Graham v. Connor (1989) - The Objective Reasonableness Standard

Quick Reference

• Citation: Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989)
• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Year Decided: 1989
• Key Question: When a person claims police used excessive force during an arrest or investigatory stop, what legal standard should courts use to judge that force?
• Holding: Claims of excessive force during an arrest, investigatory stop, or other "seizure" of a free citizen must be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment's "objective reasonableness" standard, not under a substantive due process standard.
• Why It Matters for Officers: Graham is the constitutional yardstick for nearly every use-of-force claim against an officer. It tells courts to judge force from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, without the benefit of hindsight.

The Facts of the Case

On November 12, 1984, Dethorne Graham, a diabetic, felt the onset of an insulin reaction. He asked a friend, William Berry, to drive him to a convenience store to buy orange juice to counteract the reaction. Graham entered the store, saw a line at the checkout, and hurried back out to the car, asking Berry to instead drive him to a friend's house. (Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 388-389 (1989), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/490/386/.)

Charlotte, North Carolina police officer M.S. Connor saw Graham enter and quickly leave the store, and considered the behavior suspicious. Connor followed Berry's car and made an investigatory stop about a half-mile from the store. Berry told Connor that Graham was suffering from a "sugar reaction," but the officer told Berry and Graham to wait while he found out what, if anything, had happened at the convenience store. (490 U.S. at 388-389.)

While Connor returned to his patrol car to call for backup, Graham got out of the car, ran around it twice, and then sat down on the curb, where he briefly passed out. Several backup officers arrived. One rolled Graham over on the sidewalk and cuffed his hands tightly behind his back, ignoring Berry's pleas to get him sugar. Officers lifted Graham and placed him face down on the hood of Berry's car. Regaining consciousness, Graham asked the officers to check his wallet for a diabetic decal he carried; an officer told him to "shut up" and shoved his face against the hood. Four officers then carried Graham and put him head first into the patrol car. A friend brought orange juice to the car, but officers refused to let Graham have it. (490 U.S. at 389.)

Connor eventually learned that nothing had happened at the store and drove Graham home and released him. During the encounter, Graham sustained a broken foot, cuts on his wrist, a bruised forehead, an injured shoulder, and claimed a persistent ringing in his right ear. (490 U.S. at 390.)

Graham sued the officers under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, alleging they had used excessive force in making the investigatory stop, in violation of his constitutional rights. The District Court directed a verdict for the officers, and a divided panel of the Fourth Circuit affirmed, applying a four-factor substantive due process test drawn from a Second Circuit case, Johnson v. Glick. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve which constitutional standard governs. (490 U.S. at 390-391.)

The Legal Question

The question in Graham was not whether the officers used too much force. It was the more fundamental question of which constitutional provision, and therefore which legal test, courts should use to answer that kind of claim at all.

Before Graham, lower courts were split and often confused. Many courts, including the Fourth Circuit below, analyzed excessive force claims under a "substantive due process" theory rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment. The leading formulation came from Judge Friendly's opinion in Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028 (2d Cir. 1973), which asked whether force was applied "in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline or maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm." That test included a subjective element: it asked about the officer's state of mind and motive. (490 U.S. at 392-393.)

The competing view was that force used to effect a seizure of a free person is governed by the Fourth Amendment, which protects "the right of the people to be secure in their persons" against "unreasonable searches and seizures." The Supreme Court had already pointed in this direction in Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985), which analyzed deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect as a Fourth Amendment "seizure" question (see also our analysis of Tennessee v. Garner).

The choice of standard had real consequences. A due process test that examined an officer's malice or sadistic intent is harder for a plaintiff to win and turns on subjective motivation. A Fourth Amendment reasonableness test is objective: it does not ask whether the officer acted in good faith or in bad faith, only whether the force was objectively reasonable. The Court took the case to settle the question.

The Court's Reasoning

Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for a unanimous Court, held that the constitutional source of the claim dictates the standard. "In addressing an excessive force claim brought under Section 1983, analysis begins by identifying the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed by the challenged application of force." (490 U.S. at 394.)

Because Graham's claim arose from an investigatory stop, it was a "seizure" of a free citizen, and "all claims that law enforcement officers have used excessive force, deadly or not, in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other 'seizure' of a free citizen should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its 'reasonableness' standard." (490 U.S. at 395.) The Court rejected the "generalized notion of substantive due process" as the wrong frame where an "explicit textual source of constitutional protection" exists.

