Court Opinion

ID: 9709130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:40:56.015444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:46.258273
License: Public Domain

Lynch, J.
(concurring). The United States Supreme Court has held that excessive use of force claims against police officers are properly analyzed under the Fourth Amendment’s “objective reasonableness” standard rather than under a substantive due process standard.1 Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. *572386, 388 (1989). Dean v. Worcester, 924 F.2d 364, 367 (1st Cir. 1991).
The objective reasonableness standard “balances the public interest in effective law enforcement against the intrusiveness of the challenged police action in light of all the circumstances disclosed by the evidence.” Dean v. Worcester, supra. The “question is whether the officers’ actions are ‘objectively reasonable’ in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation.” Id., quoting Graham v. Connor, supra at 397. Proper analysis requires “careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Graham v. Connor, supra at 396. “ ‘Not every push or shove, even if it may later seem unnecessary in the peace of a judge’s chambers,’ . . . violates the Fourth Amendment.” Id., quoting Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028 (2d Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Employee-Officer John v. Johnson, 414 U.S. 1033 (1973). Indeed, “[t]he calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments — in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving — about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.” Graham v. Connor, supra at 396-397.
I would apply the “objective reasonableness” test of Graham in cases arising under the Massachusetts Constitution and G. L. c. 12, §§ 11H-11J, as well. In rendering his judgment, the judge placed great emphasis on the officers’ wish to punish Smith. He concluded:
*573“These officers violated Smith’s civil rights not out of a specific intent to violate them . . . but rather from a shared belief that in staging his own version of Smokey and the Bandit, Smith had showered a platoon of Boston police officers with disobedience and disrespect, in the process endangering their safety and making fools of them all. Thus they set out to teach this scofflaw a lesson.”
The subjective motivations of the individual officers have no bearing on whether the police officers were acting with objective reasonableness. Graham v. Connor, supra at 397. The other findings of the judge make clear, however, that he would have found that the officers were acting unreasonably apart from their motivation, and, therefore, I see no reason to remand the case for application of the objective reasonableness standard. Furthermore, I have grave doubts concerning the application of joint venture theories of criminal law to police officers undertaking lawful activities which are then carried out in an unlawful manner. Such a theory has never been applied in this Commonwealth in these circumstances nor have I been able to discover any precedent for such application elsewhere. Since the officers here were also found liable for failure to come to Smith’s aid, I would sustain the result on this ground alone.

Prior to Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 388 (1989), courts analyzed excessive force claims under a substantive due process standard. See Hathaway v. Stone, 687 F. Supp. 708, 712 (D. Mass. 1988); Bibbo v. Mulhern, 621 F. Supp. 1018, 1024 (D. Mass. 1985); Schiller v. Strangis, 540 F. Supp. 605, 614 (D. Mass. 1982), citing Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 172 (1952). Substantive due process cases have held that the conduct must be so egregious as to “shock the conscience” of the court to violate the due process clause. Temple v. Marlborough Div. of the Dist. Court Dep’t, 395 Mass. 117, 130 (1985). Schiller v. Strangis, supra, citing Rochin v. California, supra. In determining whether substantive due process has been violated, a court must look to such factors as the need for the application of force, the relationship between, the need and the amount of force that was used, the extent of injury inflicted, and whether force was *572applied in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline or maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm. Schiller v. Strangis, supra at 616, quoting Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028 (2d Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Employee-Officer John v. Johnson, 414 U.S. 1033 (1973).