FIFTH CIRCUIT DISCUSSES USE OF FORCE

On November 5, 2025, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided Johnson v. Smith,[i] in which the court of appeals examined whether officers were entitled to qualified immunity for forcibly placing a suspect on the floor after she stood up and for using a knee across her buttock and lower back to keep her on the ground.  The facts, taken directly from the case, are as follows:

On January 17, 2023, R.C. was at a school classmate’s home in Covington, Louisiana. While R.C. was there, three officers from the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s department arrived—Lieutenant Bill Johnson, Deputy Joel Bratton, and Deputy Christopher Vado—searching for a person of interest in a recent burglary. The officers approached the house, and while standing on the porch, smelled marijuana. They also saw what appeared to be a burnt marijuana cigarette on the outside table. And when Andree Prados, the classmate’s mother and the homeowner, opened the door, the officers faced a strong marijuana odor from inside. So, the officers entered the house to investigate.

The scene quickly turned chaotic. A male minor ran out of the house. Catching him in the backyard, Lieutenant Johnson found him carrying a knife. When another male minor fought the officers while being patted down, they brought him to the ground, handcuffed him, and escorted him out of the house. Then, Lieutenant Johnson found the person of interest hiding in a closet.

The officers began bringing everyone to the living room, and as Lieutenant Johnson escorted Prados there, R.C. tried to stop him. Video from a security camera memorializes part of the fray, showing R.C. fighting Lieutenant Johnson and Deputy Vado: lunging at them, swinging at their heads, and screaming in their faces as they try to get control of her. The two officers finally wrestled R.C. to the floor and handcuffed her as she continued to struggle. She then sat against the back of a couch.

Deputy John Connolly arrived right afterward. Two more video files document what happened next. One video file is from Deputy Connolly’s body camera, and the other comes from someone’s cell phone camera in the living room. In the body camera footage, just after Connolly comes into the living room, R.C. is visible sitting on the floor against the couch. Deputy Vado is next to her; Connolly goes to the other side of the room to check for weapons.

Suddenly, unannounced, R.C. starts to get up. Deputy Vado shouts “Stay on the ground!” The cell phone video shows Deputy Vado grab R.C. by the arm and bring her back to the floor as R.C. screams back “Move [inaudible]! No! No!”

Deputy Connolly starts walking back over to assist, and R.C. continues screaming at Deputy Vado. As Connolly rounds the corner of the couch, his body camera records R.C. lying on her side, visibly struggling as Deputy Vado continues to hold her down by the arm. R.C. starts to kick at the officers and shouts “Get off of me!” Connolly yells “Calm down!” and puts his hand on R.C.’s leg; she screams back and continues to kick and struggle. One of the officers says “Stop!”

Connolly bends down and tries to restrain R.C.’s leg using his knee and shin. She jerks her leg away, screaming “Get the f— off of me, bro!” Although Deputy Vado is holding her by the arm, R.C. flips from her side onto her stomach and keeps kicking. Then, Deputy Connolly kneels against R.C.’s left buttock and left lower back. The body camera pans up, showing both officers’ arms as they pull R.C. off her stomach and try to keep her on her side. R.C. keeps screaming as Connolly continues to kneel. A male voice off camera says “Watch her face, she can’t breathe.” One of the officers responds, “If she can’t breathe, she needs to chill out.”

After ten seconds, just as R.C. stops physically resisting, Connolly lifts his knee. The officers stand up R.C. and take her to the sheriff’s department building in Covington. R.C. later pled no contest to two counts of battery of a police officer and one count of resisting an officer.[ii]

Johnson, R.C.’s mother, subsequently sued Deputies Vado and Connolly and alleged they used excessive force when Vado forced R.C. to the floor after she stood up and Connolly used excessive force in holding R.C. down with his knee across her buttock and lower back.  Johnson alleged that as a result of the excessive force, R.C. suffered a fractured “T11 vertebra, causing R.C. intense pain and restricting her ability to walk, move, sit, and stand”; that “R.C. was hospitalized with the fractured vertebra”; that “[d]octors prescribed her Norco to address the pain and placed her in a back brace that she had to wear at all times for at least five weeks”; and that “R.C. continued to have movement limitations for the next year, causing her falls and further injuries.””[iii] [1]

The deputies and sheriff filed motions for summary judgment.  The district court granted the deputies’ motions on the basis of qualified immunity and the sheriff’s motion as there was no underlying constitutional violation.

