{"id":18734,"date":"2015-09-08T00:09:49","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T05:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=18734"},"modified":"2015-09-05T15:11:21","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T20:11:21","slug":"ca8-qualified-immunity-because-it-was-not-clearly-established-in-2009-use-of-a-taser-was-unreasonable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=18734","title":{"rendered":"CA8: Qualified immunity because it was not clearly established in 2009 use of a Taser was unreasonable"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was not clearly established in 2009 that use of a Taser was unreasonable so the officers get qualified immunity. Here, it happened in jail when plaintiff refused to change into a jail uniform. Hollingsworth v. City of St. Ann<\/a>, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 15676 (8th Cir. September 3, 2015)*:
\n<\/p>\n

Hollingsworth’s claim founders on our decision in LaCross v. City of Duluth, 713 F.3d 1155 (8th Cir. 2013). LaCross held that it was not clearly established in 2006 that an officer’s use of a Taser that resulted in no lasting physical injuries or injuries requiring medical care nonetheless could be unreasonable because Tasers caused “excruciating pain without lasting physical effects.” Lacross, 713 F.3d at 1157-58. This court held that despite the Taser’s unique capability to cause high levels of pain without long-term injury, “we have not categorized the Taser as an implement of force whose use establishes, as a matter of law, more than de minimis injury.” Id. at 1158. We thus concluded it was not clearly established that an officer’s use of a Taser, resulting in only de minimis injury, was an unconstitutional use of force. Id. The law was not materially different in July 2009, so McCallum is entitled to qualified immunity. “‘[A] reasonable officer could have believed that as long as he did not cause more than de minimis injury to an arrestee, his actions would not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment.'” Bishop, 723 F.3d at 962 (quoting Chambers, 641 F.3d at 908).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was not clearly established in 2009 that use of a Taser was unreasonable so the officers get qualified immunity. Here, it happened in jail when plaintiff refused to change into a jail uniform. Hollingsworth v. City of St. Ann, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,52,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-45","category-excessive-force","category-qualified-immunity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18735,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18734\/revisions\/18735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}