give a single word different meanings depending on the happenstance
of “which object it is modifying.” Reno v. Bossier Parish
School Bd. , 528 U.S.
320 , 329 (2000) (“[W]e refuse to adopt a construction that
would attribute different meanings to the same phrase in the same
sentence, depending on which object it is modifying”). To
“[a]scrib[e] various meanings” to a single word, we have observed,
is to “render meaning so malleable” that written laws risk
“becom[ing] susceptible to individuated interpretation.” Ratzlaf , 510 U. S., at 143 (internal quotation marks
omitted). The majority’s conclusion that a single use of the word
“seizures” bears two different meanings at the same time—indeed, in
this very case—is truly novel. And when it comes to construing the
Constitution, that kind of innovation is no virtue.

															If more textual evidence were needed, the Fourth
Amendment’s neighboring Warrant Clause would seem to provide it.
That Clause states that warrants must describe “the persons or
things to be seized.” Once more, the Amendment uses the same
verb—“seized”—for both persons and objects. Once more, it suggests
parity, not some hidden divergence between people and their
possessions. Nor does anyone dispute that a warrant for the
“seizure” of a person means a warrant authorizing officers to take
that person into their possession .

															Against all these adverse textual clues, the
majority offers little in reply. It admits that its
interpretation defies this Court’s teachings in Ratzlaf and Reno by ascribing different meanings to the word “seizure”
depending on “the object being seized.” Ante , at 16. It says
only that we should overlook the problem because “our cases” in the
Fourth Amendment context compel this remarkable construction. Ibid. But it is unclear what cases the majority might have
in mind for it cites none.

															Instead, the majority proceeds to reason that
the word “seizure” must carry a different meaning for
persons and objects because persons alone are “capable of fleeing”
and have “an interest in doing so.” Ibid. But that reasoning
faces trouble even from Hodari D ., which explained that “[a]
ship still fleeing, even though under attack, would not be
considered to have been seized as a war prize.” 499 U. S., at
624. Of course, as the majority observes, persons alone can possess
“an interest” in fleeing. But, as Hodari D. ’s example shows,
they can have as much (or more) interest in fleeing to prevent the
seizure of their possessions as they do their persons. Even today,
a suspect driving a car loaded with illegal drugs may be more
interested in fleeing to avoid the loss of her valuable cargo than
to prevent her own detention. Yet the majority offers no reasoned
explanation why the meaning of the word “seizure” changes when
officers hit the suspect and when they hit her drugs and car as all
three speed away.

															Unable to muster any precedent or sound reason
for its reading, the majority finishes its textual analysis with a
selective snippet from Webster’s Dictionary and a hypothetical
about a purse snatching. The majority notes that Webster equated a
seizure with “ ‘the act of taking by warrant’ ” or
“ ‘laying hold on suddenly.’ ” Ante , at 4. But
Webster used the warrant definition to describe “the seizure of
contraband goods”—a seizure the majority agrees requires
possession. Meanwhile, the phrase “laying hold on” a person
connotes physical possession, as a look at the dictionary’s entire
definition demonstrates. A “seizure,” Webster continued, is the
“act of taking possession by force,” the “act of taking by
warrant,” “possession,” and “a catching.”[ 2 ] Read in full, Webster thus lends no support to the
majority’s view.

															The purse hypothetical, borrowed from Hodari
D. ’s dicta, turns out to be even less illuminating. It supposes
that “an ordinary user of the English language could remark: ‘She
seized the purse-snatcher, but he broke out of her grasp.’ ” Ante , at 5 (quoting Hodari D. , 499 U. S., at
626). But what does that prove? The hypothetical contemplates a
woman who takes possession of the purse-snatcher,
establishing a “grasp” for him to “break out of.” One doesn’t
“break out of ” a mere touch.

															Really, the majority’s answer to the
Constitution’s text is to ignore it. The majority stands mute
before the consensus among founding-era dictionaries, this Court’s
early cases interpreting the word “seizure,” and the Warrant
Clause. It admits its interpretation spurns the canonical
interpretive principle that a single word in a legal text does not
change its meaning depending on what object it modifies. All we’re
offered is a curated snippet and an unhelpful hypothetical.
Ultimately, it’s hard not to wonder whether the majority says so
little about the Constitution’s terms because so little can be said
that might support its ruling.

															B

															Rather than focus on text, the majority turns
quickly to history. At common law, it insists, a “linkage” existed
between the “seizure” of a person and the concept of an “arrest.” Ante , at 5. Thus, the majority contends, we must examine how
the common law defined that term. But following the majority
down this path only leads to another dead end. Unsurprisingly, an
“arrest” at common law ordinarily required possession too.