Johnson appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court of appeals first discussed qualified immunity.  To overcome an officer’s motion for qualified immunity, a plaintiff must satisfy a two-pronged test.  First, the plaintiff must show that the officer violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights.  Second, the plaintiff must show that the law was clearly established at the time of the violation such that every reasonable officer would have known he was violating the plaintiff’s rights.  The law is “clearly established” when there is prior court precedent with similar enough facts to provide a reasonable officer notice that that conduct violates the constitution.

Next, the court of appeals discussed what a court must consider to determine if an officer’s use of force was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.  The court stated

We must pay “careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including [1] the severity of the crime at issue, [2] whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and [3] whether [s]he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989). “[T]he ‘totality of the circumstances’ inquiry into a use of force has no time limit,” and “earlier facts and circumstances may bear on how a reasonable officer would have understood and responded to later ones.” Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. 73, 80 (2025) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).[iv]

Excessive Force Claim Against Deputy Vado

Johnson argued that in the minute prior to R.C. standing up, she was not actively resisting.  Then, when she stood – before actively resisting – Deputy Vado grabbed her arm and forcibly put her on the floor.  Johnson argued that this constituted unreasonable (excessive) force under the Fourth Amendment.

The court of appeals noted that Johnson did not cite any court precedent that would have put Deputy Vado on notice that this was unreasonable force.  The court stated

Johnson offers no on-point cases to support that Vado mishandled R.C., likely because Vado’s response was not objectively unreasonable.[v]

The court of appeals explained that, even if R.C. was not actively resisting in the moments before she stood up, the court must consider her prior conduct, just as Deputy Vado can consider her prior conduct.  The court stated

[T]he force in dispute took place only “about a minute” after R.C.’s first outburst of violence against the officers. “[L]ater, in-the-moment facts cannot be hermetically sealed off from the context in which they arose.” Barnes, 605 U.S. at 80 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). R.C. was not resisting across different “conceptually distinct” incidents; she was resisting over the course of one ongoing encounter with the officers. It is true that in the seconds before she stood up, R.C. wasn’t actively fighting back. But R.C.’s previous resistance reasonably influenced Vado’s reaction after she suddenly stood up—not to mention that, as the district court assumed, an arrestee standing up unannounced and screaming at officers is resistance all on its own. “Prior events may show why a reasonable officer would perceive otherwise ambiguous conduct as threatening.” Barnes, 605 U.S. at 73-74 (citing Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765 (2014))…[vi]

Given her hostile behavior only “about a minute” before, it was reasonable for Deputy Vado to expect that R.C., standing up unannounced, planned to escalate things again. And the video confirms she did just that. Deputy Vado ordered R.C. to “stay on the ground,” grabbing her to stop her from standing up, but R.C. screamed “No! No!” and resisted again.[vii]

The court noted that cases that Johnson provided in opposition to qualified immunity were cases where the suspect was not actively resisting the officers but the officers nonetheless used force.

Therefore, since Johnson did not show that the law was clearly established prohibiting Deputy Vado’s use of force, the court of appeals affirmed the decision of the district court granting Vado qualified immunity.

Excessive Force Claim Against Deputy Connolly

Johnson argued that Deputy Connolly used excessive force when he used his knee and shin to pin R.C.’s leg and then positioned his knee across R.C.’s left buttock and left, lower back.  This was done as she was kicking and attempting to roll over.

