- The Supreme Court ruled that excessive force claims by law enforcement are evaluated under the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness standard, not the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The specifics of the situation, rather than the officer's intent, determine whether the use of force was reasonable.
- The case highlighted the need for police to justify their use of force with facts and circumstances, rather than relying solely on good intentions or assumptions.
- Graham sustained multiple injuries during the incident, raising questions about the appropriateness of police actions in his arrest.
list a couple1 short sentence key points from this passage
Granted: October 3, 1988
Argued: February 21, 1989
Decided: May 15, 1989
PRIMARY HOLDING: A claim of excessive force by law enforcement during arrest, stop, or other seizure of an individual is subject to reasonable standards of the Fourth Amendment, rather than a process standard under the Fourteenth Amendment. The facts and circumstances related to the use of force should drive the analysis, rather than any improper intent or motivation by the officer who used force.
FACTS: When a diabetic patient began to experience an insulin reaction, he asked a friend to drive him to a convenience store to buy orange juice. Since the store was crowded when he arrived, the patient felt he would not get the orange juice in time and asked his friend to drive him to another individual's house. A police officer noticed the patient leaving the store soon after he entered it and followed the friend's car. The officer eventually stopped the vehicle and ordered the patient and the friend to wait while he investigated what happened in the store. Other police officers handcuffed the patient after arriving at the scene, while failing to investigate or address his medical condition. The patient was injured during these events, but the original officer released him after some time when he found out that no crime had occurred in the store.
Opinions: Majority
William Hubbs Rehnquist (Author)
Byron Raymond White
John Paul Stevens
Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia
Anthony M. Kennedy
Harry Andrew Blackmun
William Joseph Brennan, Jr.
Thurgood Marshall
Writing for a unanimous Court, Rehnquist ruled that an analysis of an excessive force claim should consider whether the search or seizure was objectively reasonable, based on how a reasonable police officer would have handled the same situation. The specific intent of the individual police officer who executed the search or seizure should not matter. While improper intentions do not make a reasonable use of force unconstitutional, good intentions do not shield an officer from liability if their use of force was objectively unreasonable. Thus, the Supreme Court rejected both the decisions of lower courts that had relied on the 14th Amendment and arguments that the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment should apply. (An Eighth Amendment standard also would be subjective.) In deciding whether an officer used excessive force in a certain situation, a court should consider similar factors to those described in the earlier decision of Tennessee v. Garner. These include the severity of the crime, any threat posed by the individual to the safety of officers or other people, and whether the individual is trying to flee or resist arrest.
CASE COMMENTARY: This case helped shape police procedures for stops that involve the use of force. An officer cannot justify these actions based on a hunch or by showing that they acted in good faith. Instead, they must carefully articulate facts and events that made their use of force objectively reasonable under the circumstances.
Petitioner Graham, a diabetic Graham sustained multiple injuries
friend, Berry,
Connor, a city police officer in Charlotte, North Carolina, Police Department, became suspicious after seeing Graham hastily enter and leave the store. Police officers arrived on the scene, handcuffed Graham, and ignored or rebuffed attempts to explain and treat Graham's condition
Graham filed suit in the District Court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against respondents, alleging that they had used excessive force in making the stop, in violation of "rights secured to him under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 42 U.S.C. § 1983."
inter alia, whether the force was applied in a good faith effort to maintain and restore discipline or maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm
it was an error to require him to prove that the allegedly excessive force was applied maliciously and sadistically to cause harm, and holding that a reasonable jury applying the Johnson v. Glick tested his evidence and could not find that the force applied was constitutionally excessive.
Several other Charlotte police officers arrived on the scene in response to Officer Connor's request for backup. One of the officers rolled Graham over on the sidewalk and cuffed his hands tightly behind his back, ignoring Berry's pleas to get him some sugar. Another officer said: "I've seen a lot of people with sugar diabetes that never acted like this. Ain't nothing wrong with the M.F. but drunk. Lock the S.B. up."
Claims that law enforcement officials have used excessive force in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other "seizure" of a free citizen are most properly characterized as invoking the protections of the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees citizens the right "to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable seizures," and must be judged by reference to the Fourth Amendment's "reasonableness" standard. The Fourth Amendment "reasonableness" inquiry is whether the officers' actions are "objectively reasonable" in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation. The "reasonableness" of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, and its calculus must embody an allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second decisions about the amount of force necessary in a particular situation.
Individual officers' subjective motivations are of central importance in deciding whether force used against a convicted prisoner violates the Eighth Amendment; it cannot be a reversible error to inquire.
VIOLENCE
Several officers then lifted Graham from behind, carried him over to Berry's car, and placed him face down on its hood. Regaining consciousness, Graham asked the officers to check his wallet for a diabetic decal that he carried. In response, one of the officers told him to "shut up" and shoved his face down against the hood of the car. Four officers grabbed Graham and threw him headfirst into the police car. A friend of Graham's brought some orange juice to the car, but the officers refused to let him have it. Finally, Officer Connor received a report that Graham had done nothing wrong at the convenience store, and the officers drove him home and released him.
At some point during his encounter with the police, Graham sustained a broken foot, cuts on his wrists, a bruised forehead, and an injured shoulder; he also claims to have developed a loud ringing in his right ear that continues to this day.
." 644 F. Supp. 246, 248 (WDNC 1986). Finding that the amount of force used by the officers was "appropriate under the circumstances," that "[t]here was no discernible injury inflicted," and that the force used "was not applied maliciously or sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm," but in "a good faith effort to maintain or restore order
In assessing the credibility of an officer's account of the circumstances that prompted the use of force, a factfinder may consider, along with other factors, evidence that the officer may have harbored ill will toward the citizen. See Scott v. United States, 436 U. S. 128, 436 U. S. 139, n. 13 (1978). Similarly, the officer's objective "good faith" -- that is, whether he could reasonably have believed that the force used did not violate the Fourth Amendment -- may be relevant to the availability of the qualified immunity defense to monetary liability
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