															1

															Consider what some of our usual common law
guides say on the subject. Blackstone defined “an arrest” in the
criminal context as “the apprehending or restraining of one’s
person, in order to be forthcoming to answer an alleged or
suspected crime.” 4 Commentaries on the Laws of England 286 (1769).
Hale and Hawkins both equated an “arrest” with “apprehending,”
“taking,” and “detain[ing]” a person. See 1 M. Hale, Pleas of the
Crown 89, 93–94 (5th ed. 1716); 2 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown
74–75, 77, 80–81, 86 (3d ed. 1739). And Hawkins stated that an
arrest required the officer to “actually have” the suspect “in his
Custody.” Id ., at 129. Any number of historical dictionaries
attest to a similar understanding—defining an “arrest” as a “stop,”
a “taking of a person,” and the act “by which a man becomes a
prisoner.”[ 3 ]

															Common law causes of action point to the same
common-sense conclusion. During the founding era, an individual who
was unlawfully arrested could seek redress through the tort of
false imprisonment. See 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws
of England 127 (1768); see also Payton v. New York , 445 U.S.
573 , 592 (1980); Wallace v. Kato , 549 U.S.
384 , 388–389 (2007) (describing “false arrest and false
imprisonment” as the “closest analogy” to an arrest without
probable cause). That cause of action aimed to remedy “the
violation of the right of personal liberty,” 3 Blackstone, supra , at 127, which was “the power of loco-motion, of
changing situation, or removing one’s person to whatsoever place
one’s own inclination may direct,” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on
the Laws of England 130 (1765). Thus, false imprisonment—the
violation of the right to move where one desired—required proof of
“[t]he detention of the person” and “[t]he unlawfulness of such
detention.” 3 Blackstone, supra , at 127. That detention
could occur “in a gaol, house, stocks, or in the street,” but it
occurred only if a person was “ under the custody of
another.” 1 E. East, Pleas of the Crown 428 (1806) (emphasis
added).

															Much the same held true in another related
field. At common law, an officer could be held criminally liable
for allowing an individual to escape after being arrested. And to
prove the existence of an arrest in an “Indictment for an Escape,”
a prosecutor had to “expressly shew” that “the Party was actually
in the Defendant’s Custody for a Crime, Action, or
Commitment for it.” 2 Hawkins, supra , at 132 (emphasis
added). In other words, to demonstrate an arrest, a prosecutor had
to prove the suspect had been “a Prisoner in [the officer’s]
Custody .” 1 Hale, supra , at 112 (emphasis added). Here,
too, an arrest required possession.

															Once more, the majority’s primary answer to all
this countervailing evidence is to ignore it. And once more, the
majority’s own sources do more to hurt than help its cause. Lifting
a line from Simpson v. Hill , 1 Esp. 431, 170 Eng.
Rep. 409 (N. P. 1795), the majority suggests that the tort of
false imprisonment at common law required no more than a “tapping
on the shoulder.” Ante , at 13 (citing 1 Esp., at 431–432,
170 Eng. Rep., at 409). But Simpson could not have stated
the possession requirement more plainly: “[W]ithout any taking
possession of the person,” there “is not, by law, a false
imprisonment.” Id. , at 432, 170 Eng. Rep., at 409 (emphasis
added). And the court proceeded to reject the
plaintiff ’s claim for false imprisonment because the
“constable did never take her into custody .” Ibid. (emphasis added). The majority offers no case finding the elements
of false imprisonment satisfied by the mere touch of a fleeing
person.

															What remains of the majority’s response follows
the same course. The majority asserts that claims for escape only
required proof that the officer touched a suspect. Ante , at
12. But to prove its point, the majority quotes a sentence from
Hale stating that no liability for escape exists “ ‘if
the felon were not once in the hands of an officer.’ ” Ibid. (quoting 2 Pleas of the Crown 93 (1736)). And as Hale
proceeded to make plain, a felon “in the hands of an officer” was
another way of saying the officer had “apprehended” or “taken” the
felon into his “custody.” See id. , at 89, 93–94 (5th ed.
1716).

