Opinion ID: 758363
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Treatment During Arrest

Text: 25 Tesch challenges whether the City of Berlin defendants unnecessarily exposed him to danger during his arrest in violation of his right to substantive due process. A series of Supreme Court cases, however, forecloses Tesch's substantive due process claim. In Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989), the Supreme Court addressed the claims of a diabetic who brought a § 1983 action to recover damages for injuries allegedly sustained when law enforcement officers used physical force during an investigatory stop. See id. at 388, 109 S.Ct. 1865. Graham alleged that the officers used excessive force in violation of his right to substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. See id. at 390, 109 S.Ct. 1865. The Court rejected Graham's attempt to recover damages under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, holding that 26 all claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force--deadly or not--in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other seizure of a free citizen should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its reasonableness standard, rather than under a substantive due process approach. 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. 27 Id. at 395, 109 S.Ct. 1865; see also Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 273-74, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994) (plurality). 28 Last term in United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 117 S.Ct. 1219, 137 L.Ed.2d 432 (1997), the Court confirmed that the rule stated in Graham requires that if a constitutional claim is covered by a specific constitutional provision, such as the Fourth or Eighth Amendment, the claim must be analyzed under the standard appropriate to that specific provision, not under the rubric of substantive due process. Id. 117 S.Ct. at 1228 n. 7. Thus, Tesch cannot use a substantive due process claim to circumvent the standards appropriate under the Fourth Amendment if his claim is covered by the Fourth Amendment. See id.; see also County of Sacramento v. Lewis, --- U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 1715, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998) (finding substantive due process analysis appropriate because a police pursuit that attempts to seize a person does not amount to a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment). 29 The Fourth Amendment ensures that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. A Fourth Amendment seizure occurs when there is a governmental termination of freedom of movement through means intentionally applied, Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 597, 109 S.Ct. 1378, 103 L.Ed.2d 628 (1989), such that a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave, United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). Tesch was informed he was under arrest, ordered to maneuver his scooter to a waiting squad car, and was told to get in the vehicle. There is no doubt that the police officers seized him. His arrest is a textbook example of a Fourth Amendment seizure. See 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure 3 (1996). 30 Though Tesch characterizes his claim as a due process violation for unnecessarily exposing him to danger, it is more appropriately viewed as either a claim for excessive force in an arrest or a general claim against an unreasonable seizure. Because the Fourth Amendment addresses the right of the people to be free of unreasonable seizures and excessive force in the course of an arrest, Graham's more-specific provision rule precludes this portion of Tesch's appeal. Tesch cannot use substantive due process to backdoor the district court's conclusion that his arrest satisfies the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness standard. See Albright, 510 U.S. at 274-75, 114 S.Ct. 807 (requiring plaintiff to raise right to be free from prosecution without probable cause under Fourth Amendment and rejecting substantive due process claim); Winfield v. Bass, 106 F.3d 525, 530 n. 2 (4th Cir.1997) (refusing to address substantive due process claim when the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment is applicable); Patel v. Penman, 103 F.3d 868, 874-75 (9th Cir.1996) (holding that Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment preempts a substantive due process claim); Tinney v. Shores, 77 F.3d 378, 381 (11th Cir.1996) (holding that Fourth Amendment forecloses due process claim); Johnson v. Phelan, 69 F.3d 144, 146 (7th Cir.1995) (same). Because the district court has already addressed Tesch's Fourth Amendment claims based on the manner of his arrest and because Tesch has elected not to appeal those determinations, we reject his attempt to circumvent that decision by appealing his substantive due process claim based on the same events.