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security. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 540, 547 (1979).


Considerations such as the following may bear on the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the force
used: the relationship between the need for the use of force and the amount of force used; the extent of the
plaintiff s injury; any effort made by the officer to temper or to limit the amount of force; the severity of the
security problem at issue; the threat reasonably perceived by the officer; and whether the plaintiff was actively
resisting. See, e.g., Graham, supra, at 396. We do not consider this list to be exclusive. We mention these factors
only to illustrate the types of objective circumstances potentially relevant to a determination of excessive force.

For these reasons, we have stressed that a court must judge the reasonableness of the force used from the
perspective and with the knowledge of the defendant officer. We have also explained that a court must take
account of the legitimate interests in managing a jail, acknowledging as part of the objective reasonableness
analysis that deference to policies and practices needed to maintain order and institutional security is appropriate.
And we have limited liability for excessive force to situations in which the use of force was the result of an
intentional and knowing act (though we leave open the possibility of including a reckless act as well).
[Remember this comment about a reckless act. Some of us will see this again!!]


Respondents [the jail officers] believe that the relevant legal standard should be subjective, i.e., that the
plaintiff must prove that the use of force was not applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline
but, rather, was applied maliciously and sadistically to cause harm. [This malicious and sadistic standard
nd
was the standard which applied to pre-trial detainee claims until this opinion on June 22 .]
[Most likely, we will see a similar change in force claims from convicted prisoners under the 8 th
Amendment as indicated by the comment below.]


We acknowledge that our view that an objective standard is appropriate in the context of excessive force
claims brought by pretrial detainees pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment may raise questions about the use of
a subjective standard in the context of excessive force claims brought by convicted prisoners. We are not
confronted with such a claim, however, so we need not address that issue today.

[This was a 5-4 opinion with Scalia, Roberts, Thomas and Alito dissenting]


KINGSLEY V. HENDRICKSON, U.S. Sup. Court, #14-6368, June 22, 2015





EVIDENTIARY ISSUES AND MIRANDA CASES.


MIRANDA RIGHTS SILENCE IS ADMISSIBLE


Petitioner, without being placed in custody or receiving Miranda warnings, voluntarily answered some of
a police officer s questions about a murder, but fell silent when asked whether ballistics testing would match his
shotgun to shell casings found at the scene of the crime. At petitioner s murder trial in Texas state court, and over
his objection, the prosecution used his failure to answer the question as evidence of guilt. He was convicted, and
both the State Court of Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, rejecting his claim that the pros ecutions
use of his silence in its case in chief violated the Fifth Amendment.

Held: The judgment is affirmed.

On the morning of December 18, 1992, two brothers were shot and killed in their Houston home. There
were no witnesses to the murders, but a neighbor who heard gunshots saw someone run out of the house and
speed away in a dark-colored car. Police recovered six shotgun shell casings at the scene. The investigation led


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