															Ultimately, the majority seeks to invoke Samuel
Johnson’s dictionary and Payton , 445 U. S., at 585, to
confirm only the anodyne point that some sort of “linkage” existed
at common law between the concepts of “arrests” and “seizures.” Ante , at 5. Yet, even here it turns out there is more to the
story. The majority neglects to mention that Johnson proceeded to
define an “arrest” as a “caption” of the person, “a stop or stay,”
a “restraint of a man’s person, depriving him of his own will,” and
“the beginning of imprisonment.” 1 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the
English Language (6th ed. 1785). “To arrest,” Johnson said, was
“[t]o seize,” “to detain by power,” “[t]o withhold; to hinder,” and
“[t]o stop motion.” Ibid. Meanwhile, the sentence fragment
the majority quotes from Payton turns out to have originated
in Justice Powell’s concurrence in United States v. Watson , 423 U.S.
411 , 428 (1976). And looking to that sentence in full, it is
plain Justice Powell, too, understood an arrest not as a touching,
but as “the taking hold of one’s person.” Ibid. Thus, even
the majority’s best sources only wind up pointing us back to the
traditional possession rule.

															2

															Unable to identify anything helpful in the
main current of the common law, the majority is forced to retreat
to an obscure eddy. Starting from Hodari D. ’s three
references to “mere touch” arrests, the majority traces these
authorities back to their English origins. The tale that unfolds is
a curious one.

															Before bankruptcy reforms in the 19th century,
creditors seeking to induce repayment of their loans could employ
bailiffs to civilly arrest delinquent debtors and haul them off to
debtors prison. See Cohen, The History of Imprisonment for Debt and
Its Relation to the Development of Discharge in Bankruptcy, 3 J.
Legal Hist. 153, 154–155 (1982). But the common law also offered
debtors some tools to avoid or delay that fate. Relevant here, the
common law treated the home as a “castle of defence and asylum” so
no bailiff could break into a debtor’s home to effect a civil
arrest. 3 Blackstone, supra , at 288; see also Treiman,
Escaping the Creditor in the Middle Ages, 43 L. Q. Rev. 230,
233 (1927). Over time, the practice of “keeping house” became an
increasingly popular way for debtors to evade the bailiff. Id. , at 234. Naturally, too, creditors railed against this
“notorious” practice. See ibid. And eventually Parliament
responded to their clamor. The English bankruptcy statutes of 1542
and 1570 imposed serious penalties on debtors who “kept house” to
avoid imprisonment. Cohen, supra , at 157.

															It was seemingly against this backdrop that the
strange cases Hodari D. ’s dicta briefly alluded to and the
majority has now dug up began to appear. Under their terms, a
bailiff who could manage to touch a person hiding in his home,
often through an open window or door, was deemed to have effected a
civil “arrest.” See Genner v. Sparks , 6 Mod. 173, 87
Eng. Rep. 928 (K. B. 1704). And because this mere touch was deemed
an “arrest,” the bailiff was then permitted by law to proceed to
“br[eak] the house . . . to seize upon” the person and
render him to prison. Ibid. , 87 Eng. Rep., at 929. Of course
it was farcical to call a tap through an open window an “arrest.”
But it proved a useful farce, at least for creditors.

															One of the majority’s lead cases, Sandon v. Jervis , El. Bl. & El. 935, 120 Eng. Rep. 758 (K. B.
1858), illustrates the absurdity of it all. There, a bailiff tried
and failed “on several occasions” to arrest a debtor. Id. ,
at 936, 120 Eng. Rep., at 758. Eventually, the bailiff spotted an
open window on “an upper story,” so he ordered an assistant to
fetch a ladder. Ibid. But the debtor and his daughter
noticed the ploy and “ran to the window,” slamming it closed. Ibid. Unfortunately, in the excitement a window pane broke.
Seeing the opportunity, the bailiff ’s assistant, while
perched atop the ladder, thrust his hand through the opening and
managed to touch the debtor. Id. , at 936–937, 120 Eng. Rep.,
at 758. According to the court, this “arrest” was sufficient to
justify the bailiff ’s later forcible entry into the home. Id. , at 946–948, 120 Eng. Rep., at 762–763.

															By everyone’s account, however, the farce
extended only so far. Yes, the mere-touch arrest was a feature of
civil bankruptcy practice for an unfortunate period. But the
majority has not identified a single founding-era case
extending the mere-touch arrest rule to the criminal context. The
majority points to two nineteenth-century treatises, but both
reference only a case about a debt-collection arrest. See ante , at 11–12 (citing 1 J. Backus, A Digest of Laws
Relating to the Offices and Duties of Sheriff, Coroner and
Constable 115–116, n. (c) (1812) (citing Genner v. Sparks , 6 Mod. 173, 87 Eng. Rep. 928 (K. B. 1704)), and 1 R.
Burn, The Justice of the Peace 275 (28th ed. 1837) (citing the
same)). The majority nods to dicta from an 1854 Delaware state
trial court, but that came long after the founding and the majority
does not explain how it sheds light on the Fourth Amendment’s
original meaning. See ante , at 12 (citing State v. Townsend , 5 Del. 487, 488)). And every remaining early
American case the majority cites for its “mere touch” rule—from the
founding through the Civil War—involved only civil debt-collection
arrests. See ante , at 4 (citing Whithead v. Keyes , 85 Mass. 495 (1862)); ante , at 6 (citing United States v. Benner , 24 F. Cas. 1084 (No. 14,568)
(CC ED Pa. 1830)); ante , at 6 (citing Butler v. Washburn , 25 N. H. 251 (1852) (tax collection)). The
same goes for the majority’s primary English authorities. See ante , at 7 (citing Nicholl v. Darley , 2 Y.
& J. 399, 400, 148 Eng. Rep. 974 (Exch. 1828); Sandon ,
El. Bl. & El., at 940, 120 Eng. Rep., at 760)).

