In one of the most significant use-of-force decisions in years, a unanimous Supreme Court rejected the Fifth Circuit's "moment-of-threat" doctrine and reaffirmed that whether an officer's use of deadly force is objectively reasonable must be evaluated under the totality of the circumstances — with no artificial chronological time limit. Officer Roberto Felix fatally shot Ashtian Barnes during a traffic stop for a suspected unpaid toll violation after jumping onto the doorsill of Barnes' moving vehicle. The Fifth Circuit had restricted its analysis to only the two-second window when Felix clung to the moving car. Justice Kagan, writing for the Court, held that a court "cannot review the totality of the circumstances if it has put on chronological blinders." The full context of the stop — including the trivial nature of the underlying offense and the officer's own tactical decisions leading up to the shooting — must be considered.

Practical Impact: This decision directly affects agencies in the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Circuits that had been using the narrower moment-of-threat approach. All use-of-force training, policy review, and litigation defense must now account for the full context of every officer-suspect interaction from first contact forward. Supervisory after-action review should document the entire sequence of events, not merely the moment force was deployed. The unresolved "officer-created jeopardy" question — whether an officer's pre-force tactical decisions can reduce the reasonableness of their use of force — is the next major battleground in use-of-force law.

Three former Memphis Police Department SCORPION Unit officers were convicted in federal court of civil rights violations arising from the January 2023 beating death of Tyre Nichols. Officer Demetrius Haley was convicted of depriving Nichols of his civil rights resulting in bodily injury, deliberate indifference to serious medical needs, and conspiracy and obstruction. Officers Bean and Smith were convicted of obstruction-related counts. Two additional officers — Desmond Mills Jr. and Emmitt Martin III — had previously pleaded guilty to federal charges of excessive force and conspiracy to cover up the assault. Body camera footage showed officers continuing to strike a handcuffed Nichols, failing to render medical aid, and laughing at the scene. A new trial was subsequently ordered for Bean, Haley and Smith in August 2025 following judicial recusal issues; a $550 million civil suit against the City of Memphis remains pending.

Practical Impact: The Nichols case is a textbook study in compounding liability: the underlying force incident, the failure to intervene, the failure to render medical aid, and the post-incident cover-up each constitute independent bases for criminal and civil liability. Agencies must train officers that duty-to-intervene obligations apply in real time during ongoing force incidents — not only before force begins — and that falsification of reports generates separate federal criminal exposure under 18 U.S.C. § 242. The $550 million civil suit underscores the Monell stakes when agencies fail to detect and address unit culture problems before they produce catastrophic results.

Dustin Booth, a Monroe, Ohio resident in acute mental health crisis, was making active threats to his family, exhibiting delusions, and was armed with a revolver. Monroe Police responded and initiated a traffic stop on February 11, 2022. During the stop, Booth raised the revolver toward officers and was shot and killed. His widow filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging unlawful seizure, excessive force, and violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act — arguing that officers were required to use de-escalation as a reasonable accommodation for Booth's disability before resorting to force.

The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for all defendant officers on all counts. The ADA did not require officers to provide a de-escalation accommodation in the face of objective, documented safety risks. Officers had probable cause for a mental-health seizure — requiring only a "probability or substantial chance" of dangerous behavior, not an actual showing of harm. The force used, including police dog deployment and takedown maneuvers, was objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The court noted pointedly that effective de-escalation depends on a subject's willingness to comply — Booth had repeatedly refused lawful commands while armed and in active crisis.

Practical Impact: Booth provides Sixth Circuit officers with clear authority to act when an individual in mental health crisis is armed and poses documented safety risks. It forecloses the argument that de-escalation is a constitutionally or statutorily mandated prerequisite to force in dangerous encounters — while reinforcing the importance of documenting the subject's noncompliance and the basis for probable cause in all mental-health seizure incidents.

On May 16, 2022, officers from a multi-agency auto theft task force located Jacob Root driving a stolen vehicle to a gas station on Airport Road in Colorado Springs. When officers approached, Root fled on foot. After multiple lesser force attempts failed, Officer Robert Comstock deployed his Taser, striking Root in the back. Root fell face-first onto the street, broke his neck, and was rendered quadriplegic. Root filed a $100 million federal lawsuit alleging that Comstock used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment — specifically that CSPD's own use-of-force policy prohibited deploying a Taser against a person in an elevated position or a location where a fall could cause substantial injury or death, and that no taser-specific warning was given.

