Opinion ID: 170063
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Officer Lor's Liability

Text: A Taser like the M26 generates a charge of 50,000 volts, although the total amount of electricity delivered, and hence the severity of the pain inflicted, depends greatly on how long the Taser is applied. Taser International, Basic Electric Principles, available at http://www.taser.com/researc h/Science/Pages/BasicElectricPrinciples.aspx. Mr. Casey testified that after he was hit, all [he] could think of was making that electricity stop. App. 103. And what was the provocation? The scene must be viewed objectively, from the perspective of a reasonable officer in Officer Lor's shoes, taking the facts in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment. Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. Mr. Casey had attempted to return to the courthouse, unaware that the reason he was being grabbed was that he was under arrest. There was a struggle. But as Mr. Casey and the eyewitnesses tell it, Mr. Casey was not fighting back even though Officer Sweet had tackled him and ripped his shirt. Officer Lor fired almost immediately upon arrival, and one witness testified that she could not have known what was going on. Applying Graham 's test of objective reasonableness, her conduct cannot be justified by the severity of the crime at issue, by any threat to the safety of the officers or others, or by active [] resist[ance to] arrest or [an] attempt [] to evade arrest by flight. Id. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865. The crime was not severe, Mr. Casey was not threatening, and he was not fleeing the scene. According to Mr. Casey, when Officer Lor arrived on the scene she hit him with her Taser immediately and without warning. Aplt's Op'g Br. 21. The absence of any warning  or of facts making clear that no warning was necessary  makes the circumstances of this case especially troubling. Cf. Mecham, 500 F.3d 1200 (concluding that the use of pepper spray after repeated warnings was not excessive force). Officer Lor gave Mr. Casey no opportunity to comply with her wishes before firing her Taser. While we do not rule out the possibility that there might be circumstances in which the use of a Taser against a nonviolent offender is appropriate, we think a reasonable jury could decide that Officer Lor was not entitled under these circumstances to shoot first and ask questions later. Cases in our Circuit and others that have considered the reasonable use of Tasers confirm this conclusion. In Hinton v. City of Elwood, 997 F.2d 774, 777 (10th Cir.1993), we held that it was not excessive for officers to use an electrical stun gun on a man after grabbing him and wrestling him to the ground. But we noted that what justified this conduct was his active resistance to arrest  Mr. Hinton was kicking and biting the officers and had shoved one of them to start the fight. Id. at 776-77, 781. Moreover, the officers had warned Mr. Hinton, before he shoved one of them, that they would arrest him for disorderly conduct if he engaged in one more outburst. Id. at 776. Neither of these factors  the warning or the violence of the victim  is present here to justify the use of the Taser. Similarly, in Draper v. Reynolds, 369 F.3d 1270 (11th Cir.2004), the Eleventh Circuit held it reasonable to fire a Taser at a truck driver who refused to provide his insurance information or a bill of lading and was yelling loudly at a police officer who pulled him over. The officer had not advised Mr. Draper that he was under arrest. Id. at 1276-77. However, the court found an electric shock from the Taser reasonably proportionate to the situation because Mr. Draper was belligerent and hostile, and because he had refused five commands to retrieve his documents from the cab of his truck. Id. at 1278. We are not sure that we would have come to the same conclusion on those facts, but even so, Officer Lor's use of the Taser was more egregious. Her conduct could not be justified by Mr. Casey's resistance to her commands because she did not give him any commands to obey. We have located no published decision in which an officer's use of a Taser has been upheld in circumstances this troubling. Officer Lor testified that the policy of the Federal Heights police department is that a Taser can appropriately be used to control a target. App. 117. However, it is excessive to use a Taser to control a target without having any reason to believe that a lesser amount of force  or a verbal command  could not exact compliance. Because a reasonable jury could find that Officer Lor lacked any such reason, she is not entitled to summary judgment on the constitutional violation.
Like Officer Sweet, Officer Lor asserts qualified immunity, so we must also decide whether her use of excessive force violated clearly established law. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 207, 121 S.Ct. 2151. We hold that it did. As we discussed above, an officer's violation of the Graham reasonableness test is a violation of clearly established law if there are no substantial grounds for a reasonable officer to conclude that there was legitimate justification for acting as she did. Holland, 268 F.3d at 1197. Each factor in Graham counseled against the use of a large amount of force. Officer Lor concedes that even at the time she did not think that Mr. Casey presented an immediate threat of death or serious injury to himself or others. App. 117. On the summary judgment record  which of course may be disputed at trial  Officer Lor's use of the Taser was without any legitimate justification in light of Graham. We do not know of any circuit that has upheld the use of a Taser immediately and without warning against a misdemeanant like Mr. Casey. Therefore, Officer Lor is not entitled to qualified immunity from this excessive force suit.