Graham v. Connor

Supreme Court of United States
490 U.S. 386 (1989)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

All 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 to be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment's 'objective reasonableness' standard, not under a substantive due process standard.

Facts:

Dethorne Graham, a diabetic, began to experience an insulin reaction and asked his friend, William Berry, to drive him to a convenience store for orange juice.
Upon entering the store, Graham saw a long checkout line, and concerned about the delay, he quickly exited and asked Berry to take him to a friend's house instead.
Officer Connor, observing Graham's hasty entrance and exit, grew suspicious and initiated an investigatory traffic stop of Berry's car about half a mile from the store.
Despite Berry informing Connor that Graham was having a 'sugar reaction,' Connor ordered them to wait for backup.
While waiting, Graham got out of the car, ran around it twice, and briefly passed out on the curb.
When other officers arrived, they forcefully handcuffed Graham, ignoring pleas for sugar and making derogatory comments suggesting he was drunk.
Several officers lifted Graham, placed him face-down on the car's hood, and when he tried to point to a diabetic decal in his wallet, an officer shoved his face against the hood and told him to 'shut up.'
The officers threw Graham headfirst into a police car and refused to let a friend provide him with orange juice, resulting in Graham suffering a broken foot, cuts, a bruised forehead, and an injured shoulder before being released when no wrongdoing was confirmed.

Procedural Posture:

Dethorne Graham sued Officer Connor and other police officers in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, alleging excessive force in violation of his constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
At the conclusion of Graham's evidence at trial, the respondent officers moved for a directed verdict.
The District Court granted the directed verdict, applying a four-part substantive due process test that considered the officers' subjective motivations.
Graham (petitioner) appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit affirmed the District Court's ruling, holding that the subjective four-part test was the correct legal standard.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the question of the proper constitutional standard for excessive force claims.

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Issue:

Does a claim that law enforcement officers used excessive force during an arrest or investigatory stop fall under the Fourth Amendment's 'objective reasonableness' standard, rather than a substantive due process standard that considers the officers' subjective motivations?

Opinions:

Majority - Chief Justice Rehnquist

Yes. All claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force during an arrest, investigatory stop, or other seizure must be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment's 'objective reasonableness' standard. The Fourth Amendment provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection against physically intrusive government conduct, making it the proper guide for analysis rather than the more generalized notion of substantive due process. The 'reasonableness' of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, based on the totality of the circumstances and without regard to the officer's underlying intent or motivation. The previously used four-part substantive due process test, which includes subjective factors like 'malice' and 'sadism,' is incompatible with a proper Fourth Amendment analysis.

Concurring - Justice Blackmun

Yes. The Fourth Amendment is the primary tool for analyzing claims of excessive force in the pre-arrest context, and the case should be reconsidered under its reasonableness standard. However, the Court should not have foreclosed the potential use of substantive due process analysis in all future pre-arrest cases. The question of whether substantive due process could ever apply was not fully argued, and there may be a rare case where force that is not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment could still raise substantive due process concerns. It would have been better to leave that question for a case in which it is squarely raised.

Analysis:

This decision established a landmark precedent by definitively shifting the legal standard for excessive force claims from a subjective due process inquiry to an objective Fourth Amendment one. By rejecting the 'malicious and sadistic' test from Johnson v. Glick, the Court provided a clearer, more predictable framework for analyzing police conduct. This 'objective reasonableness' standard focuses the legal inquiry on the officer's actions in light of the circumstances, rather than attempting to divine their internal motivations. This has had a profound impact on civil rights litigation, shaping how courts, law enforcement agencies, and litigants approach excessive force cases.

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