California Police Deadly Force Statute: Law or Guidance?
1/28/20
By: Caleb Saggus
The California State Legislature recently enacted a criminal statute aimed at police officer use of force, which went into effect January 1, 2020 (Assembly Bill 392). Prior California state law permitted an officer to use reasonable force …
Supreme Court Revisits Interplay Between First and Fourth Amendments
11/29/18
By: Wes Jackson
Imagine you commit a minor crime and an officer approaches you. The interaction goes south when you call the officer a “pig” and remind him that your tax dollars pay his salary. He then arrests you. Were …
Are We Witnessing the End of Qualified Immunity?
9/19/18
By: Sun Choy
For many decades, qualified immunity has served as a powerful defense to end civil cases against public officials, including law enforcement officers for the alleged use of excessive force. Given the many high-profile deaths involving the use …
Fourteen Seconds Plus Emergency Lights Equals Probable Cause To Arrest
6/11/18
By: Charles Reed
There is a saying that “nothing good ever happens after midnight.” Both City of Hollywood, Florida police officer Ronald Cannella and citizen Livingston Manners would become very familiar with this saying after the events of June 24, …
Study Finds No Significant Impact of Body Cameras on Police Conduct or Citizen Complaints
11/13/17
By: Wesley C. Jackson
In response to recent high-profile officer-involved shootings, many commentators are touting police body cameras as a way to keep police accountable. The hypothesis is that when police and citizens know they are being watched, they are …
GPS Tracking Devices – The Answer to Stopping High-Speed Pursuits?
11/1/17
By: Sun Choy
In the era of drones and artificial intelligence, it was only a matter of time before technology caught up to stopping high-speed pursuits. In a suburb of metropolitan Atlanta, a police department successfully deployed a GPS tracking …
Home Run for Analysis of Use of Force During Medical Emergencies
10/31/17
By: Kevin R. Stone and Sara E. Brochstein
I’m bad at baseball. When I step in the batter’s box, I might as well have two strikes against me before the pitcher unleashes his first fastball. For me, it’s no big …
SCOTUS Affirms FMG Victory In First-Of-Its-Kind 11th Circuit Flash Bang Case
10/10/17
By: Wayne S. Melnick and A. Ali Sabzevari
Previously, we blogged on a first-of-its-kind summary judgment obtained by Freeman Mathis & Gary in a Section 1983 case involving allegations of excessive force based on the police’s use of “Flash …
11th Circuit: Exclusionary Rule is Inapplicable to Malicious Prosecution Claims
3/8/16
By: Kevin Stone and Andy Treese
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently published an opinion in which it held that the exclusionary rule cannot be used against police officers in a civil suit.
In Black v. Wigington, 15-10848, 2016 …
Can You Hear (or See) Me Now? No, and that May Constitute Spoliation
2/24/16
By: Andy Treese
The Georgia Court of Appeals recently held that a municipality may be subject to sanctions for failure to preserve audio recordings of a police pursuit when the recordings were destroyed in the ordinary course of business before …
Official Immunity: Recent Georgia Supreme Court decision reaffirms need for specific directives before finding ministerial duty for public officers
7/10/15
By: Chuck Reed, Jr.
Last week, in Eshleman v. Key, 2015 WL 3936075 (June 29, 2015), the Georgia Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ denial of official immunity for an off-duty police officer whose police dog escaped from …