Graham v. Connor

Dethorne Graham, an African American man suffering from type 1 diabetes,[1] was traveling with a friend, Berry, to a convenience store to get orange juice. Graham intended to buy the juice to regulate his blood sugar level, as he was suffering from an onset of a diabetic insulin reaction. He entered the store but left after seeing that many people were waiting in line. Connor, a nearby police officer (also an African American[1]), observed Graham's behavior and became suspicious. Graham returned to his friend's car, and they drove off, but Connor immediately pulled them over for an investigative stop to determine what they were doing at the store. Berry informed Officer Connor that Graham was having a "sugar reaction". Connor ordered Graham and Berry to remain stopped while he investigated what, if anything, went on at the store. Connor returned to his patrol car and called for backup. Graham got out of Berry's car and ran around it twice and then sat on the curb and passed out. When backup officers arrived, one of the officers rolled Graham over on the sidewalk and applied handcuffs tightly behind Graham's back. Berry plead with the officers to get Graham some sugar. Another officer said, "I've seen a lot of people with sugar diabetes that never acted like this. Ain't nothing wrong with the motherfucker but drunk. Lock the son-of-a-bitch up." Several officers then lifted the still-unconscious body of Graham and put him face down on the hood of Berry's car. As Graham regained consciousness, he asked the officers to check his back pocket for a diabetic decal. Rather than check Graham's pocket, one of the officers shouted at Graham to "shut up" and shoved Graham's face down against the hood of the car. Then four officers picked up Graham and threw him headfirst into the back of a police car. A friend arrived on the scene with some orange juice, which the officers prohibited Graham from drinking. Once Officer Connor confirmed that Graham had done nothing wrong at the convenience store, the officers drove him home and released him.

During the police encounter, Graham suffered a broken foot, cuts on his wrists, a bruised forehead, and an injured shoulder. He filed a federal lawsuit against Officer Connor and other officers alleging that the officers' use of force during the investigative stop was excessive and violated Graham's civil rights.[2]

Graham was represented by lawyer Woody Connette before the federal court and the Court of Appeals. Another lawyer, Gerry Beaver joined the legal team when he offered to bring the case before the Supreme Court on a pro bono basis. As the two lawyers explain in a 2017 interview, at the time most courts decided on similar cases based on the Fourteenth Amendment standard of malicious intent, or more rarely the Eighth Amendment clause protecting against "cruel and unusual punishment". Both of these laws required the plaintiff to prove that the law enforcement officer acted maliciously, which was difficult in practice. By using the Fourth Amendment protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures", Graham's team intended to lower the bar: no longer would it be necessary to prove that the officer acted maliciously, only that he or she acted unreasonably. The definition of "reasonable" behavior would need to conform to the legal concept of a reasonable person.[1]

The Supreme Court held that determining the "reasonableness" of a seizure "requires a careful balancing of the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the countervailing governmental interests at stake." It acknowledged, "Our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has long recognized that the right to make an arrest or investigatory stop necessarily carries with it the right to use some degree of physical coercion or threat thereof to effect it." However, it then noted, "Because the test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application," the test's "proper application requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case."

The Court rejected the notion that the judiciary could use the Due Process Clause, instead of the Fourth Amendment, in analyzing an excessive force claim: "Because the Fourth Amendment provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection against this sort of physically intrusive governmental conduct, that Amendment, not the more generalized notion of 'substantive due process,' must be the guide for analyzing these claims."

The Court then explained that, "As in other Fourth Amendment contexts... the "reasonableness" inquiry in an excessive force case is an objective one: the question is whether the officers' actions are 'objectively reasonable' in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation." The Court also cautioned, "The "reasonableness" of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight."

The Court then outlined a non-exhaustive list of factors for determining when an officer's use of force is objectively reasonable: "the severity of the crime at issue," "whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others," and "whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight."

Having established the proper framework for excessive force claims, the Court explained that the Court of Appeals had applied a test that focused on an officer's subjective motivations, rather than whether he had used an objectively unreasonable amount of force. The Court then reversed the Court of Appeals' judgement and remanded the case for reconsideration that used the proper Fourth Amendment standard.

Many high-profile cases of alleged use of excessive force by a law enforcement officer have been decided based on the framework set out by Graham v. Connor, including those where a black civilian was killed by a white officer: shooting of Michael Brown, shooting of Jonathan Ferrell, shooting of John Crawford III, shooting of Samuel DuBose, shooting of Jamar Clark, shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, shooting of Terence Crutcher, shooting of Alton Sterling, shooting of Philando Castile[1][3]. In most of these cases, the officer's actions were deemed to pass the reasonableness test.

Police-aligned media praise the precedent set by Graham v. Connor for enforcing police officers' rights to perform their duties without suffering injury and recognizing the dangers inherent to their work.[1][4][5] Critics view the framework it created as unjust based on the large number of high-profile acquittals it resulted in, not allowing hindsight knowledge to be considered in a case, and allowing for racial biases to weigh on the verdict.[1][3][4]

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 490
• Tennessee v. Garner
• Mullenix v. Luna
• Davis v. City of Las Vegas (9th Cir. 2007)

• Alpert, Geoffrey P.; Smith, William C. (1994). "How Reasonable Is the Reasonable Man?: Police and Excessive Force". Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 85 (2): 481–501. JSTOR 1144107.
• Brown, Jill I. (1991). "Defining 'Reasonable' Police Conduct: Graham v. Connor and Excessive Force during Arrest". UCLA Law Review. 38 (5): 1257–1286.
• Graham v. Connor and objective reasonableness standard, available at The Lex-Warrier: Online Law Journal, ISSN (O): 2319-8338

• Works related to Graham v. Connor at Wikisource
• Text of Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989) is available from:  Justia  Library of Congress  Oyez (oral argument audio)