The topics of use of force and searches and seizures are controversial topics in the media as it pertains to the criminal justice field today. Many cases are sensationalized by the media. However, there are noteworthy cases that have mostly remained unheard by the people. In 1989 Graham v. Connor was brought before the United States Supreme Court, a case that to many outside the legal system seemed irrelevant, a case in which the Courts would see fit to create a new legal standard. In a rare moment of clarity, members of the court were of the opinion that what is now considered a standard of "objective reasonableness" should apply to a civilian's claim that a member of law enforcement used what they believe to be excessive force in the act. course of attempted arrest, or investigative arrest, or some other "seizure" of the person. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay And so it was that on November 12, 1984, Dethorne Graham, a maintenance worker for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, and a diagnosed diabetic, had a sense that he was in the beginning of a diabetic reaction and needed of sugar to compensate for the insulin he had recently taken. So, Mr. Graham asked a friend to accompany him to a local convenience store so he could purchase some orange juice to counteract the insulin reaction. (Connor, n.d.) When Mr. Graham entered the store, Graham noticed the police car parked in front of the store but didn't think twice. After all he was just another innocent member of the public going about his daily business. However, he needed sugar and couldn't wait. Upon entering the store and seeing the number of people in front of him, Graham, later by his own admission, ran out of the store and asked his friend to take him elsewhere for his sugar. . Officer Connor of the Charlotte Police Department, who was sitting in his patrol vehicle across the street, saw Graham enter the store, then quickly run away from the store, this is what was often described by officers police as a textbook move for a strong-arm thief or robber. (Rehnquist, 1988) Indeed, officers are trained to look for and recognize such suspicious activity, and Connor, along with any other “arguably reasonable” officer, would think that Graham's actions were suspicious and, therefore, worthy of further investigation. . Graham entered the vehicle in which he had previously been a passenger, and together he and his friend left the surrounding area. Of course, as previously stated, to an experienced police officer such behavior would have been considered quite suspicious and Officer Connor immediately had them stopped. for what initially would have been an investigative stop. A simple stop to ascertain what they were doing in the store and whether a crime had in fact been committed. (Rehnquist, 1988) The driver of the vehicle, Mr. William Berry, attempted to explain to Officer Connor that Graham was a diabetic, but the officer, not being sure of the circumstances, ordered the two to wait while he inquired as to what had happened. emerged in the store. When Connor returned to his patrol car to call for backup, Graham exited his vehicle and began circling it twice, before finally sitting down on the sidewalk, where he then briefly passed out. (Rehnquist, 1988) In response to Connor's call for assistance, a number of other Charlotte police officers arrived on scene to serve as backup. Aof these officers rolled Graham onto the sidewalk and cuffed his hands behind his back. While all this was happening, Mr Berry was allegedly pleading with officers to get Graham some sugar. A number of officers then lifted Graham from behind and carried him to Berry's car, where he was placed face down on the bonnet. (Rehnquist, 1988) When he regained consciousness, a fact in which the officers were not presentIn order to actually verify a location, Graham asked the officers to check his wallet for the diabetic identification card he was carrying. In response, one of the officers allegedly told him to "shut up" and was accused of pushing Graham face-first into the hood of the car. Four officers then grabbed Graham and placed him upside down in the police car again. (Rehnquist, 1988) Another friend of Graham's brought some orange juice to the car, but the officers refused to let him have it. Eventually, Officer Connor received a report from other officers at the convenience store scene that Graham had done nothing wrong on the premises and that no crime had in fact been committed. With this finding, one of the officers drove Graham home and released him. (Rehnquist, 1988). At one unfortunate point during his painful encounter with the police, Graham claimed to have suffered a broken bone in his foot, a number of cuts on his wrists, a bruised forehead and an injured shoulder; he also claims to have developed a loud ringing (tinnitus) in his right ear which supposedly continues to this day. Graham, as was his right under the law, filed a lawsuit against Officer Connor charging him with violating his (Graham's) Fourth Amendment rights (Rehnquist, 1988). Graham was in a financial position that allowed him to get a lawyer and file a federal lawsuit under a section of the United States Code that covers the violation of someone's civil rights by a law enforcement officer. The case progressed through the usual appellate process and up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided the decisions in Graham v. Connor under the Constitution in 1989. However, before we can even begin to examine the facts of the case in On the other hand, it must be said that since the inception of the SCOTU S no law enforcement officer has ever gotten out of bed and he thought, “that's it, today is the day I want to go to law school.” Yet, there are those exceedingly rare moments in history, those occasions when an individual officer's actions and his own observations, thoughts, and feelings are scrutinized. It is these very few brief moments in time, over the course of sometimes a few seconds, that attract the attention of lawyers, courts and ultimately the media, who to draw attention to their product will provide a very one-sided story to go along with. to their audience, and of course it's those same few seconds that will make the difference whether an officer goes home today, or whether they become another statistic ignored by the media, a name on a wall in Washington D.C. that only we know about few will ever matter. Despite all this, there is little hope, such cases can reach the SCOTU S and, if deemed worthy of a hearing, the details of an incident can be consolidated as case law in the highest courts of the land. The case Graham v. Connor's 1989 is just one example of how the actions of a single agent began a process that would establish significant jurisprudence. The results obtained following the Graham v. Connor continues to this day to determine the legality of every use-of-force decision made by every law enforcement officer in the nation. The decision a.