															So what relevance do these obscure and
long-abandoned civil debt-collection practices have for today’s
case concerning a criminal arrest and brought under the Fourth
Amendment? The answer seems to be not much, for at least three
reasons.

															In the first place, the Amendment speaks of
“seizures,” not “arrests.” To the extent the common law of arrests
informs the Amendment’s meaning, we have already seen that an
arrest normally meant taking possession of an arrestee. Maybe in
one peculiar area, and for less than admirable reasons, the common
law deviated from this understanding. But this Court usually
presumes that those who wrote the Constitution used words in their
ordinary sense, not in some idiosyncratic way. See District of
Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S.
570 , 576 (2008). And today’s majority supplies no evidence that
anyone during the founding era understood the Fourth Amendment to
adopt the specialized definition of “arrest” from civil
debt-collection practice.

															Second, even if we were to hypothesize that
people did understand the Fourth Amendment to incorporate
this quirky rule, what would that tell us? Here, the officers tried
to arrest Ms. Torres in a parking lot on behalf of the State for
serious crimes, not break into her home on behalf of the local
credit union for missing a payment. So even if we were willing to
suppose that the founding generation understood the Constitution to
incorporate the majority’s civil debt-collection arrest rule,
nothing before us suggests they contemplated, let alone endorsed,
injecting it into the criminal law and overriding settled doctrine
equating arrests with possession.

															Finally, even in the civil debt-collection
context, the majority cannot point to even a single case suggesting
that hitting a suspect with an object—an arrow, a bullet, a cudgel, anything —as she flees amounted to an arrest. Instead, the
majority’s cases hold only that the “laying of hands” on an
arrestee constituted an arrest. Ante , at 7. Thus, even if
the Fourth Amendment did transpose the “mere touch” rule from the
context of civil arrests into the criminal arena, it still would not reach this case.

															How does the majority respond? Again, it does
little more than disregard the difficulties. The majority says
there is “no reason to suspect” the common law defined criminal
arrests of felons “any differently” than civil arrests of debtors. Ante , at 13, 11. But the majority skips over all the
evidence canvassed above showing that a criminal arrest required
possession, not a mere touch. See Part III–B–1, supra . It
sails past its failure to identify any case holding that a
mere touch qualified as a criminal arrest. It ignores the fact
Blackstone defined criminal and civil arrests differently.[ 4 ] And it claims to find support in
Hawkins’s statement that an officer could break into a house to
capture an arrestee who escaped after being “ ‘lawfully
arrested for any Cause.’ ” Ante , at 13–14
(quoting 2 Pleas of the Crown 87 (1721)). Yet, the question before
us isn’t what an officer might do after making an arrest;
it’s what constitutes an arrest in the first place .

															Rather than confront shortcomings like these,
the majority asks us to glide past them. It suggests that importing
the mere-touch rule into the criminal context is permissible
because “no common law case” had occasion to reject that idea
expressly. See ante , at 16. But this gets things backwards.
Today, for the first time, the majority seeks to equate seizures
and criminal arrests with mere touches, attempted seizures, and
batteries. It is for the majority to show the Fourth
Amendment commands this result. No amount of rhetorical maneuvering
can obscure how flat it has fallen: Even its own authorities do
more to undermine than support its thesis. If common law courts
never contemplated the majority’s odd definition of a criminal
arrest—and this Court didn’t either for more than two
centuries—that can only be further proof of its implausibility.

