CA10: Pre-PC hearing jail excessive force claim is a 4A claim, not 14A

A jail excessive force case that happened before plaintiff’s probable cause hearing is a Fourth Amendment claim, not under the Fourteenth Amendment. Geddes v. Weber Cty., 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 22719 (10th Cir. Aug. 16, 2022):

Mr. Hyrum Geddes sued Weber County and several officers in the Weber County Sheriff’s Department for an excessive-force incident that occurred while he was detained at the Weber County Correctional Facility but before a probable cause hearing. Mr. Geddes brought his claim pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and alleged the officers had violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights. The question before us is not whether the officers’ actions indeed constituted excessive force. It is instead whether Mr. Geddes can bring an excessive-force claim-as an arrestee-under the Fourteenth Amendment. We conclude that he cannot. And we, therefore, agree with the district court’s grant of summary judgment and conclusion that Mr. Geddes did not have “a cognizable claim under the Fourteenth Amendment” because the alleged excessive force did not occur “after a determination of probable cause and before conviction.” Geddes v. Weber Cnty., No. 1:18-cv-00136, 2020 WL 4437405, at *2 (D. Utah Aug. 3, 2020) (unpublished). Only the Fourth Amendment supplied a valid legal basis for Mr. Geddes’s § 1983 claim, and yet, as we will discuss below, Mr. Geddes stubbornly refused to concede this fact.