7th Circuit highlights difference between 8th, 14th Amendments.

• Author: Ziemer, David

Byline: David Ziemer

A recent Seventh Circuit cases highlights, once again, the importance of keeping constitutional rights straight when claiming that a defendant used excessive force.

The court vacated a grant of summary judgment in the defendants' favor. But the case would have been even easier if the plaintiff had properly sued under the Fourteenth Amendment, rather than the Eighth.

Darryl Lewis was a federal prisoner in Illinois. He had been convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, but had not been sentenced.

Lewis went on a hunger strike, and at one point was ordered by guards to get up from his bed after he scattered a bottle of pills on the floor of his cell.

According to Lewis' allegations he was too weak and sick to get up, but before he could explain, and without warning, a guard shot him in the leg with a taser gun (The guards dispute these facts, but for purposes of reviewing a summary judgment motion, the court assumed them to be true).

Lewis sued, alleging that shooting him with the taser gun violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the guards. But the Seventh Circuit reversed, in an opinion by Judge Michael S. Kanne.

Before discussing the merits, the court explained the difference between excessive force claims under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, and why the distinction is important.

The Eighth Amendment protects prisoners who have been convicted and sentenced from cruel and unusual punishment. The Fourteenth Amendment protects pre-trial detainees.

In some cases, such as deliberate indifference to medical needs, the burden of proof is the same. But the court noted that, for excessive force claims, the Fourteenth Amendment provides broader protection, because it prohibits all punishment, not just punishment that is cruel and unusual.

Lewis did not fit neatly into either the category of a convicted and sentenced prisoner or a pre-trial detainee presumed innocent; he had been convicted but had not yet been sentenced. However, in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment does not begin to apply until after conviction and sentence.

Thus, the court found that Lewis should have brought his claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. Despite that, it analyzed the claim under the Eighth Amendment only, stating, we will not consider any safeguards the Fourteenth Amendment...