															The majority asks us to glide past another
problem too. It acknowledges that its debt-collection cases
required a “laying on of hands” to complete an arrest. But it says
we should overlook that rule as an accident of antiquity.
“Touchings” by “firearm,” we are told, were unknown to
“founding-era courts,” and no “officer used a gun to apprehend a
suspect” before 1850. Ante , at 9. Never mind the shot heard
round the world in 1775 and the adoption of the Second Amendment.
Never mind that as early as 1592, when a bailiff “feared
resistance” and thus “brought with him” a gun “to arrest” someone,
a common law court deemed it lawful because “[t]he sheriff or any
of his ministers may for the better execution of justice carry with
them offensive or defensive weapons.” Seint John’s Case , 5
Co. Rep. 71b, 77 Eng. Rep. 162, 162–163 (K. B. 1592). Never mind
that even tax collectors were carrying guns by the 1680s. E.g. , Dickenson v. Watson , Jones, T. 205,
205–206, 84 Eng. Rep. 1218, 1218–1219 (K. B. 1682). And never
mind, too, that the majority’s problem isn’t limited to guns. It
fails to cite any case in which a touching by any weapon was
deemed sufficient to effect an arrest. Seemingly, the majority
would have us believe that bailiffs wielding anything but their
fists were beyond the framers’ imagination.

															Faced with all these problems, the majority
tacks. It scrambles to locate a case—any case—suggesting that
common law courts considered “touchings” by weapon enough to effect
an arrest in the debt-collection context. Ultimately, the majority
asks us to dwell at length on the Countess of Rutland’s case. In at
least that lone instance, the majority promises, we will find
bailiffs who arrested a debtor by touching her with an object (a
mace) rather than a laying on of hands. See ante , at 7–8
(citing Countess of Rutland’s Case , 6 Co. Rep. 52b, 54a, 77
Eng. Rep. 332 (Star Chamber 1605)). But it turns out the dispute
concerned whether a countess could be civilly arrested at
all , not when or how the arrest was completed. The court had no
reason to (and did not) decide whether the bailiffs accomplished
their arrest when they “shewed her their mace,” “touch[ed]” her
with the mace, or “compelled the coachman to carry” her to jail. Id. , at 54a, 77 Eng. Rep., at 336. And no one questions that
these things together—a show of authority followed by compelled
detention—have always been enough to complete an arrest. Not even
minor royalty can rescue the majority.

															So the majority tacks again. Now it asks us to
dispense with the common law’s “laying on of hands” requirement as
an “artificial” rule. Ante , at 8. Distinguishing between
“touchings” by hand and by weapon, it says, “calls to mind the
unavailing defense of the person who ‘persistently denied that he
had laid hands upon a priest, for he had only cudgelled and kicked
him.’ ” Ibid. But the quip exposes the majority’s bind.
To get where it wishes to go, the majority not only must rework the
rules found in the cases on which it relies, it must also abandon
their rationale. The debt-collection cases treated the “laying on
of hands” as a sign of possession .[ 5 ] Maybe the possession was more “constructive” or even
fictional than “actual.” See ante , at 16. But the idea was
that someone who stood next to a debtor and laid hands on him could
theoretically exercise a degree of control over his person. Common
law courts never said the same of bailiffs who fired arrows at
debtors, shot them with firearms, or cudgeled them as they ran
away. Such conduct might have amounted to a battery , but it
was never deemed sufficient to constitute an arrest .
Doubtless that’s why when a tax collector shot a man in the eye
with a (supposedly unavailable) firearm in 1682, the man sued the
officer for “assault, battery, and wounding”— not false
imprisonment. See Dickenson , Jones, T., at 205, 84 Eng.
Rep., at 1218–1219.

															The majority implores us to study the common law
history of arrests. But almost immediately, the majority realizes
it cannot find what it seeks in the history of criminal arrests. So
it is forced to disinter a long-abandoned mere-touch rule from
civil bankruptcy practice. Then it must import that rule into the
criminal law. And because even that isn’t enough to do the work it
wishes done, the majority must jettison both the laying on of hands
requirement and the rationale that sustained it. All of which
leaves us confusing seizures with their attempts and arrests with
batteries.

															The common law offers a vast legal library. Like
any other, it must be used thoughtfully. We have no business
wandering about and randomly grabbing volumes off the shelf,
plucking out passages we like, scratching out bits we don’t, all
before pasting our own new pastiche into the U. S. Reports.
That does not respect legal history; it rewrites it.

															C

															If text and history pose challenges for the
majority, so do this Court’s precedents. The majority admits (as it
must) that the seizure of an object occurs only through taking
possession. Ante , at 4. The majority also admits (as it
must) that the seizure of a person through a “show of authority”
occurs only if the suspect submits to an officer’s possession. Ante , at 15. But the majority fails to acknowledge that this
Court has also said the same principle governs the seizure
of persons effected through the use of force.

