holding officer not entitled to qualified immunity at summary judgment stage where he applied pressure to detainee's back for "about three minutes" after hands and feet had been restrained and noting "the law was clearly established that applying pressure to [a person's] upper back, once he was handcuffed and his legs restrained, was constitutionally unreasonable due to the significant risk of positional asphyxiation associated with such actions"
How later courts described this case
- holding officer not entitled to qualified immunity at summary judgment stage where he applied pressure to detainee's back for "about three minutes" after hands and feet had been restrained and noting "the law was clearly established that applying pressure to [a person's] upper back, once he was handcuffed and his legs restrained, was constitutionally unreasonable due to the significant risk of positional asphyxiation associated with such actions"
- explaining that application of pressure to detainee’s back for “about three minutes” after detainee’s hands and feet had been restrained—it becoming clear that the “pressure was unnecessary to restrain him”—created a significant risk of positional asphyxiation that violated clearly established right
- holding that “the law was clearly established,” by December 2002, “that applying pressure to [a subject’s] upper back, once he was handcuffed and his legs restrained, was constitutionally unreasonable due to the significant risk of positional asphyxiation associated with such actions”
- holding that where the suspect fled through oncoming traffic and never ceased to vigorously struggle after being caught, it was reasonable to pin the suspect to the ground, but unreasonable to keep the suspect pinned once he was no longer a legitimate flight risk
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
HARTZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result and all of Judge Seymour’s opinion except on one point. I do not think that the defendants violated Mr. Weigel’s constitutional rights before his legs were bound. In light of Mr. Weig-el’s strength and previous behavior, it was not, in my view, unreasonable of the officers to keep him in a prone position with weight on his upper back so long as the only restraint on his legs was the weight of a bystander sitting on them. Nevertheless, Trooper Henderson initially testified that Mr. Weigel’s feet were bound when he went to his patrol car; and a jury could find that Trooper Broad applied pressure to Mr. Weigel’s upper back for as much as three minutes after his feet were bound. That finding would support a verdict that Mr. Weigel was subjected to unconstitutional force.