Supreme Court to Review Fifth Circuit’s Deviation from Common Law Limits on Use of Force in Barnes v. Felix

October 16 2024

The Federalist Society published a blog post on the certiorari-stage amicus brief filed by The Cato Institute, in collaboration with the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) and CPE, that urges the Supreme Court to review Barnes v. Felix. The case concerns how to evaluate an excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment. More specifically:

Should a court look at the reasonableness of an officer’s actions only in the narrow window when an officer’s safety was threatened, as required by the Fifth Circuit’s “moment of threat” doctrine? Or does the totality of the circumstances matter—including any actions officers took that may have unnecessarily increased the danger they faced?

Read the blog post on The Federalist Society’s website.