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100 B.U. L. Rev. 771 (2020)
More than Bias: How Law Produces Police Violence

handle is hein.journals/bulr100 and id is 789 raw text is: MORE THAN BIAS: HOW LAW PRODUCES POLICE VIOLENCE OSAGIE K. OBASOGIE* ABSTRACT Excessive use offorce by law enforcement continues to be a serious problem that leaves bodies broken and communities grieving. This violence is thought to largely emanate from the biased predispositions of individual officers and police departments. While personal and organizational biases are key considerations, it is important to examine the role that law plays in creating the conditions for police to use force illegitimately. This Essay assesses the landscape of police use-of-force doctrine and offers sociological insight into how seemingly neutral Fourth Amendment law that focuses on whether certain applications offorce are reasonable can predictably lead to avoidable deaths. Understanding these sociological dynamics can provide a meaningful roadmap for reform. * Haas Distinguished Chair and Professor of Bioethics, University of California, Berkeley, Joint Medical Program and School of Public Health. Portions of this Essay were discussed or developed in previous publications. See generally Osagie K. Obasogie & Zachary Newman, Constitutional Interpretation Without Judges: Police Violence, Excessive Force, and Remaking the Fourth Amendment, 105 VA. L. REv. 425 (2019); Osagie K. Obasogie & Zachary Newman, The Endogenous Fourth Amendment: An Empirical Assessment of How Police Understandings of Excessive Force Become Constitutional Law, 104 CORNELL L. REV. 1281 (2019); Osagie K. Obasogie & Zachary Newman, The Futile Fourth Amendment: Understanding Police Excessive Force Doctrine Through an Empirical Assessment of Graham v. Connor, 112 Nw. U. L. REV. 1465 (2018); Osagie K. Obasogie & Zachary Newman, Police Violence, Use of Force Policies, and Public Health, 43 AM. J.L. & MED. 279 (2017); Osagie K. Obasogie, The Bad-Apple Myth of Policing, THE ATLANTIC (Aug. 2, 2019), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/how-courts-judge-police-use- force/594832/. 771