The New Dread, Part II: The Judicial Overthrow of the Reasonableness Standard in Police Shooting

This Article series argues that the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on excessive force from Graham v. Connor to the present has undermined the objectivity of the reasonableness standard. In its place, the Court has erected a standard that reflects modern conservative political ideology, including race conservatism, law and order, increased police discretion, and the deconstruction of the Warren Court’s expansion of civil rights and civil liberties. Indeed, the Court, dominated by law-and-order conservatives, is one of the greatest triumphs of conservatism. Modern conservatism developed as a backlash against various social movements like the Civil Rights Movement and spontaneous urban rebellions during the sixties.