UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-7394
ROYLIN JUNIUS BEALE,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
DEPUTY J. P. MADIGAN; OFFICER R. BLOW; OFFICER HARLESS;
OFFICER PEELE; OFFICER CORPREW,
Defendants - Appellees,
and
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS,
Defendant.
On Remand from the Supreme Court of the United States.
(S. Ct. No. 14-9707)
Submitted: August 24, 2016 Decided: August 26, 2016
Before SHEDD, WYNN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Roylin Junius Beale, Appellant Pro Se. Scott Christopher Hart,
SUMRELL, SUGG, CARMICHAEL, HICKS & HART, PA, New Bern, North
Carolina, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Roylin Junius Beale filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2012) action
alleging that prison officials used excessive force against him
while he was a pretrial detainee at the Pitt County Detention
Center and that they were deliberately indifferent to his
resulting medical needs. The district court granted Defendants’
motion for summary judgment. We affirmed the court’s order.
See Beale v. Madigan, 589 F. App’x 107 (4th Cir. 2014) (per
curiam). On October 5, 2015, the Supreme Court granted Beale’s
petition for a writ of certiorari, vacated the judgment, and
remanded to this court for further consideration in light of
Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466 (2015). We have
received the parties’ supplemental briefs, and this matter is
ripe for disposition.
In Kingsley, the Supreme Court held that a pretrial
detainee asserting an excessive force claim must demonstrate
“only that the force purposely or knowingly used against him was
objectively unreasonable.” 135 S. Ct. at 2473. In determining
whether the force was objectively unreasonable, a court
considers the evidence “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.” Id. (citing
Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989)). Considerations
such as the following may bear on the reasonableness or
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unreasonableness of the force used: the relationship between the
need for the use of force and the amount of force used; the
extent of the plaintiff’s injury; any effort made by the officer
to temper or to limit the amount of force; the severity of the
security problem at issue; the threat reasonably perceived by
the officer; and whether the plaintiff was actively resisting.
Kingsley, 135 S. Ct. at 2473. Moreover, it is appropriate to
determine whether the force used was objectively reasonable in
“full context,” as a segmented view of the events “misses the
forest for the trees.” Smith v. Ray, 781 F.3d 95, 101 (4th Cir.
2015) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).
Viewed from this legal lens, in the light most favorable to
Beale to the extent supported by the record, we conclude that
the officers’ actions did not amount to excessive force and that
the district court, therefore, properly granted summary judgment
to the Defendants. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s
order. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before this court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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