Excessive Force and De Minimis Injuries

It was a busy week at the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other things, the Justices issued the two Miranda opinions Jeff wrote about yesterday and heard oral argument in two cases considering whether federal sex offender laws violate the Ex Post Facto Clause (Carr v. United States and United States v. Marcus).  A summary disposition issued on Monday also caught my attention, not because I think it’s a blockbuster, but rather because it involved an inmate in a North Carolina state prison. The case is Wilkins v. Gaddy. Inmate Jamey Wilkins filed a civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that corrections officer Gaddy used excessive force when he “snatched [Wilkins] off the ground and slammed him onto the concrete floor” after Wilkins had asked for a grievance form. Wilkins’ pro se complaint went on to say that Gaddy punched, kicked, kneed, and choked him, and that he suffered bruises, back pain, and migraine headaches as a result of the assault. A federal district judge dismissed Wilkins’ complaint for failure to state a claim. The district judge ruled that under Fourth Circuit precedent “a plaintiff must establish that he received more than a de minimus [sic] injury” to succeed on an Eighth Amendment excessive force claim. Though Wilkins said he required X rays and medication for back pain and depression after the incident, the district court indicated that some of Wilkins’ issues were pre-existing conditions. The rest, like bruising, were de minimis, and therefore not actionable. The Fourth Circuit [...]