Supreme Court Orders New Hearings for Cop Who Tasered and Killed Handcuffed Suspect

In its 2013 decision in
Thomas v. Nugent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
5th Circuit granted qualified immunity to a Louisiana police
officer who repeatedly used his taser on a handcuffed suspect. That
suspect subsequently died of his injuries on the way to the police
station. According to the 5th Circuit, “this case does not provide
an ‘obvious’ example of excess force” because the suspect “was
arrested pursuant to an active felony warrant, attempted to evade
arrest, was subdued only through the threat of deadly force, and
did not comply with the officers’ repeated requests to cooperate in
effectuating the arrest.”

In response to an appeal filed by the suspect’s surviving
daughter, the U.S. Supreme Court today remanded the case back to
the 5th Circuit “for further consideration in light of Tolan v.
Cotton.” Tolan v. Cotton, as Will Baude
explained at the Volokh Conspiracy, “said that the Fifth
Circuit had wrongly granted summary judgment to a police officer in
a civil rights case…. [B]y my count it’s the first time in 10
years that the court has ruled against a police officer in a
qualified immunity case.”

Depending on how the 5th Circuit deals with this matter on
remand, the officer may still receive qualified immunity. Either
way, the dispute may well end up before the Supreme Court once
more.