On May 21, 2015, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided Singleton v. Darby [i], which is instructive regarding the constitutionality of an officer’s actions at the scene of a protest.  The relevant facts of Singleton, taken directly from the case, are as follows: On November 19, 2012, citizens opposed to the Keystone XL Pipeline conducted a protest at Farm to Market Road 1911 in Cherokee County, Texas. Approximately eighty people attended the protest, including Singleton, a retired schoolteacher who opposes the pipeline. Although a few of the protestors, including Singleton, were older persons, and a few of the protestors were confined to [...]

In Kingsley v. Hendrickson, [i] the United States Supreme Court considered what the appropriate standard was for determining whether a use of force on a pretrial detainee was excessive under the Constitution.   The Court concluded that use of force on a pretrial detainee would be judged by an objective reasonableness standard.  In doing so, the Court cleared up several variations among the Circuits as to the appropriate use of force standard when dealing with a person who was no longer a free citizen, but was also not a sentenced prisoner.  Up until this decision, the various U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal would [...]

At a time when public safety agencies are grappling with a number of highly publicized issues with substantial legal liability and community relations implications, the issue of sexual harassment and gender discrimination should not be lost in the shuffle.  A quick glance at local headlines indicates that this is an area of great concern for public safety agencies looking to minimize the costs—financial and otherwise—that often result from these claims. In June of 2015, a police officer in Martinsburg, WV received a $270,000 settlement after filing a lawsuit claiming hostile work environment sexual harassment. In December of 2014, a police sergeant in Lake Stevens, WA received a $325,000 settlement after [...]

Police officers are often called to hotels and motels in response to noisy or unruly guests.  Often the hotel or motel keepers tell the guests to leave and the guests argue that they need advance notice.  In this situation, officers must have an understanding of the difference between the legal rights of hotel/motel keepers and landlords of tenants in a typical lease arrangement.  While landlords are typically required under state law to provide a certain amount of notice for an eviction, the rules are different for hotels and motels.  On June 15, 2011, the Court of Appeals of Georgia decided [...]

Are “Too Many” People Dying from Police Use of Force? Community reactions to a few recent deaths from police use of force have raised public concerns about the prevalence of police use of deadly force generally, and police use of deadly force against African-American men specifically. Activists and media outlets have suggested a national epidemic of deaths from police use of force currently exists, with thousands of citizens being killed annually by the police. This article will attempt to estimate how many deaths from police use of force we should expect annually in the U.S. based on officers’ lawful and [...]

On April 21, 2015, the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia decided the United States v. Gross [i], which serves as an excellent review of the law pertaining to consensual encounters and Terry Stops, particularly as often used by police street crime units.  The relevant facts of Gross, taken directly from the case, are as follows: On the evening of February 4, 2013, four officers of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department's Gun Recovery Unit drove along the 4000 block of 9th Street, S.E. The officers were working on "gun patrol," which involved "[r]iding through the area looking to see if [they] could [...]