Week 3 Tuesday - Reading Questions PDF

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two weekly reading responses due on tuesday and thursday based on readings assigned in course pack ...

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Kaitlyn Paskill Section AC 10/8/19

Reading Questions – “Mr. Graham and the Reasonable Man”; Vos v. Newport Beach In Graham v. Connor case of 1989, the ruling of the court is seen as a victory to Mr. Graham. Before this case, lowe courts have ruled that in determining whether or not excessive force was used, the court must consider the facts of the case as they were presented to the officer at the time which the decision of how to use force is made. However, the victory of this case lies in the ruling that with regard to the use of force, all the facts and circumstances of the action and situation must be taken into account as opposed to just the officer's perspective. This idea came to fruition after the courts ruled that the only the fourth amendment was relevant to the decision of whether or not excessive force was used. In this ruling, the intentionality of the officer is deemed irrelevant thus officers will more frequently be held accountable for their uses of force that are arguably questionable. The issue is that after this case the “reasonable officer” standard has not worked in the way that was anticipated. Firstly, there is a disparity between the actual perspective that the officer had at the time at which the force was applied and the hindsight perspective. One problem is that the jurors will judge the situation with the bias of hindsight rather that the perspective of the reasonable officer in the situation, thus this disparity is problematic. Additionally, the officers must make split second decisions thus their decisions will be more emotionally driven than logical. Graham is now viewed as the equivalent of the First Amendment for police officers as they typically use the ruling as a shield to avoid punishment. There is a lot of debate as to what the proper time horizon is for using force. I personally believe that the starting point should be at the moment at which it is identified that the suspect is a threat to the safety of others, whether that be the officers, general society, or themselves. I also believe that there should be a delineation of when the time horizon for non-lethal and lethal force occurs. I only think that force is legitimized, lethal force that is, if apprehending the suspect with non-lethal force has been attempted before the use of lethal force. In the case of Vos, there is no factual dispute as to what occurred. However, the nature of the threat is what was disputed. What accounts for these differences in opinions of the nature of the threat is that Vos was clearly unarmed so it is ambiguous as to whether lethal force was warranted. Granted, he charged at the officers, which typically would warrant lethal force immediately except in this case, the officers were completely shielded. Thus, arguably, non-lethal force could have been administered. Additionally, the guns that the officers were shooting were unnecessarily lethal for what the situation warranted based on the state of Vos and the fact that he was unarmed....