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Criminal Justice, Criminal Law & the constitution week 3 assignment discussion...

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Terralyn Franklin Week 3: Assignment In the criminal justice field, police use of force, is generally defined as the amount of effort required by police to compel compliance by an unwilling subject. November 12th, in the year of 1984, a man, Dethorne Graham, whom was a diabetic, had an insulin reaction while working on his car at his home. Graham then requested his friend, William Berry, to drive & take him to a convenience store so that he could buy some orange juice to counter help his insulin reaction. When Graham & Berry got to the store, Graham suddenly left the car in a hurry. When Graham went inside the store he seen the store he seen about four to five people standing at the counter. Of course, in the time of urgency, Graham left the store because he didn’t want to wait in the line. Suspiciously, M.S. Connor, a Charlotte, NC police officer, watched Graham go in and leave the store; to him, said to be “unusual & sudden”. Furthermore, Connor begins to follow Graham & Berry’s vehicle and then proceeds to pull them over. Graham, whom in that moment was still experiencing a reaction from insulin, got out of the car and started to run around it, two times. Friend, Berry and Charlotte police officer Connor immediately stopped Graham, and he then sat down on the nearby curbside. Eventually, Graham faints suddenly. When Graham reawakened, he was then handcuffed and was lying face down on the sidewalk. By this time, Graham noticed several more police officers were present. Those officers picked Graham up, as he was still handcuffed, and positioned him over the hood of Berry’s car. Graham struggled to reach for his wallet to give the officers his diabetic documentation. As Graham tried to reach for those proof of record(s) one of those officers forcefully pushed his head down onto the hood of the car and exclaimed, “shut up!” Then, the officers tussled to put Graham into the squad car (Graham then shows signs of forceful resistance). Soon enough, Officer M.S. Connor concluded that Graham did not commit a crime at the convenience store, and Graham was able to return to his home.

Graham suffered from multiple injuries, counting a broken foot, as the outcome of that incident. (Graham v. Connor, n.d.) Graham later filed charges against police officer Connor, the other officers, and the City of Charlotte. These charges supposed that there was a violation of Graham’s rights by the unnecessary and undue use of force by the officers, unlawful assault, unlawful restraint constituting false imprisonment, and that the City of Charlotte inadequately trained their police officers (violating the Rehabilitation Act of 1973). (Graham v. Connor, n.d.) The City of Charlotte, NC filed for a focused verdict, in which the district court approved. Graham then proceeded to appeal the ruling on the use of excessive force, opposing that the district court inaccurately utilized an essential due process test (compromised of four parts) from the Johnson v. Glick case. For this, it takes an officer’s “good faith” efforts into consideration. Also, this takes into account whether the police officers acted maliciously and/or inhumanly. (Graham v. Connor, n.d.) Instead, Graham argued for an average of “objective reasonableness” in which is documented in the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (located in Richmond, VA with appellate jurisdiction over the district court), overruled this contention, reasoning that notions such as "good faith" are indeed necessary in concluding the degree of force used by police. (Graham v. Connor, n.d.) In conclusion, the verdict was an unanimous decision by eight justices explaining that the Fourth and Eighth Amendment both justify Graham’s claims as it relates to use of force. The outcome of this case helps readers better understand that the Eighth Amendment protects one’s right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. In Graham v. Connor, Graham was unnecessarily shoved, thrown, and abused by officers (including M.S. Connor) because he had allegedly committing some sort of crime in a local convenience store. Since Graham was unreasonably handled in the hands of those officers, he was respectfully able to

argue for objective reasoning in this case. Also, the Fourth Amendment protected Mr. Graham as well by allowing his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizures.

REFERENCES Graham v. Connor. (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved February 4, 2020, from https://www.oyez.org/cases/1988/87-6571

Peak, K. J. (2016). Introduction to Criminal Justice: Practice and Process (2nd ed.). Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/...