Kingsley v. Hendrickson (2015) - Excessive Force and Pretrial Detainees

Quick Reference

• Citation: Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015)

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States

• Year Decided: 2015

• Key Question: When a pretrial detainee claims that jail officers used excessive force, must the detainee prove the officers were subjectively aware their force was unreasonable, or only that the force was objectively unreasonable?

• Holding: A pretrial detainee bringing a Fourteenth Amendment excessive-force claim must show only that the officers' use of force was objectively unreasonable. The detainee need not prove the officers subjectively intended to punish or knew their force was excessive.

• Why It Matters for Officers: Kingsley establishes that excessive-force claims by pretrial detainees (people held in jail before conviction) are judged by an objective standard, distinct from the Fourth Amendment standard for arrests and from the Eighth Amendment standard for convicted prisoners.

The Facts of the Case

Michael Kingsley was arrested in Wisconsin and held as a pretrial detainee in a county jail. He had not been convicted of any crime; he was awaiting trial. While in his cell, Kingsley was involved in a dispute with jail staff over a piece of paper that he had covered the light fixture above his bed with. Officers repeatedly directed him to remove it; Kingsley repeatedly refused (Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389, 391 to 393 (2015)).

Officers eventually came to the cell to remove the paper themselves and to move Kingsley to a receiving cell. Kingsley, who was lying on his bunk, did not comply with directions to stand, and the encounter became physical. Officers handcuffed Kingsley and carried him to the receiving cell. The accounts of what happened in the receiving cell differed, but the undisputed and disputed facts together included that officers placed Kingsley face down on a bunk, that an officer put a knee or pressure on his back, and that at some point a Taser was applied to Kingsley for roughly five seconds. The officers then left Kingsley alone in the cell, still handcuffed (576 U.S. at 392 to 393).

Kingsley brought a Section 1983 action against the jail officers, alleging that they used excessive force against him in violation of his constitutional rights as a pretrial detainee. The case went to trial in federal district court.

The dispute that reached the Supreme Court was about the jury instruction. The district court instructed the jury, in substance, that Kingsley had to prove the officers "recklessly disregarded" his safety and acted with a state of mind reflecting that the force was unreasonable, an instruction with a subjective component about what the officers themselves knew or intended. The jury found for the officers. Kingsley appealed, arguing the instruction was wrong: a pretrial detainee, he contended, need only show that the force was objectively unreasonable. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the instruction, and the Supreme Court granted review to resolve the standard (576 U.S. at 393).

The Legal Question

The constitutional framework for excessive-force claims depends on the claimant's status, and that status determines which constitutional provision applies.

A person being arrested or otherwise seized is protected by the Fourth Amendment, and excessive-force claims arising from an arrest are judged by the objective-reasonableness standard of Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989) (see also our analysis of Graham v. Connor). A person who has been convicted and is serving a sentence is protected by the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and an excessive-force claim by a convicted prisoner requires showing that officers acted "maliciously and sadistically to cause harm," a standard with a strong subjective component (see Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1 (1992)).

A pretrial detainee sits between those two categories. Such a person has been arrested and charged but not convicted, and is held in jail awaiting trial. Pretrial detainees are not protected by the Fourth Amendment in the same posture as an arrestee, and they are not protected by the Eighth Amendment because, not having been convicted, they cannot be "punished" at all. Their protection comes from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court had already held, in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979), that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids the government from "punishing" a pretrial detainee.

The open question in Kingsley was the standard for a Fourteenth Amendment excessive-force claim. Did a detainee have to prove the officers subjectively knew their force was unreasonable or intended to punish, or was it enough to prove the force was objectively unreasonable? The lower courts had divided on the issue (576 U.S. at 393 to 394).

The Court's Reasoning

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for a five-Justice majority. The Court framed the issue carefully: it distinguished between two separate "states of mind." One is the officer's state of mind with respect to the physical act itself, that is, whether the officer acted deliberately rather than accidentally. The other is the officer's state of mind with respect to whether the force was excessive or improper. The Court held that the first is required, the second is not (576 U.S. at 395 to 396).

In other words, the conduct must be purposeful or knowing (an officer who accidentally trips and falls into a detainee has not committed a Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment violation), but once the act is deliberate, the constitutional question is judged objectively. "[T]he defendant's state of mind is not a matter that a plaintiff is required to prove," the Court explained with respect to whether the force was unreasonable; the inquiry is whether the force "was objectively unreasonable" (576 U.S. at 396 to 397).