The Court then described how Fourth Amendment reasonableness works in the force context. "Determining whether the force used to effect a particular seizure is 'reasonable' under the Fourth Amendment requires a careful balancing of the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the countervailing governmental interests at stake." (490 U.S. at 396.)

The Court identified factors relevant to that balance, including "the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight." (490 U.S. at 396.) These are commonly called the "Graham factors," though the Court did not present them as an exhaustive checklist.

Three passages have become the most quoted in American police use-of-force law. First, on hindsight: "The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight." (490 U.S. at 396.) Second, on the realities of the job: "The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments, in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving, about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation." (490 U.S. at 396-397.) Third, on objectivity: "An officer's evil intentions will not make a Fourth Amendment violation out of an objectively reasonable use of force; nor will an officer's good intentions make an objectively unreasonable use of force constitutional." (490 U.S. at 397.)

The Holding and Its Standard

The Court held that excessive force claims arising from an arrest, investigatory stop, or other seizure of a free person are governed by the Fourth Amendment's objective reasonableness standard. It vacated the Fourth Circuit's judgment and remanded for the lower courts to apply the correct standard. (490 U.S. at 399.)

The standard officers should understand has several defining features:

It is objective. The question is whether a reasonable officer, facing the same facts, would have considered the force reasonable. The officer's actual subjective intent, whether benevolent or hostile, is not the test. (490 U.S. at 397.)

It is judged from the scene, not from hindsight. Courts are instructed to view the situation as it appeared to the officer at the moment force was used, accounting for the speed and uncertainty of real encounters. (490 U.S. at 396.)

It is a totality-of-the-circumstances balancing test. The Graham factors (severity of the crime, immediate threat, active resistance or flight) guide the analysis but do not exhaust it. Courts weigh the intrusion against the governmental interest. (490 U.S. at 396.)

It applies to all force, deadly or not. Graham unified the analysis so that a wrist twist and a gunshot are evaluated under the same constitutional standard, even though the weight of the interests differs dramatically. (490 U.S. at 395.)

One point of caution for training audiences: Graham is a constitutional floor, not an operational standard. It defines when force violates the Fourth Amendment. Agency policy, state law, and POST training standards frequently set expectations that are more demanding than the constitutional minimum.

How Courts Have Applied This Since

Graham has been cited in thousands of lower-court decisions. Several lines of development are important for training audiences.

Qualified immunity layered on top of Graham. Even when force is found unreasonable under Graham, an officer sued for damages may still be protected by qualified immunity unless the unconstitutionality was "clearly established" at the time. The Supreme Court reinforced this in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001), and later loosened the order of analysis in Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009). Recent cases such as Kisela v. Hughes, 138 S. Ct. 1148 (2018), show how a force claim can fail at the qualified-immunity stage even without a clear ruling that the force was reasonable (see also our analysis of Kisela v. Hughes).

The "moment of threat" debate. Lower courts split for years over whether the reasonableness inquiry should consider only the instant force was used, or also the officer's earlier conduct that may have "created" the danger. The Supreme Court addressed a version of this in Barnes v. Felix, decided in 2025, holding that courts must assess the totality of the circumstances and rejecting a rigid rule that limited the inquiry to the precise "moment of the threat."

Application to high-speed pursuits. The Court applied Graham-style reasonableness to vehicle pursuits in Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 (2007), and Plumhoff v. Rickard, 134 S. Ct. 2012 (2014) (see also our analyses of Scott v. Harris and Plumhoff v. Rickard).

Pretrial detainees use a different test. Graham governs free citizens being seized. For convicted prisoners, the Eighth Amendment applies. For pretrial detainees, the Court held in Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466 (2015), that an objective reasonableness standard applies to excessive force claims, drawing on Graham's logic (see also our analysis of Kingsley v. Hendrickson).

Provocation rule rejected. In County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, 137 S. Ct. 1539 (2017), the Court rejected the Ninth Circuit's "provocation rule," which had allowed an otherwise reasonable use of force to be deemed unreasonable because officers committed a separate Fourth Amendment violation earlier. The Court held the reasonableness of force must be analyzed under Graham itself.

What This Means for Officers Today

Graham is the case most often referenced in use-of-force training, and it is also one of the most often misquoted. A few honest takeaways for training audiences:

Graham describes how a court will review force after the fact. It does not authorize any particular tactic, and it does not tell an officer what to do in the moment. It tells officers the lens through which their decisions will later be judged.