															In Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the Court explained that “ [o]nly when the officer,
by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way
restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a
‘seizure’ has occurred.” Id. , at 19, n. 16 (emphasis
added). The restraint of liberty Terry referred to was
“interference” with a person’s “freedom of movement.” United
States v. Jacobsen , 466 U.S.
109 , 113, n. 5 (1984). As the Court put it in Brower v. County of Inyo , 489
U.S. 593 (1989), a decision issued just two years before Hodari D. : “It is clear, in other words, that a Fourth
Amendment seizure” occurs “only when there is a governmental
termination of freedom of movement through means intentionally
applied.” 489 U. S., at 597 (emphasis deleted).

															Rather than follow these teachings, the majority
disparages them. After highlighting (multiple times) that Justice
Scalia authored Hodari D. ’s dicta, the majority turns about
and faults his opinion for the Court in Brower for
“improperly eras[ing] the distinction between seizures by control and seizures by force .” Ante , at 14.
The majority continues on to blame other of our decisions, too, for
“hav[ing] not always been attentive” to this supposedly fundamental
distinction. Ibid . But this Court has not been
“[in]attentive” to a fundamental Fourth Amendment distinction for
over two centuries, let alone sought to “erase” it. In truth, the
majority’s “distinction” is a product of its own invention. This
Court has always recognized that how seizures take place can
differ. Some may take place after a show of authority, others by
the application of force, still others after a polite request. But
to be a “seizure,” the same result has always been required:
An officer must acquire possession.

															IV

															If text, history, and precedent cannot explain
today’s result, what can? The majority seems to offer a clue when
it promises its new rule will help us “avoi[d] . . .
line-drawing problems.” Ante , at 15–16 (internal quotation
marks omitted). Any different standard, the majority worries, would
be “difficult to apply.” Ante , at 15.

															But if efficiency in judicial administration is
the explanation, it is a troubling one. Surely our role as
interpreters of the Constitution isn’t to make life easier for
ourselves. Cf. Calabresi & Lawson, The Rule of Law as a Law of
Law, 90 Notre Dame L. Rev. 483, 488 (2014). Nor, for that
matter, has the majority even tried to show that the traditional
possession rule—in use “[f]rom the time of the founding,” Hodari
D ., 499 U. S., at 624—has proven unreasonably difficult to
administer. Everyone agrees, too, that the possession rule will
continue to govern when it comes to the seizures of objects and
persons through a show of authority. So, rather than simplify
things, the majority’s new rule for “mere touch” seizures promises
only to add another layer of complexity to the law.

															Even within its field of operation, the
majority’s rule seems destined to underdeliver on its predicted
efficiencies. The majority tells us that its new test requires an
“objective intent to restrain.” Ante , at 10. But what
qualifies is far from clear. The majority assures us that a “tap on
the shoulder to get one’s attention will rarely exhibit such an
intent.” Ibid. Suppose, though, the circumstances
“objectively” indicate that the tap was “intended” to secure a
person’s attention for a minute, a quarter hour, or longer. Would
that be enough?

															Then there’s the question what kind of
“touching” will suffice. Imagine that, with an objective intent to
detain a suspect, officers deploy pepper spray that enters a
suspect’s lungs as he sprints away. Does the application of the
pepper spray count? Suppose that, intending to capture a fleeing
suspect, officers detonate flash-bang grenades that are so loud
they damage the suspect’s eardrum, even though he manages to run
off. Or imagine an officer shines a laser into a suspect’s eyes to
get him to stop, but the suspect is able to drive away with
now-damaged retinas. Are these “touchings”? What about an officer’s
bullet that shatters the driver’s windshield, a piece of which cuts
her as she speeds away? Maybe the officer didn’t touch the suspect,
but he set in motion a series of events that yielded a touching.
Does that count? While assuring us that its new rule will prove
easy to administer, the majority refuses to confront its certain
complications. Lower courts and law enforcement won’t have that
luxury.

															If efficiency cannot explain today’s decision,
what’s left? Maybe it is an impulse that individuals like Ms.
Torres should be able to sue for damages. Sometimes police
shootings are justified, but other times they cry out for a remedy.
The majority seems to give voice to this sentiment when it
disparages the traditional possession rule as “artificial” and
promotes its alternative as more sensitive to “personal security”
and “new” policing realities. Ante , at 8–9. It takes pains
to explain, too, that its new rule will provide greater protection
for personal “privacy” interests, which we’re told make up the
“essence” of the Fourth Amendment. Ante , at 16 (internal
quotation marks omitted).

