Читать книгу Evaluating Police Uses of Force - Seth W. Stoughton - Страница 26

While many different situations fall within the ambit of community caretaking, it is worth addressing one that officers encounter with some regularity: the involuntary evaluation or treatment for psychiatric/psychological issues or substance abuse. Officers frequently encounter individuals in situations in which there is a substantial threat of self-harm, either through an active suicide attempt or through the physical neglect that can accompany substance abuse, or a substantial threat of harm to others for similar reasons. In such cases, it is not at all unusual for the individual to refuse psychological, psychiatric, or medical evaluation and treatment. Depending on state law, officers may have the authority to initiate some form of involuntary evaluation process on their own, to seek judicial approval, or to enforce an involuntary commitment order initiated by a third party, such as a medical professional. “The government has an important interest in providing assistance to a person in need of psychiatric care,” as the Ninth Circuit has written. Once the procedural requirements are satisfied such that officers have authority under state law to take someone into custody, the presence of that legitimate state interest can justify the use of force.62

The first step in analyzing any use of force is identifying whether there was a governmental interest at stake. This question may be framed as follows: did the governmental interests at stake justify some use of force? The answer to that question depends on whether a legitimate governmental interest would have suffered had officers not used force. The Graham factors and additional considerations discussed in the preceding pages can help answer that question. If the answer to that question is no—either because there is no legitimate governmental interest or because there is no threat to the government’s interest that could be resolved with force—then, for constitutional purposes, the use of force was unjustified. If the answer to that preliminary question is yes, the analysis must continue by reviewing whether the actual force used was appropriate. We take up that question in the next section.