Читать книгу Evaluating Police Uses of Force - Seth W. Stoughton - Страница 12

The constitutional standard applies in at least three different ways: in civil litigation filed by a private plaintiff (or a class of plaintiffs) against an officer or agency; in civil litigation filed by the Department of Justice against an agency; and in federal criminal prosecutions against individual officers. Consider the following examples: A plaintiff files a lawsuit in federal court, alleging that an officer used excessive force in the course of making an arrest. A federal prosecutor files criminal charges against a police officer, alleging that the officer’s use of force during the arrest constituted a crime. Attorneys in the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice file a lawsuit alleging that officers at the police department have engaged in a pattern and practice of violating constitutional rights by using excessive force. In each case, the investigators, lawyers, judges, and jurors will be called upon to assess the use of force by applying the constitutional standard.