Wisconsin Man Wins Supreme Court Case Over Excessive Force

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a Wisconsin jail inmate who claimed guards used excessive force when they used a taser on him while he was handcuffed.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by Michael Kingsley who sued two guards from the Monroe County jail for excessive use of force over an incident in 2010. The guards claimed they were justified in the tasing.

Wisconsin American Civil Liberties Union attorney Larry Dupuis said the ruling makes clear that jail inmate’s like Kingsley don’t have to prove that guards have malicious intent to win a case claiming unreasonable use of force.

“The government can’t get away with saying, ‘Oh I didn’t mean it. Oops I pulled the trigger on the taser, but I didn’t have any malicious intent,’” Dupuis said. “And we think that’s really important because there just isn’t enough deterrence of that kind of behavior in jails.”

The case goes back to a federal appeals court in Chicago and Dupuis said it’s likely Kingsley will get a new trial or a settlement from the guards.

The 5-4 ruling written by Justice Stephen Breyer in favor of Kinglsey emphasized the point that Kinglsey was awaiting trial when he was assaulted by the guards and therefore was still presumed innocent of the crime he’d been charged with. Breyer said the ruling assures that the standard for excessive use of force on pre-trial jail inmates is the same as that applied to someone who is not in jail but is free on bail. Breyer also said it’s clear that guards in Monroe County and in other jails across the country have been trained to follow that standard.

The ACLU’s Dupuis said the ruling is also important because many jail inmates are poor and end up confined on minor charges because they can’t afford bail. Dupuis also said the excessive use of force in the nation’s jails is under-reported and only comes to light through lawsuits like Kingsley’s.