The U.S. District Court dismissed the case, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed on January 14, 2026. Writing for the panel, Judge Scott M. Matheson Jr. applied the Graham v. Connor totality-of-the-circumstances framework — noting that Root was a fleeing felony suspect who had struck a police vehicle while evading officers and had not responded to multiple lesser force options. But the court's holding rested primarily on qualified immunity: Root failed to identify prior precedent clearly establishing that a taser deployment against a fleeing felony suspect on sloped or elevated terrain violated the Fourth Amendment. As the court observed, the prior instances of force Root cited — which CSPD itself had found appropriate — did not demonstrate a departmental custom of condoning excessive force sufficient to sustain a Monell claim.

Practical Impact: The officer prevailed on qualified immunity — but the operative word is prevailed. The litigation lasted years and cost the agency substantially in legal fees and institutional distraction. CSPD's own written policy already prohibited tasing subjects in elevated positions where falls could cause serious injury; the fact that the officer may have violated departmental policy did not automatically mean a constitutional violation, but it created a predicate for litigation. Agencies should treat policy-compliant force as the floor, not the ceiling, and ensure that CEW training explicitly addresses terrain and environmental hazards. Root has since filed a parallel state lawsuit raising similar claims under Colorado law.

On July 20, 2020, Cleveland Police Officers Jennifer Kilnapp and Bailey Gannon — Gannon having only six months in the field — responded to a report of an armed man at a dark boarding house. The officers entered with firearms drawn. As they ascended the staircase, Gannon encountered the subject, Darryl Borden. Gannon panicked and fled past Kilnapp down the stairs, firing blindly over his head behind him as he ran. One of Gannon's bullets struck Kilnapp, fragmenting in her forearm, bicep, and chest and lodging near her spine. She suffered permanent nerve damage and PTSD and remained unable to return to duty. Criminal charges were initially filed against Borden — later identified as incorrect — before evidence pointed to Gannon as the shooter.

The Sixth Circuit held on February 18, 2026 that Kilnapp was "seized" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment despite not being Gannon's intended target. The court's analysis focused on the intentionality of the governmental force, not the identity of the person ultimately struck: because Gannon deliberately fired his weapon — with the objective intent to restrain a person — the constitutional inquiry centers on that intentional act. The fact that Kilnapp was a fellow officer, and not the suspect, did not remove her from Fourth Amendment protection. The court held that the case could proceed.

Practical Impact: This decision has significant implications for multi-officer firearm deployments. The Fourth Amendment analysis does not stop at "who was the intended target" — intentional discharge in a confined space where others are present can constitute a seizure of any person struck. Firearms training must reinforce backdrop awareness, target identification, crossfire discipline, and tactical positioning during multi-officer building searches. The court's holding makes clear that constitutional liability for an unintended shooting is not foreclosed merely because the shooter was aiming at someone else.

Deputies Joey Keith and Kenny Perkins were dispatched to a residential address after Jason Green's mother called 911 to report that Green — who she said was high on drugs — was spreading gasoline throughout the property and had a lighter. When officers arrived, they encountered Green in a dark backyard, where he had doused himself in gasoline. Green's mother stepped between Green and the deputies and pleaded with them not to use a Taser, but to handcuff Green instead. After she stepped aside, both deputies deployed their Tasers simultaneously. The electrical discharge ignited the gasoline, causing Green to catch fire and sustain severe burns over his body. No lighter was ever found at the scene; Green maintained he had never possessed one.

The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the officers. The court applied the qualified immunity framework and concluded that, at the time of the incident, no clearly established precedent had addressed the specific constitutional question of deploying a Taser against a subject known to be covered in a flammable substance. Because the law had not placed the constitutional question "beyond debate," the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. The court noted that the officers believed, based on dispatch information, that Green had a lighter and may have already ignited himself before they deployed.

Practical Impact: Qualified immunity shielded the officers here — but this decision should be treated as a training imperative, not a green light. CEW manufacturers and published TASER guidelines have long warned that electronic control weapons can ignite gasoline vapors, aerosol sprays, and certain chemical agents. An officer who deploys a CEW against a subject known to be saturated in gasoline cannot rely on the absence of a prior published decision to escape future liability as courts address this fact pattern more directly. Agencies should ensure that CEW training explicitly addresses ignition hazards and that officers encountering flammable substances in the field are trained to consider alternative tactics.

