WASHINGTON (AP) – Police may use tactics that put fleeing suspects at risk of death to end high-speed car chases, the Supreme Court said Monday in ruling against a Georgia teen who was paralyzed after his car was run off the road.

In a case that turned in part on a video of the chase in suburban Atlanta, the court said it is reasonable for law enforcement officers to try to stop a fleeing motorist to prevent harm to bystanders or other drivers.

The court sided 8-1 with former Coweta County sheriff’s deputy Timothy Scott, who rammed a fleeing black Cadillac on a two-lane, rain-slicked road in March 2001. The nighttime chase reached speeds of up to 90 miles an hour.

Victor Harris, the 19-year-old driver of the Cadillac, lost control and his car ended up at the bottom of an embankment. Harris was rendered a quadriplegic.

Many large police forces have strict rules for when officers can begin high-speed pursuit, limiting chases to instances where there has been a felony crime committed, a misdemeanor crime involving a weapon, or suspected drunken drivers who are an obvious road hazard.

Harris was wanted only for speeding.

Joshua Dressler, an Ohio State University law professor and expert on the Fourth Amendment, said he did not think that police would relax those policies.

“The clear trend of police departments in major urban areas has been to limit police chases in general,” Dressler said. “There have been so many injuries and deaths as a result of police chases and such great risk of harm to innocent bystanders.”

More than 350 people died each year on average from 1994 to 2004 because of police chases, a group of Georgia police chiefs said in court papers in this case.

Yet officers now have less to fear from the tragic results of a car chase because of Monday’s ruling, Dressler said. “This ruling may result in even faster chases and therefore perhaps increase the risk of harm not only to the speeder, but also innocent bystanders.”

Innocent parties hurt in such incidents always have had a hard time winning lawsuits against police and Monday’s decision will make their claims harder to prove, Dressler said

Harris sued Scott after the crash, claiming the deputy’s decision to ram the Cadillac violated Harris’ Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure.

Lower federal courts ruled the lawsuit could proceed, but the Supreme Court said Monday that the officer could not be sued for his actions. Justice John Paul Stevens dissented.

Scalia described a “Hollywood-style car chase of the most frightening sort, placing police officers and innocent bystanders alike at great risk of serious injury.”

During oral argument, justices repeatedly invoked the video to support how recklessly they believed Harris was driving.

Stevens, however, said that a district court judge and three appellate judges who watched the same video concluded otherwise. Those judges determined the issue should be decided after a trial, not by a judge in a pretrial ruling.

In the courtroom, Stevens said that was preferable to the case “being decided by a group of elderly appellate judges,” a reference to himself and his colleagues on the court. At 87, Stevens is the oldest justice.

In his written dissent, however, Stevens suggested his colleagues were too young to appreciate the situation.

“Had they learned to drive when most high-speed driving took place on two-lane roads rather than on superhighways…they might well have reacted to the videotape more dispassionately,” he said.

Scalia said people could watch the tape and decide for themselves. “We are happy to allow the videotape to speak for itself,” he said in a footnote that accompanied the ruling.

The case is Scott v. Harris, 05-1631.

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On the Net:

Video of the chase: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/video/scott-v-harris.rmvb

AP-ES-04-30-07 1632EDT