Excessive Force

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Civil

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Officials:  RIPPLE and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges, & STADTMUELLER, District Judge

Excessive Force

12-3639 Michael B. Kinglsey v. Stan Hendrickson

Officer aggressive actions applied on appellant held as excessive in light of appellants conduct.

“Here, the facts surrounding the underlying incident are in sharp dispute. When those facts are construed in the light most favorable to Mr. Kingsley, see Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001), a reasonable officer was certainly on notice at the time of the occurrence that Mr. Kingsley’s conduct did not justify the sort of force described in his account. According to Mr. Kingsley, he was not resisting the officers in a manner that justified slamming his head into the wall, using a Taser while he was manacled, and leaving him alone after use of that instrument. Our precedent makes clear that when the officers applied the Taser to Mr. Kingsley in May 2010, use of the Taser violated Mr. Kingsley’s right to be free from excessive force if he was not resisting. See Lewis v. Downey, 581 F.3d 467, 478–79 (7th Cir. 2009) (denying qualified immunity to officers who applied a Taser to a pretrial detainee lying “prone on [a] bed, weakened, and docile,” in response to his refusal of an order to get out of bed); Brooks v. City of Aurora, Ill., 653 F.3d 478, 487 (7th Cir. 2011) (noting that prior cases had established the illegality of the use of pepper spray on an arrestee who was “already … handcuffed and … offering no physical resistance” or was “lying face down … with both arms handcuffed behind his back” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Sallenger v. Oakes, 473 F.3d 731, 741–42 (7th Cir. 2007) (noting, in its evaluation of the officers’ conduct for immunity purposes, that the fact that the force was applied after the arrestee was handcuffed was a significant factor in denying immunity); cf. Forrest v. Prine, 620 F.3d 739, 745 (7th Cir. 2010) (finding force was not unconstitutionally excessive when Taser was applied “where the officers were faced with aggression, disruption, [and] physical threat” and where plaintiff “posed an immediate threat to safety and order within the jail” (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted)).”

Reversed and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.