A Monday Supreme Court ruling will make it easier for pretrial criminal defendants to sue their jailers over excessive force.
The court ruled 5-4 that pretrial prisoners do not have to prove officers intentionally used excessive force. They need only show that the force intentionally used against them was “objectively unreasonable.”
The majority opinion, authored by Justice Stephen Breyer, cited several ways of determining whether the force was unreasonable, like considering the extent of the injuries, reasonably perceived threat to jail officers, and whether the prisoner was actively resisting.
“A court (judge or jury) cannot apply this standard mechanically,” he wrote. “Rather, objective reasonableness turns on the ‘facts and circumstances of each particular case.’ A court must make this determination from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, including what the officer knew at the time, not with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.”
The case centered around Wisconsin defendant Michael Kingsley, whom officers tased for five seconds after he refused orders to remove a piece of paper from his cell. Kingsley and the officers have contradictory accounts of their altercation; the officers say he resisted them, while he claims they hurled his head into concrete.
Kingsley sued over the tasing, calling it objectively unreasonable and a Fourteenth Amendment violation. The officers won their initial case by arguing that they need only subjectively believe their level of force was appropriate. The Supreme Court disagreed, saying there should be an objective standard of “unreasonable” force.
Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the majority opinion. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice John Roberts joined in one disset, while Justice Samuel Alito dissented separately.