The Graham factors are a starting point, not a script. Severity of the crime, immediate threat, and active resistance or flight are the named factors, but courts routinely consider additional circumstances such as whether the suspect was armed, whether a warning was given, the availability of less intrusive alternatives, and the suspect's apparent mental or medical state.

The medical context in Graham itself is instructive. Dethorne Graham was experiencing a diabetic emergency, not committing a crime. Officers who can recognize medical and behavioral health crises, and slow an encounter down, reduce the chance that a misread situation escalates into a force event that later has to be defended under Graham.

The "split-second judgment" language cuts in a realistic direction: courts will not demand perfection or the wisdom of hindsight. But that language is a standard of review, not a license. Where time and distance allow, deliberate decision-making remains both lawful and, under many agency policies, expected.

Common Misunderstandings

"If I subjectively feared for my life, the force was justified." Graham is an objective test. Genuine fear matters only insofar as a reasonable officer in the same situation would have shared it. Subjective fear alone is not the standard. (490 U.S. at 397.)

"Graham says I only get judged on the final split second." Graham emphasizes split-second judgments and rejects hindsight, but it also calls for a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis. The scope of the relevant timeline has been actively litigated, and the 2025 Barnes v. Felix decision rejected a rigid "moment of threat" cutoff.

"Graham authorizes the force I used." Graham authorizes nothing. It is a standard of constitutional review. Agency policy and state law often impose stricter requirements, and complying with Graham does not guarantee compliance with policy.

"Graham and Garner are different rules." Graham did not overrule Tennessee v. Garner. Garner is best understood as an application of Fourth Amendment reasonableness to the specific context of deadly force against a fleeing suspect. Graham later supplied the general framework (see also our analysis of Tennessee v. Garner).

CodeBlu Training Connection

Graham v. Connor marks a boundary that CodeBlu's scenario design deliberately respects. CodeBlu is an AI voice-based de-escalation and crisis-intervention training product. It does not teach use-of-force law, and it does not train use-of-force decision-making as a discipline. A use-of-force decision is where a CodeBlu scenario ends, not what it teaches.

That boundary is exactly what Graham defines. Graham is the constitutional standard for reviewing force once force has been used. CodeBlu's value sits upstream of that point: the practice scenarios are designed to resolve before force becomes the question at all. Honest framing matters here. CodeBlu does not make officers better at justifying force under Graham. It is designed to make the Graham analysis less likely to be needed, by giving officers repeated, low-stakes practice at the communication and crisis-recognition skills that keep encounters from escalating.

The reasoning in Graham still informs CodeBlu's after-action review (AAR). The AAR scores officers 0-10 on Communication, Empathy, Safety, and Options and Problem-Solving. The Safety dimension reflects the same balance Graham describes: officer and public safety set against the intrusiveness of the response, and the recognition that tense, uncertain, rapidly evolving situations demand sound judgment. The Options and Problem-Solving dimension reflects the practical reality that courts and agency policies increasingly look at whether less intrusive alternatives were available and considered. The Empathy dimension connects to the facts of Graham itself: a diabetic medical emergency that officers did not recognize. Practicing the recognition of medical and behavioral health crises is squarely within what CodeBlu trains, and it is squarely upstream of the Graham boundary.

CodeBlu synthesizes publicly available work from sources including the Force Science Institute, PERF's ICAT, CIT International, Colorado CRIT, and CITAC. It is not partnered with, certified by, or endorsed by any of them.

Further Reading

• Full opinion: Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/490/386/
• Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/471/1/
• Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/576/389/
• County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, 581 U.S. 420 (2017), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/581/420/
• Congressional Research Service, "Public Trust and Law Enforcement: A Discussion of Civilian Oversight and Use of Force," https://www.congress.gov/crs-products (search for use-of-force reports).
• International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Consensus Policy and Discussion Paper on Use of Force, https://www.theiacp.org/.

Important Disclaimer

This article is educational content produced for law enforcement training purposes. It is not legal advice and does not establish any standard of care, agency policy, or legal duty. Case law evolves, circuit interpretations differ, and the application of any decision depends on specific facts. Officers and agencies should consult their own legal counsel, current agency policy, and state POST standards before relying on any legal principle described here. Quotations from court opinions are drawn from the public record; any scholarly interpretations are attributed and should be verified against original sources.