The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently issued an important decision on the use of taser force against a passively resisting suspect. In Saalim v. Walmart, 97 F. 4th 995 (6th Cir. 2024), the court held that the officer’s tasing of a suspect who was only passively resisting the officer violated clearly established Fourth Amendment law. The dissent would have ruled for the officer based on qualified immunity. The court’s opinion sets forth a valuable analysis of the distinction between active and passive resistance. We will flag key issues and reference U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit precedents as we proceed.
Section 1983 Fourth Amendment excessive force claims are fact intensive. Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372,383 (2007) (Court must “slosh [its] way through the factbound morass of ‘reasonableness’”). Qualified immunity, too, is fact intensive.
