Since the 1989 decision in
Graham, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, whether an officer used excessive non-deadly force during an arrest has been governed by the “objective reasonableness” standard of the Fourth Amendment. In
Graham the Court explained that it was “mak[ing] explicit what was implicit” in
Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 7–9, 11, 105 S.Ct. 1694, 1699–700, 1701, 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985), a case in which the Court had applied the “totality of the circumstances” test of the Fourth Amendment to a claim of deadly force used against a fleeing felon.
490 U.S. at 395, 109 S.Ct. at 1871. The Court went on to hold that “
all claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force—deadly or not—in the course of an arrest ... should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its ‘reasonableness' standard,”
id. (emphasis in original), rather than under any of the more demanding substantive due process tests that most of the courts of appeals had previously applied,
see Comment:
Rethinking Excessive Force, 1987 Duke L.J. 693, 693–94 (Sept.1987). The objective reasonableness standard is not capable of “precise definition or mechanical application.”
490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. at 1871. Rather, the court must consider all of the facts and circumstances of each case, including the severity of the crime occasioning the arrest, whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officer or of anyone else, and whether he actively resisted or attempted to flee.
Id. While the court should avoid reliance upon hindsight and should take into account the officer's need to make split-second judgments at the time he acted, the test is, in the end, still the objective reasonableness of his conduct.
Id. at 396, 388, 109 S.Ct. at 1871, 1867.