LEGAL INSTRUCTIONS ON POLICE USE OF DEADLY FORCE TAKEN FROM THE

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT AND OHIO SUPREME COURT IN TENNESSEE

v. GARNER 471 U.S. 1(1985) and GRAHAM v. CONNOR 490 U.S. 386
(1989) and State v. White 142 Ohio St.3d 277 (2015)

"Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the

suspect poses a threat of
serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is
not constitutionally
unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force. Thus, if
the suspect
threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause
to believe that he
has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened
infliction of serious
physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent
escape, and if,
where feasible, some warning has been given."
All claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive
force—
[whether the force used was] deadly or not—in the course of an
arrest,
investigatory stop, or other "seizure" of a free citizen should
be analyzed under
the Fourth Amendment and its "reasonableness" standard...
What does the "test of reasonableness" mean?
The "test of reasonableness" under the Fourth Amendment is not
capable
of precise definition or mechanical application however, its
proper application
requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of
each particular case,
including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the
suspect poses an
immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and
whether he is actively
resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.
Whether a case involves deadly or non-deadly force,
"reasonableness" is gauged from a
totality of circumstances then confronting the officer. In
saying that, however, the
"reasonableness" must be judged from the perspective of a
''reasonable officer on the scene''\
rather than someone who has the benefit of the 20-20 vision of
hindsight. In essence, therefore,
you must not use such hindsight in evaluating the reasonableness
of the officer's actions.
Instead, you must use the perspective of the reasonable officer
on the scene, standing in the
suspect officer's shoes, seeing or perceiving what that officer
saw, and acting within the
reasonable limits of the suspect officer's knowledge or
information as it existed at that time.
This constraint, as a matter of law, is unique to police-
defendant cases, in contrast to your
normal freedom to envision the dynamics of a confrontation
through the eyes of other parties or
witnesses.
In determining reasonableness, you must allow for the fact that
police officers are often
forced to make split-second decisions—in circumstances that are
tense, uncertain, and rapidly
evolving—about the amount of force is necessary in a particular
situation.
Some contextual considerations, which by no means a judicially
imposed checklist, to use
in helping to evaluate whether a particular use of deadly or
non-deadly force was objectionably
reasonable under the above standard, i.e. from the perspective
of a reasonable officer on the
scene, include: the severity of the crime at issue, whether the
suspect pose[d] an immediate
threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he
is actively resisting arrest or
attempting to evade arrest by flight. Other factors present may
include whether the incident
occurred at night, "the suspect's demeanor," the "size and
stature of the parties involved," and
whether the suspect was "intoxicated and noncompliant
Officers may not shoot to kill unless, at a minimum (1) the
suspect presents an immediate
threat to the officer or others or (2) is fleeing and his escape
will result in a serious threat of
injury to persons.
You must avoid substituting your personal notions of proper
police procedure for the
instantaneous decision of the officer at the scene. You must
never allow the theoretical, sanitized
world of our imagination to replace the dangerous and complex
world that policemen face every
day. What constitutes "reasonable" action may seem quite
different to someone facing a possible
assailant than to someone analyzing the question at leisure.
The Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to wait
until a suspect shoots to
confirm that a serious threat of harm exists. * * * Officers
need not be absolutely sure [of] the
suspect's intent to cause them harm—the Constitution does not
require that certitude precede the
act of self-protection. Rather, it is the perceived threat of
attack by a suspect, apart from the
actual attack, to which the officer may respond preemptively. If
his perceptions were objectively
reasonable, he incurs no liability even if no weapon was seen,
or the suspect was later found to
be unarmed, or if what the officer mistook for a weapon was
something innocuous.