The court of appeals, after watching cellphone video and body camera video of the incident involving R.C. and Deputies Vado and Connolly, described the incident as follows:  R.C. was visibly struggling (actively resisting) Deputy Vado for approximately thirteen seconds as Connolly walked over to assist.  Deputy Connolly bent down and attempted to restrain R.C.’s leg with his knee and shin.  R.C. jerked her leg free screaming, “Get the f— off me, bro!”  While Deputy Vado was holding R.C.’s arm, she actively resisted by flipping from her side onto her stomach, where she continued to kick at the deputies.  Deputy Connolly knelt against R.C. left buttock and left, lower back, for approximately ten seconds as she continued to physically resist.  She stopped resisting after about ten seconds and Deputy Connolly lifted his knee.  At this point, the deputies stood R.C. to her feet and she was taken to the sheriff’s department.

The court of appeals noted that Johnson was unable to cite court precedent that showed that Deputy Connolly acted unreasonably in his use of force against R.C., who was actively resisting at the time he used force.  In fact, the court of appeals stated

If anything, our decisions only underscore that escalating force is a valid response to continued resistance. Poole v. City of Shreveport, a factually analogous case, illustrates the point. See 691 F.3d 624 (5th Cir. 2012). Analyzing a scenario where an officer “pinned Poole down when he refused to comply with [another officer’s] commands,” we held that “[v]iewed objectively, [the officers] responded with ‘measured and ascending’ actions that corresponded to Poole’s escalating verbal and physical resistance.” Id. at 629. Because Poole “‘actively resist[ed]’ the officers’ instructions,” we explained, pinning him down until he stopped resisting “was not ‘clearly excessive.’” Id. So too here.[viii]

Here, Deputy Connolly pinned R.C. down with his knee on her left buttock and left, lower back while she was actively resisting, which included kicking at the deputies.  When she stopped actively resisting, Deputy Connolly lifted his knee.

Since Johnson cited no court precedent showing that Deputy Connolly acted unlawfully, the court of appeals affirmed the district court’s grant of qualified immunity for Deputy Connolly.

Author’s Note on the Importance of Video:

When officers are sued, and they assert the defense of qualified immunity, the court is required to view the disputed facts in a light most favorable to the plaintiff.  In other words, the court must accept the plaintiff’s version of events.  However, if there is video that contradicts the plaintiff’s version of events, the court is required to view the facts as depicted on video.  Specifically, the court stated,

We review the grant of summary judgment in the light most favorable for Johnson [the plaintiff], drawing all reasonable inferences in her favor. See Griggs v. Brewer, 841 F.3d 308, 312 (5th Cir. 2016). And as three different video recordings captured the events at issue, we must “give greater weight, even at the summary judgment stage, to the facts evident from video recordings taken at the scene.” Id. (citing Carnaby v. City of Houston, 636 F.3d 183, 187 (5th Cir. 2011)); accord Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380-81 (2007) (“The Court of Appeals . . . should have viewed the facts in the light depicted by the videotape.”); Scott v. City of Mandeville, 69 F.4th 249, 254 (5th Cir. 2023) (“[W]hen there is video evidence available in the record, the court is not bound to adopt the [plaintiff’s] version of the facts if it is contradicted by the record, but rather should view the facts in the light depicted by the videotape.”) (cleaned up).

Thus, due to factual disputes in this case, if there had not been video, it is likely that the court would have denied qualified immunity and let a jury decide the facts of the case after testimony from the parties.

This underscores the helpfulness of video, both police body camera video and independent video, to officers.

Note:  Court holdings can vary significantly between jurisdictions.  As such, it is advisable to seek the advice of a local prosecutor or legal adviser regarding questions on specific cases.  This article is not intended to constitute legal advice on a specific case.

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[1] Note:  State law claims will not be discussed in this article.

[i]No. 24-30791 (5th Cir. November 5, 2025 Unpublished)

[ii] Id. at 2-5

[iii] Id. at 5-6

[iv] Id. at 8-9 (emphasis added)

[v] Id. at 13 (emphasis added)

[vi] Id. at 11 (emphasis added)

[vii] Id. at 14 (emphasis added)

[viii] Id. at 16-17 (emphasis added)