															But tasked only with applying the Constitution’s
terms, we have no authority to posit penumbras of “privacy” and
“personal security” and devise whatever rules we think might best
serve the Amendment’s “essence.” The Fourth Amendment allows this
Court to protect against specific governmental actions—unreasonable
searches and seizures of persons, houses, papers, and effects—and
that is the limit of our license. Besides, it’s hard to see why we
should stretch to invent a new remedy here. Ms. Torres had
ready-made claims for assault and battery under New Mexico law to
test the officers’ actions. See N. M. Stat. Ann §41–4–12
(2020). The only reason this case comes before us under §1983 and
the Fourth Amendment rather than before a New Mexico court under
state tort law seems to be that Ms. Torres (or her lawyers) missed
the State’s two-year statutory filing deadline. See Tr. of Oral
Arg. 16–17; Brief for Respondents 20, n. 4. That may be a
misfortune for her, but it is hardly a reason to upend a 230
year-old understanding of our Constitution.

															Nor, if we are honest, does today’s decision
promise much help to anyone else. Like Ms. Torres, many seeking to
sue officers will be able to bring state tort claims. Even for
those whose only recourse is a federal lawsuit, the majority’s new
rule seems likely to accomplish little. This Court has already said
that a remedy lies under §1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment for
police conduct that “shocks the conscience.” County of
Sacramento v. Lewis , 523 U.S.
833 , 840, 845–847 (1998). At the same time, qualified immunity
poses a daunting hurdle for those seeking to recover for less
egregious police behavior. In our own case, Ms. Torres has yet to
clear that bar and still faces it on remand. So, at the end of it
all, the majority’s new rule will help only those who (1) lack a
state-law remedy, (2) evade custody, (3) after some physical
contact by the police, (4) where the contact was sufficient to show
an objective intent to restrain, (5) and where the police acted
“unreasonably” in light of clearly established law, (6) but the
police conduct was not “conscience shocking.” With
qualification heaped on qualification, that can describe only a
vanishingly small number of cases.

															Even if its holding offers little practical
assistance to anyone, perhaps the majority at least hopes to be
seen as trying to vindicate “personal security” and the “essence”
of “privacy” when it derides the traditional possession rule as
“artificial.” But an attractive narrative cannot obscure the hard
truth. Not only does the majority’s “mere touch” rule allow a new
cause of action in exceedingly few cases
(non-conscience-shocking-but-still-unreasonable batteries intended
to result in possession that don’t achieve it). It supplies no path
to relief for otherwise identical near-misses (assaults). A fleeing
suspect briefly touched by pursuing officers may have a claim. But
a suspect who evades a hail of bullets unscathed, or one who
endures a series of flash-bang grenades untouched, is out of luck.
That distinction is no less “artificial” than the one the law has
recognized for centuries. And the majority’s new rule promises such
scarce relief that it can hardly claim more sensitivity to
“personal security” than the rule the Constitution has long
enshrined.

															In the face of these concerns, the majority
replies by denying their relevance. It says there is “no call” to
“surmise” that its decision rests on anything beyond an “analysis
of the common law of arrest.” Ante , at 17. But there is no
surmise about it. The majority itself tells us that its decision is also justified by the need to “avoi[d] . . .
line-drawing problems,” protect “personal security,” and advance
the “privacy” interests that form the “essence” of the Fourth
Amendment. Having invoked these sundry considerations, it’s hard to
see how the majority might disown them.

															*

															To rule as it does, the majority must endow
the term “seizure” with two different meanings at the same time. It
must disregard the dominant rule of the common law. It must
disparage this Court’s existing case law for erasing distinctions
that never existed. It cannot even guarantee that its new rule will
offer great efficiencies or meaningfully vindicate the penumbral
promises it supposes. Instead, we are asked to skip from one
snippet to another, finally landing on a long-abandoned
debt-collection practice that must be reengineered to do the work
the majority wishes done. Our final destination confuses a battery
for a seizure and an attempted seizure with its completion. All
this is miles from where the standard principles of interpretation
lead and just as far from the Constitution’s original meaning. And
for what? A new rule that may seem tempting at first blush, but
that offers those like Ms. Torres little more than false hope in
the end.

