General Information Only. This article is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Laws may have changed since publication. Your situation may differ; consult a licensed Virginia attorney about your specific matter.
The information in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws change and individual circumstances vary. Consult a licensed Virginia attorney about your specific situation. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship nor does merely contacting our office through this website or any other means.
Correctional officers are permitted to use force. That is the starting point, and it is where most misunderstandings about this area begin. Jails and prisons are entitled to maintain order, officers may insist that lawful orders be obeyed, and force used to secure compliance is not a constitutional violation simply because it caused injury.
What the Constitution prohibits is force used for the wrong reason, or — for people who have not been convicted — force that was objectively unreasonable. The distinction is not about how much it hurt. It is about why the force was applied and what the circumstances required.
This article explains the two standards that apply, how the Fourth Circuit has drawn the line, and what limits apply to these claims. It is general information about how this area of law works. It does not indicate whether any particular situation involves a violation of anyone’s rights, and nothing in it suggests that any set of facts would produce any particular outcome.
Convicted Prisoners: The Question Is Motive
For a person serving a sentence, the Eighth Amendment applies, and the governing formulation comes from Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312 (1986). The Supreme Court held that whether force “inflicted unnecessary and wanton pain and suffering ultimately turns on ‘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.’”
The Court identified circumstances bearing on that question: “the need for the application of force, the relationship between the need and the amount of force that was used, [and] the extent of injury inflicted,” together with “the extent of the threat to the safety of staff and inmates, as reasonably perceived by the responsible officials on the basis of the facts known to them, and any efforts made to temper the severity of a forceful response.”
Whitley also demonstrates how demanding the standard is. The inmate there was shot during a prison disturbance. The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and held the officials were entitled to a directed verdict on the merits.
Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1 (1992), extended that inquiry beyond riot conditions, holding that “whenever prison officials stand accused of using excessive physical force in violation of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, the core judicial inquiry is that set out in Whitley.” Hudson also rejected any requirement that an inmate prove “significant injury,” holding that when officials “maliciously and sadistically use force to cause harm, contemporary standards of decency always are violated,” whether or not serious injury results.
That last point cuts both ways. The absence of serious injury does not defeat a claim, but neither does the presence of serious injury establish one.
Pretrial Detainees: An Objective Standard
For someone held before trial, the Eighth Amendment does not apply, because a person who has not been convicted is not being punished. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment governs instead.
In Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015), the Supreme Court held that “a pretrial detainee must show only that the force purposely or knowingly used against him was objectively unreasonable.” There is no requirement to prove that the officer acted maliciously or sadistically.
Two features of that holding deserve care. First, the standard is not purely objective as to everything: the force must still have been “purposely or knowingly used,” so an accidental application of force is not covered. Second, the Court cautioned that “[a] court (judge or jury) cannot apply this standard mechanically.”
Kingsley listed considerations that “may bear on the reasonableness or 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.” The Court said it did “not consider this list to be exclusive.”
What the Inquiry Actually Examines
Because the convicted-prisoner standard turns on purpose rather than outcome, the Whitley factors do the analytical work. Courts consider the need for force, the relationship between that need and the amount used, the extent of injury, the threat as reasonably perceived by the officials on the facts known to them, and any efforts made to temper the severity of the response.
Two consequences follow. Force applied where there was a genuine need, in an amount proportionate to it, is not rendered unconstitutional by the injury it caused. And force that continues after the need for it has passed invites a different characterization, because the justification that supported the initial application no longer explains what followed.
Force Against Someone Already Restrained
A recurring pattern involves force applied after resistance has ended.
In Thompson v. Virginia, 878 F.3d 89 (4th Cir. 2017), an inmate of the Virginia Department of Corrections alleged he was given a “rough ride” during a transport. The Fourth Circuit reversed summary judgment as to the two transport officers, holding that “prisoners have the right to be free from malicious or penologically unjustified infliction of pain and suffering,” a principle that “applies with particular force when inmates have not engaged in wrongdoing, are restrained and compliant and posing no physical threat.” The court added that “no reasonable officer would think that violently tossing a prisoner around in a moving vehicle is an acceptable means of punishment, even if the prisoner had engaged in wrongdoing.”
Dean v. Jones, 984 F.3d 295 (4th Cir. 2021), reversed summary judgment on similar reasoning, where the record permitted a finding that officers used force “not to protect themselves but to retaliate.”
