an inmate in jail, can guards tase me?
Just as cops on the street can use tasers in certain situations, corrections officers in jails and California State Prisons also can use electronic control devices. These cases are sometimes evaluated under the Fourth Amendment, in the manner we have discussed. This is the case when tasings occur in a pretrial context, because the subject has not yet been convicted of a crime and is still presumed innocent. Electronic control device and other excessive force claims also are evaluated under the Eighth Amendment constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, and under the Fourteenth Amendment constitutional right providing for the due process of law. We discuss issues pertaining to correctional officer abuse in our related article Prison and Jail Abuse, but in general guards can use tasers when doing so relates to running the prison as opposed to just being malicious or sadistic. The United States Supreme Court has held that in the prison context, “the core judicial i
