Ride the Lightning

YOU TUBE TASER VIDEO: THE 11TH CIRCUIT SHOULD BE ASHAMED

September 19, 2008

My brother is a cop. I am part of the extended family of cops who worry constantly about what might happen to the person in uniform that they love. But there’s no free pass for being a cop – no “get out of jail” free card when you abuse the Constitution. And when an appellate court of the United States sanctions that conduct, I start to hear Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

On September 9th, in an unpublished 2-1 decision by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the court held that a deputy’s tasering of a handcuffed motorist was not an excessive use of force that violated the Constitution. The motorist, reportedly financially destitute and homeless, had refused to sign a speeding ticket and would not stand up. He began sobbing and told the officer to arrest him.

Though the motorist was at no time threatening, and the police officer clearly felt no sense of danger, he jolted the motorist not once, but three times with his Taser. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or a Constitutional lawyer to watch the video of a clearly disturbed person being tasered and know that excessive force was used. The officer called for a backup, exactly what he should have done in the first place, and there was no difficulty in getting the handcuffed motorist in the car once there were two officers on the scene. So why did the officer taser this man three times just to get him to stand up? Are police officers permitted to taser someone when they become impatient?

The case spurred a strong dissent by U.S. District Judge Beverly Martin, sitting by designation, who suggested the video of the incident be posted along with the court’s opinion. "The Fourth Amendment forbids an officer from discharging repeated bursts of electricity into an already handcuffed misdemeanant—who is sitting still beside a rural road and unwilling to move—simply to goad him into standing up,” she wrote.

Well, big surprise here, the 11th Circuit didn’t decide to make the video available. But when blogger Howard Bashman of the How Appealing blog suggested that lawyers for the plaintiff post the video to YouTube, voila, the video appeared.

Watch the video (about 6 ½ minutes) for yourself. And cry for our tattered Constitution.

The court’s decision may be found at: http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/unpub/ops/200710988.pdf

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