Officers responding to an Oklahoma City hotel found Dawawn McCoy noncompliant and apparently under the influence, refusing to leave a guest's room. After medical personnel determined McCoy did not require immediate attention and he refused care, Sergeant Cassidy and additional officers attempted to arrest McCoy for trespassing. McCoy resisted physically — pulling his hands in and kicking — and officers used pepper spray and a Taser to subdue him. Once handcuffed, McCoy was rolled onto his stomach. According to the district court's findings, for approximately ninety seconds after McCoy had stopped resisting, officers continued to apply force by holding a knee on his back and pressing his legs upward toward his spine. McCoy stopped responding verbally and exhibited signs of medical distress. Officers attempted resuscitation and administered Narcan, but McCoy died in the hospital six days later. LaQuita Bruner, as administrator of McCoy's estate, filed a § 1983 suit for excessive force and deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.

The district court granted summary judgment for the officers on the deliberate indifference claim but denied it on the excessive force claim — finding that a reasonable jury could conclude excessive force was used after McCoy was no longer resisting. On interlocutory appeal, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the denial of qualified immunity on January 8, 2026. The case proceeds to trial on the excessive force theory.

Practical Impact: This case illustrates the single most common trigger for successful excessive force litigation: force that does not stop when resistance stops. Under the Graham framework, the justification for using force diminishes in proportion to the degree of resistance — and when a subject is handcuffed and no longer actively resisting, the continued application of body-weight force to the torso presents both a constitutional and a positional asphyxia risk. Body-worn camera footage documented the entire sequence. Agencies must train officers on the critical moment of transition from force to control, mandate immediate medical assessment after any physical restraint, and use BWC footage in supervisory review to reinforce when force must stop.

In 2019, law enforcement officers investigating a robbery of the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian, Virginia obtained a geofence warrant — a type of "reverse warrant" — directing Google to search its location database and disclose the identities of every device that had been within a defined geographic area during a one-hour window around the time of the crime. The process unfolded in three steps: Google first produced anonymized location data for 19 devices present in the geofence, yielding 209 data points; investigators then narrowed the set and requested more detailed data on nine accounts, producing 680 data points over two hours; and finally, officers requested the subscriber identity information for three remaining accounts. One of those accounts belonged to Okello Chatrie. Charged with armed bank robbery, Chatrie moved to suppress the geofence evidence as an unconstitutional search.

Courts at every level have disagreed on whether geofence warrants even constitute a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, and if so, whether they satisfy the requirements of particularity and probable cause. The federal district court found the warrant unconstitutional but declined to suppress the evidence under the good faith exception. A three-judge Fourth Circuit panel initially held that because Chatrie voluntarily shared his location data with Google, there was no reasonable expectation of privacy and therefore no search at all. The full Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc in April 2025, affirmed — but did so by a single unsigned sentence, accompanied by nine separate opinions totaling over 100 pages, reflecting deep judicial division on every dimension of the question. By contrast, the Fifth Circuit concluded in United States v. Smith, 110 F.4th 817 (5th Cir. 2024) that geofence warrants are categorically unconstitutional "general warrants" — the very evil the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent — though it too applied the good faith exception to admit the evidence.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari on January 16, 2026 to resolve the circuit split and answer a single question: whether the execution of a geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. The stakes are substantial. At the time law enforcement began using Google's Sensorvault database for geofence warrants, it held location data for approximately 592 million accounts — and each warrant required Google to search that entire database before producing a single name. Notably, Google began migrating location history data from its servers to users' individual devices in July 2025, which will limit future cloud-based geofence warrants against Google's systems. But the constitutional question survives for all historical data and for any company that has not made a similar change. A decision invalidating geofence warrants without a robust good faith exception could require reopening convictions obtained using this investigative technique nationwide.

Practical Impact: Agencies that currently use geofence warrants — or are considering them — face direct operational uncertainty until the Court rules. A decision finding geofence warrants unconstitutional without a workable good faith escape could render past investigations vulnerable to suppression challenges. A decision upholding them will provide a constitutional roadmap — but likely with significant guidance on probable cause, particularity, and scope that agencies will need to incorporate into their warrant application practices. Either way, investigators who obtained geofence evidence in good faith reliance on a magistrate's approval are likely protected; agencies that used such warrants without judicial oversight are not. Prosecutors and agency legal counsel should begin auditing pending cases that relied on geofence evidence now, before the decision is issued.