Case Study: Dethorne Graham V. United States

Dethorne Graham is diabetic. After feeling the onset of an insulin reaction Graham asked his friend, Berry, to drive him to a convenience store to purchase juice. There was a long line at the store, so Graham rushed out and asked Berry to drive him to a friends house instead. After seeing Graham rush in and out of the store, CMPD Officer Connor became suspicious and pulled Berry’s car over to make an investigative stop. Berry tried to explain that Graham was having an insulin reaction, but Officer Connor told them to wait there until he found out if anything happened at the convenience store.When Officer Connor returned to his car to call for backup, Graham got out of the car where he ran around it twice before briefly passing out on the curb. When backup arrived, Graham was handcuffed and shoved face down on the hood of Berry’s car. The officers refused to give Graham sugar and …show more content…
Judges serving on both courts accepted that the police made a good-faith effort to maintain and restore discipline and rejected Graham’s claim that the police acted maliciously and sadistically and that he was treated in an unlawful manner. Graham continued to appeal his case all the way to the United State Supreme Court.
The Court held that all claims that law enforcement officer has 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. The United States Supreme Court, in a majority opinion delivered by Chief Justice Rehnquist, reversed and remanded the Court of Appeals decision for reconsideration.
Issue:
What constitutional standard governs a free citizen’s claim that law enforcement officials used excessive force in the course of making an arrest, investigatory stop, or other seizure of his