The Court grounded the objective standard in Bell v. Wolfish. Under Bell, the Fourteenth Amendment bars punishment of pretrial detainees, and the Court explained that an action can amount to unconstitutional punishment without proof of a subjective intent to punish. Force that is objectively unreasonable, not rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose, or excessive in relation to that purpose, can constitute punishment regardless of the officer's subjective intent (576 U.S. at 397 to 398).

The Court emphasized that objective reasonableness "turns on the facts and circumstances of each particular case." It must be assessed "from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, including what the officer knew at the time, not with the 20/20 vision of hindsight," language deliberately drawn from Graham. The Court provided a non-exhaustive list of factors relevant to the jail context: the relationship between the need for force and the amount used; the extent of the injury; any effort made to temper or limit the force; the severity of the security problem; the threat reasonably perceived by the officer; and whether the detainee was actively resisting (576 U.S. at 397).

Critically, the Court stressed that the objective standard still gives officers latitude. It expressly reaffirmed that courts must account for the "legitimate interests that stem from the government's need to manage the facility in which the individual is detained," and must defer "appropriate[ly]" to "policies and practices that in the judgment of jail officials are needed to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain institutional security" (576 U.S. at 397, citing Bell). The objective test is not a hindsight second-guessing of every decision.

Justice Scalia and Justice Alito each wrote dissents, arguing in different ways that a Fourteenth Amendment punishment claim should require some subjective intent to punish, and that the majority's purely objective approach was inconsistent with the concept of punishment (576 U.S. at 402 to 413 (dissenting opinions)).

The Holding and Its Standard

Kingsley holds that a pretrial detainee who brings an excessive-force claim under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause must prove only that the force used against him was objectively unreasonable. The detainee does not have to prove that the officers were subjectively aware that their force was unreasonable, or that they acted with a purpose to punish.

There is one subjective element that remains: the officer's physical use of force must be deliberate or knowing, not accidental or negligent. Negligent injury does not give rise to a constitutional claim.

The standard officers should take from Kingsley is therefore a three-part picture. First, the relevant claimant here is the pretrial detainee, a person in custody who has not been convicted. Second, the governing question is objective reasonableness, assessed from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, on the information then known, without hindsight. Third, that objective inquiry is conducted with real deference to the legitimate operational needs of a detention facility, including security, order, and discipline. The Kingsley factors (need for force, amount used, injury, efforts to temper, severity of the security problem, perceived threat, and active resistance) are the analytical checklist.

How Courts Have Applied This Since

Kingsley's most significant ripple effect has been outside the excessive-force context. Many federal courts of appeals have extended Kingsley's logic to other Fourteenth Amendment claims by pretrial detainees, most prominently claims that jail officials were deliberately indifferent to a detainee's serious medical needs or to a substantial risk of harm. The argument is that if excessive-force claims by detainees are objective, then medical-care and failure-to-protect claims by detainees should likewise be evaluated by an objective standard, rather than the subjective "deliberate indifference" standard borrowed from Eighth Amendment prisoner cases.

Several circuits, including the Second, Seventh, and Ninth, have adopted some version of an objective standard for pretrial-detainee conditions and medical-care claims after Kingsley. Other circuits have declined to extend Kingsley that far, retaining a subjective component for non-force claims. The result is an acknowledged and ongoing circuit split.

Within the excessive-force context itself, Kingsley is now the settled framework for jail and detention force litigation involving pretrial detainees, and courts apply its enumerated factors directly. The case has also clarified, by negative implication, the importance of correctly identifying a claimant's custodial status, because that status selects the Fourth, Eighth, or Fourteenth Amendment standard.

What This Means for Officers Today

Kingsley is most relevant to detention, corrections, and jail personnel, and to any officer whose duties include holding or transporting people who have been arrested but not convicted. The following are common training takeaways, offered for education and not as legal advice. Officers should follow their own agency policy and counsel.

The central point is that good intentions are not a defense to a Kingsley claim. Under the objective standard, the question is not whether the officer believed the force was appropriate or meant well; it is whether the force was objectively reasonable given the facts known at the time. An officer who genuinely but unreasonably believed force was necessary can still be found to have violated a detainee's rights.

The Kingsley factors function well as a structured way to think about force in a custodial setting before, during, and after the fact: was there a genuine need for force, was the amount of force proportional to that need, did the situation present a real security problem, what threat did the officer reasonably perceive, was the detainee actively resisting, and did the officer make any effort to temper or limit the force. The "effort to temper" factor in particular rewards graduated, communication-first approaches and the willingness to slow an encounter down where the setting allows.