															Respectfully, I dissent. Notes 1 N. Bailey, Universal
Etymological English Dictionary (22 ed. 1770) (To seize is “to take
into Custody or Possession by Force, or wrongfully; to distrain, to
attack, to lay hold of, or catch”; a seizure is a “seizing, taking
into Custody”); T. Dyche & W. Pardon, A New General English
Dictionary (14th ed. 1771) (To seize is “to lay or take hold of
violently or at unawares, wrongfully, or by force”; a seizing or
seizure is “a taking possession of any thing by violent, force,
&c”); 2 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (6th
ed. 1785) (To seize is “1. To take hold of; to gripe; to grasp.”
“2. To take possession of by force.” “3. To take possession of; to
lay hold on; to invade suddenly.” “4. To take forcible possession
of by law.” “5. To make possessed; to put in possession of.” A
seizure is “1. The act of seizing.” “2. The thing seized.” “3. The
act of taking forcible possession.” “4. Gripe; possession.” “5.
Catch”); 2 J. Ash, The New and Complete Dictionary of the English
Language (2d ed. 1795) (To seize is “[t]o grasp, to lay hold on, to
fasten on, to take possession of, to take possession by law”; a
seizure is “[t]he act of seizing, a gripe, a catch; the act of
taking possession by force of law; the thing seized, the thing
possessed”). 2 2 N. Webster, An American
Dictionary of the English Language 67 (1828) (To seize is “1. To
fall or rush upon suddenly and lay hold on; or to gripe or grasp
suddenly.” “2. To take possession by force, with or without right.”
“3. To invade suddenly; to take hold of; to come upon suddenly; as,
a fever seizes a patient.” “4. To take possession by virtue
of a warrant or legal authority.” To be seized is to be “[s]uddenly
caught or grasped; taken by force; invaded suddenly; taken
possession of; fastened with a cord; having possession.” A seizure
is “1. The act of seizing; the act of laying hold on suddenly; as
the seizure of a thief. 2. The act of taking possession by
force; as the seizure of lands or goods; the seizure of a town by an enemy; the seizure of a throne by an
usurper. 3. The act of taking by warrant; as the seizure of
contraband goods. 4. The thing taken or seized.” “5. Gripe; grasp;
possession.” “6. Catch; a catching”). 3 See, e.g. , Bailey,
Universal Etymological English Dictionary (To arrest is “to stop or
stay”; an arrest (in the legal sense) is “a Legal taking of a
Person, and restraining him from Liberty”); Dyche & Pardon, A
New General English Dictionary (An arrest is “the stopping or
detaining a person, by a legal process”); 1 Johnson, A Dictionary
of the English Language (“1. In law. A stop or stay; as, a man
apprehended for debt, is said to be arrested.” “An arrest is a
certain restraint of a man’s person, depriving him of his own will,
and binding it to become obedient to the will of the law, and may
be called the beginning of imprisonment.” “2. Any caption, seizure
of the person.” “3. A stop” (emphasis deleted)); 1 Ash, The New and
Complete Dictionary of the English Language (To arrest is “[t]o
seize a man for debt, to apprehend by virtue of a writ from any
court of justice, to stop, to hinder”; an arrest is “[t]he act of
seizing on a man’s person for debt, the execution of a writ from
any court of justice by which a man becomes a prisoner, a stop, a
hindrance”). 4 The majority cites only
Blackstone’s definition of a civil arrest, which required a
“corporal seising or touching the defendant’s body.” Ante ,
at 6 (quoting 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England
288 (1768)). But flipping from Blackstone’s third volume
(discussing “private wrongs”) to his fourth volume (discussing
“public wrongs”) reveals—as we have already seen but the majority
fails to acknowledge—that Blackstone equated a criminal arrest with
“apprehending or restraining . . . one’s person, in order
to be forthcoming to answer an alleged or suspected crime.” See supra , at 11. 5 That is why the
mere-touch cases often discussed the “corporal possession of the
debtor.” E.g. , Sandon v. Jervis , El. Bl. &
El. 935, 941–942, 120 Eng. Rep. 758 (K. B. 1858) (Hill, J.). A
“corporal” touch was a legal term of art and was frequently used in
the context of determining the possession of goods. E.g. , Jordan v. James , 5 Ohio 88, 98 (1831) (stating that
an owner “may deliver any chattel he sells, symbolically and
constructively, as well as by corporal touch”); see also 2 W.
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws 448–449, n. 16 (J. Chitty
ed. 1826); Friedman, Formative Elements in the Law of Sales: The
Eighteenth Century, 44 Minn. L. Rev. 411, 445
(1960).

Summary:
Here is a summary of the Supreme Court case, Roxanne Torres v. Janice Madrid and Richard Williamson:

The Supreme Court ruled that when a police officer shoots someone who is temporarily evading capture, it constitutes a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, regardless of whether the force subdues the individual. In this case, the Court recounted the facts in the light most favorable to Roxanne Torres, who was shot by officers attempting to execute an arrest warrant. Torres, experiencing methamphetamine withdrawal, attempted to flee in her car. Officers Madrid and Williamson fired 13 shots, striking her twice but not subduing her. The Court concluded that the application of physical force with the intent to restrain, even if unsuccessful, constitutes a seizure.