Legal Update

Balancing Training Innovations with Legal Standards

The best way to combat “custom” is through the implementation of clear policies, comprehensive training on those policies, and close and effective supervision. To this end, innovations in law enforcement training have benefited and will continue to benefit departments. Effective, comprehensive training, however, must maintain focus on legal objectives and “clearly established law.” The 2020–2021 U.S. legislative session resulted in an all-time high of […]

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The Failure of Supervision: Is It The Cause of Officer Failures?

Ensure Supervisory Ideals are Practiced as Well as Preached The death of Tyre Nichols on January 7, 2023, is a tragedy that resulted from being severely beaten by five officers from the Memphis Police Department. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that it was entirely preventable. From the outside looking in, the question that should be asked is ‘were there any failures within

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“Kettling” and Keeping the Peace

Baude v. Leyshock from the Eighth Circuit has a lot of legal issues that we have discussed and a new term that we have not, which is “kettling.” First let’s start with what we have discussed before: our case today brings to question excessive use of force during a protest. As a reminder, a court evaluates the reasonableness of the force by examining the

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United States v. Ambriz-Villa: The Right Way to Conduct a Traffic Stop

In United States v. Ambriz-Villa, the Seventh Circuit Court dealt with a case involving a traffic stop and consent to search a suspect’s vehicle based on suspicion of drug trafficking. The suspect argued that their consent to search the vehicle was not voluntary. To evaluate the voluntariness of consent, the court considers various factors, such as the person’s age, intelligence, and education, whether they

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Witness’s Change of Story Causes Qualified Immunity Decision to Change

The case of Gambrel v. Knox County, 25 F.4th 391 (6th Cir. 2022) brings to light the complex issue of qualified immunity and the use of deadly force by law enforcement. The Sixth Circuit overturned a decision on qualified immunity in this case, due to a tricky aspect of determining credibility of witness statements. In this case, a witness initially supported the officers’ portrayal

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Weighing Qualified Immunity Against Several Versions of the Same UOF Incident

In the Seventh Circuit case of Bayon v. Berkebile, qualified immunity was denied for officers who mistakenly believed that the plaintiff had a gun. The incident became complicated due to the numerous conflicting versions from both the plaintiff and the officers about the use of force. As a reminder, qualified immunity balances the need to hold public officials accountable for irresponsible use of power

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Body-Worn Camera Footage Proves that Officers’ Use of Force was Unnecessary

In this week’s case from the Eighth Circuit, an officer was denied qualified immunity. It is important to remember that when reviewing a claim of qualified immunity, courts are not allowed to resolve genuine disputes of fact in favor of the party seeking summary judgment. In this case, there were two conflicting accounts of the events, but the court had body-worn camera footage that

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Creating Your Assessment: Policies Are Only Part of It

Lately, I have been getting similar questions from various departments, “once we have our policies completed, we are ready for our assessment, right?” The answer is “no.” Completing your policies is part of the accreditation equation, but in order to be ready for your on-site assessment, there is much more to do.First, even though your policies are drafted, you will need to scrutinize each

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