Excessive Force.
Excessive force by police is judged under the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness standard.
Police may use force. They may not use unreasonable force. The whole case lives in the distance between those two sentences.
Excessive force claims are judged under the Fourth Amendment, which forbids unreasonable seizures. Courts ask whether the force was objectively reasonable from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, considering the severity of the offense, whether the person posed an immediate threat, and whether they were actively resisting or fleeing. It is not judged with hindsight, and it is not judged by the officer's intentions. It is judged by what a reasonable officer would have done facing the same facts.
That makes the evidence everything. Body camera and dashcam footage, bystander video, dispatch audio, medical records, and the department's use-of-force policy together show what really happened and how far it strayed from what was allowed. Much of that footage is kept only for a limited time, so a demand to preserve it needs to go out quickly.
Then comes qualified immunity, the defense that ends most of these cases. Beating it means finding the precedent that already held similar force unconstitutional and framing your facts to it. That is careful, precedent-driven work, and it is the difference between a case that survives and one that is dismissed before trial.
The standard, from the source:
Is this a case I can take?
Almost every day someone tells me about a stop that felt wrong, and I hear you. Being treated badly by an officer is real, and it stays with you. But the cases I can actually take into federal court are a narrower thing than most people expect. Reading the two lists below will tell you, in about a minute, whether yours is one I can help with. It saves you a phone call, and it saves the people with the strongest cases the time I owe them.
- ✓An officer used force and you were hurt: hit, thrown down, tased, shot, or bitten by a police dog.
- ✓You needed medical care afterward, such as stitches, an ER visit, surgery, a broken bone, or a lasting injury.
- ✓Someone was seriously hurt or died in a jail or in custody, or was denied clear medical care there.
- ✓You were arrested or held with no real reason, or kept for days without a charge ever being filed.
- ✓Police entered or searched your home without a warrant and without your permission.
- ·A traffic stop or a ticket where no one was physically hurt.
- ·Being pulled over, questioned, or searched during a stop, when it ended without force and without injury.
- ·An officer was rude, unprofessional, or dishonest, but caused no physical harm.
- ·A stop you believe was unfair or about your race, but that ended without force, injury, or an unlawful arrest.
- This is the honest truth, not a brush-off. Qualified immunity stops most stop-only claims before a jury ever hears them, and I would rather tell you that now than leave you waiting on a call.
If yours is on the left.
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