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CA6: Handcuffing man having a seizure violated Fourth Amendment

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Officers who handcuffed a man having a seizure violated clearly established rights and had no qualified immunity. McKenna v. Edgell, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 17114, 2010 FED App. 0249P (6th Cir. August 17, 2010), prior appeal, McKenna v. City of Royal Oak, 469 F.3d 559 (6th Cir. 2006): We conclude that whether the officers were entitled to qualified immunity depends on whether they acted in a law-enforcement capacity or in an emergency-medical-response capacity when engaging in the conduct that McKenna claimed violated the Fourth Amendment. If the officers acted as medical-emergency responders, then McKenna’s claim would amount to a complaint that he received dangerously negligent and invasive medical care. Under a function-dependent view of Peete, if any right to be free from such unintentional conduct by medical-emergency responders exists under the Fourth Amendment, it is not clearly established...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on August 18, 2010 (boomark / email).