Opinion ID: 6333813
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Applicable Constitutional Right

Text: But these questions, in turn, put first the question of which constitutional right, protects escaped prisoners from excessive force. The Supreme Court has rejected the “notion that all excessive force claims brought under § 1983 are governed by a single generic standard . . . In addressing an excessive force claim brought under § 1983, analysis begins by identifying the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed by the challenged application of force.” Graham v. Conner, 490 U.S. 386, 393–94 (1989) (internal citations omitted). The Fourth Amendment’s “objective reasonableness” standard “governs a free citizen’s claim that law enforcement officials used excessive force,” in any search or seizure, id. at 388, while the Fourteenth Amendment’s objective reasonableness standard protects pretrial detainees. Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015). After conviction, “the Eighth Amendment, which is specifically concerned with the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain in penal institutions, serves as the primary source of substantive protection to convicted prisoners.” Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 327 (1986). To determine the applicable constitutional right in this case requires us to place escaped prisoners, like Hughes, on the custodial continuum, with free citizens on one end and convicted prisoners on the other. 16 HUGHES V. RODRIGUEZ We conclude that the Eighth Amendment applies equally to convicted prisoners inside or outside the walls of the penal institution. The logic of Whitley applies with equal force even in the case of an escaped convict, as “the State has complied with the constitutional guarantees traditionally associated with criminal prosecutions.” Id. at 318 (citing Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 671 n. 40 (1977)). And although claims of excessive force brought by escaped prisoners are rare, our conclusion conforms to the law of our sister circuits. See Gravely v. Madden, 142 F.3d 345, 346–48 (6th Cir. 1998) (holding that the Eighth Amendment applied to an excessive force claim brought by an escaped convict because “[t]he Fourth Amendment is not triggered anew by attempts at recapture because the convict has already been ‘seized,’ tried, convicted, and incarcerated.”). Thus, we analyze Hughes’s claim of excessive force under the Eighth Amendment.