Thompson is also instructive about the limits of these claims. While the Fourth Circuit reversed as to the officers directly involved, it affirmed summary judgment for three supervisory defendants, holding the plaintiff had not shown sufficient facts for supervisory liability. Naming a warden or supervisor does not follow automatically from a claim against the officers who used force.
Qualified Immunity and Entity Liability
Individual officers may assert qualified immunity, which protects them unless their conduct violated a clearly established right. Much of the litigation in this area is about that question rather than about whether force was excessive. In Thompson, the court concluded the right was clearly established on those facts; in other cases, courts have concluded it was not.
Claims against a county, sheriff’s office, or other entity are governed by Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), which permits liability only where an official policy or custom caused the injury. There is no liability merely because the entity employed the officer. A single use of force ordinarily will not establish a policy or custom.
Claims must also identify what particular people did. Allegations directed at staff collectively, without distinguishing among them, are frequently held insufficient.
Procedural Requirements
The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires exhaustion of available administrative remedies before suit. 42 U.S.C. Section 1997e(a) provides that no action challenging prison conditions may be brought “by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” The requirement is mandatory and applies to pretrial detainees as well as convicted prisoners.
A federal Section 1983 claim borrows Virginia’s two-year personal injury period under Va. Code Section 8.01-243(A), as the Supreme Court of Virginia held in Billups v. Carter, 268 Va. 701, 604 S.E.2d 414 (2004) — a case in which the plaintiff’s Section 1983 claims were timely under that two-year period while her common-law assault and battery claim was governed by a shorter one. The Fourth Circuit held in Battle v. Ledford, 912 F.3d 708 (4th Cir. 2019), a Virginia case, that the federal period is equitably tolled during the exhaustion the PLRA requires.
That shorter state period matters in force cases in particular, because the same conduct may support both a federal claim and a state-law assault or battery claim. Va. Code Section 8.01-243.2 provides that a personal action by a confined person relating to the conditions of confinement must be brought within one year of accrual or six months after exhaustion, whichever is later. The state-law claim can therefore expire well before the federal one. The commentary on how procedural rules operate in custodial litigation published by Peter Felix Armstrong, Of Counsel to Valley Legal reflects how frequently these requirements determine outcomes independently of the underlying facts.
What May Be Recovered
Where a constitutional violation is proven, compensatory, nominal, or punitive damages may be recoverable, and injunctive or declaratory relief may be available. Nothing follows automatically from establishing liability. What a court may award depends on proof of causation and harm, which defendants remain in the case, and statutory limits including 42 U.S.C. Section 1997e(e), which bars recovery for mental or emotional injury suffered in custody without a prior showing of physical injury or the commission of a sexual act.
Conclusion
An incarcerated person can sue a correctional officer for excessive force, but the standard depends on custody status and neither version turns on the severity of the injury alone. For a convicted prisoner, the question is motive: whether force was applied in a good faith effort to restore discipline or maliciously to cause harm. Whitley itself shows how demanding that is — the Supreme Court held officials were entitled to a directed verdict after an inmate was shot. For a pretrial detainee, Kingsley asks whether force purposely or knowingly used was objectively unreasonable, measured against a list of circumstances the Court described as non-exclusive.
The Fourth Circuit cases suggest where courts have found the line crossed: force applied to someone restrained, compliant, and posing no physical threat, and force used to retaliate rather than to protect. They also make clear that supervisors are not liable simply because those they supervise are.
Which description fits any particular incident depends on facts that generally cannot be assessed from a general description: what preceded the force, what the person was doing when it was applied, whether it continued after resistance ended, and what the use-of-force reports and any video show. Those are questions requiring individualized legal analysis, and the applicable filing deadlines run on more than one clock.
This article is general information only and is not legal advice. Laws change and individual circumstances vary, and outcomes depend on the specific facts of each situation. Do not rely on this article to make decisions about your specific situation; contact Valley Legal or a licensed Virginia attorney to discuss your case. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship, nor does contacting our office through this website or any other means. Attorney advertising.
Valley Legal, PLLC is located at 107 Pepper St SE, Christiansburg, Virginia 24073, and serves the communities of the New River Valley of Virginia, including Montgomery County, Blacksburg, Radford, Pulaski County, Floyd County, and Giles County.