©2010 Jack Ryan, Attorney, Legal & Liability Risk Management Institute (llrmi.com), Bryan v. MacPherson, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 12511 (June 18, 2010) A case which got tremendous media attention when first issued by the United States Court of Appeals in December of 2009 has gotten virtually no attention since the re-hearing and new opinion was issued June 18th 2010.   While the re-hearing did not change the court’s opinion on the TASER® as an intermediate weapon that must be justified in its use by a strong government interest, it did change the outcome of this case.  The United States Court of Appeals for the [...]

©2010 Jack Ryan, Attorney, Legal & Liability Risk Management Institute (llrmi.com).  Two of the more significant issues when dealing with law enforcement’s use of deadly force are first, how will the court analyze the totality of circumstances, and second, how does the mental state of the person law enforcement is dealing with impact the use of force  decision? In Graham v. Connor [i] the United States Supreme Court held: “The ‘reasonableness’ of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.”  In Tennessee v. Garner, the Court held that [...]

©2010 Jack Ryan, Attorney, Legal & Liability Risk Management Institute (llrmi.com), Bryan v. MacPherson, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 12511 (June 18, 2010) A case which got tremendous media attention when first issued by the United States Court of Appeals in December of 2009 has gotten virtually no attention since the re-hearing and new opinion was issued June 18th 2010.   While the re-hearing did not change the court’s opinion on the TASER® as an intermediate weapon that must be justified in its use by a strong government interest, it did change the outcome of this case.  The United States Court of Appeals for the [...]

©2010 Lou Reiter, Jack Ryan, J.D., Legal & Liability Risk Management Institute, (llrmi.com). U.S. Supreme Court, City of Ontario v. Quon, 560 U.S.___ Slip op. 08-1332 (2010), Decided June 17, 2010 (Download Decision pdf). In October of 2001, the City of Ontario, California entered a contract with Arch Wireless for 20 alphanumeric pagers which were capable of sending and receiving messages.  Under the contract, the City had limits on the number of messages which could be sent or received.  These pagers were utilized by members of the SWAT team for purposes of mobilizing the team should the need arise. One of these [...]

©2010 Brian S. Batterton, Attorney, Legal & Liability Risk Management Institute, (llrmi.com), 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Knisley v. Pike County Joint Vocational School District, 557 U.S. ___ (2009) In 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided Safford Unified School District v. Reddingi, which set forth the standard for an objectively reasonable strip search in the school environment.  In Redding, the United States Supreme Court indicated that to have a constitutionally reasonable strip search of a student, the school official must have specific, articulable facts that indicate that a student is presently (1) hiding evidence/contraband beneath his/her underwear and (2) that the contraband or evidence [...]

©2010 Brian S. Batterton, Attorney, Legal & Liability Risk Management Institute, (llrmi.com), Lately, much debate is taking place regarding immigration enforcement.  Further, much of this debate is centered on the active role local law enforcement agencies are taking in immigration enforcement pursuant to state law, such as in Arizona, and participation in a federal program typically called Section 287(g).  Although this is a current topic, the United States Supreme Court decided in 1984 the Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Lopez-Mendoza et al.,i which is instructive to local law enforcement agencies and officers involved in immigration enforcement. Lopez-Mendoza is actually two separate cases that were combined by [...]