At the same time, Kingsley does not strip officers of operational latitude. The Court expressly preserved deference to the security and order needs of the facility and rejected hindsight second-guessing. The standard is reasonableness, not perfection.

Finally, Kingsley underscores that custodial status matters. The same physical act can be analyzed under different constitutional tests depending on whether the subject is an arrestee (Fourth Amendment, Graham), a pretrial detainee (Fourteenth Amendment, Kingsley), or a convicted prisoner (Eighth Amendment). Training and report-writing that correctly identify status help ensure the right standard is applied.

Common Misunderstandings

A frequent error is to assume Graham v. Connor governs all excessive-force claims. It does not. Graham's Fourth Amendment standard governs arrests and seizures. Once a person is a pretrial detainee, Kingsley's Fourteenth Amendment standard applies. The standards are both objective and use overlapping language, but they are formally distinct and rest on different constitutional provisions.

A second misunderstanding runs the other way: that because Kingsley is objective, it is the same as the convicted-prisoner standard. It is not. Convicted prisoners bring Eighth Amendment claims, which require proof that officers acted "maliciously and sadistically," a demanding subjective standard. Kingsley deliberately rejected importing that subjective requirement into the pretrial-detainee context.

A third misunderstanding is that Kingsley made jail force litigation a strict-liability or hindsight exercise. The Court was explicit that the test is judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, without 20/20 hindsight, and with deference to legitimate facility-security needs. An adverse outcome or an injury does not, by itself, establish a violation.

Finally, some treat the holding as limited strictly to excessive-force claims. While the holding itself addressed excessive force, lower courts have actively debated extending its objective logic to other detainee claims, and the law in that area is unsettled and varies by circuit.

CodeBlu Training Connection

As with the other use-of-force cases in this series, candor is required. Kingsley v. Hendrickson is an excessive-force case, and it sets a constitutional standard for force used against pretrial detainees. CodeBlu does not teach use-of-force law, custodial force tactics, or the constitutional standards that govern them. Those subjects belong to an agency's use-of-force and corrections instruction and to its legal counsel. CodeBlu deliberately excludes use-of-force decision-making as a distinct discipline, along with perishable skills and agency-specific tactical training.

CodeBlu is an AI-powered voice-scenario de-escalation and crisis-intervention training product. Its scenarios are designed to resolve before force becomes the question. The moment an encounter in a cell, a booking area, or a transport would cross into a use-of-force decision, that crossing is treated as the boundary of the scenario, not as content CodeBlu teaches.

The honest connection is again one of boundary and of what happens before that boundary. Kingsley itself began with a dispute over a piece of paper and a series of refused directions, the kind of low-acuity, escalating standoff where communication has the most room to work. Kingsley's "effort to temper or to limit the amount of force" factor, and its attention to whether the detainee was "actively resisting," both point upstream to how an officer manages an encounter before force is in play. Effective communication, empathy, and problem-solving early in a custodial interaction can change how often a situation reaches a force decision at all. CodeBlu's after-action review scores officers on Communication, Empathy, Safety, and Options and Problem-Solving, drawing on publicly available behavioral science, including work synthesized from the Force Science Institute. (CodeBlu is not partnered with, certified by, or endorsed by the Force Science Institute or any other organization.) But the legal standard Kingsley sets for custodial force is outside CodeBlu's scope and belongs to agency instruction and counsel.

Further Reading

• Full opinion: Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015) (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-6368_o7jp.pdf); also available via Cornell Legal Information Institute (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-6368).
• Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979) (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/441/520).
• Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989) (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/490/386).
• Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1 (1992) (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/503/1).
• For correctional use-of-force policy and detainee-management frameworks, see standards and publications from the American Correctional Association (https://www.aca.org/) and the National Institute of Corrections (https://nicic.gov/).
• For analysis of the post-Kingsley circuit split on pretrial-detainee medical-care and failure-to-protect claims, consult current federal appellate decisions and law-school clinical or scholarly summaries.

Important Disclaimer

This article is an educational resource produced for training and general-knowledge purposes. It is not legal advice and does not establish, modify, or interpret any agency policy. The summaries and quotations of court opinions are provided for educational use; readers should consult the primary sources directly. Law evolves, circuit interpretations differ, and the application of any case to a specific situation depends on facts and jurisdiction, including the custodial status of the person involved. Officers and agencies should rely on their own legal counsel, current agency policy, and certified use-of-force and corrections instruction for operational guidance. CodeBlu is an independent training product and is not partnered with, certified by, or endorsed by any organization referenced in this article.