Car-fires continue to smoke and smolder in Baltimore after Freddie Gray’s death in police custody set off a series of protests and riots this week. Gray died from a spinal injury he sustained after his arrest; the protesters see his death as the latest example of excessive use of force by police officers against a civilian. It’s still unclear how Gray was injured, but many critics are blaming a so-called “rough ride” in the back of a police van without a seatbelt—a practice that has injured and even paralyzed arrestees in the past.

Meanwhile on Monday, just miles away from Gray’s funeral, the Supreme Court was hearing arguments in Kingsley v. Hendrickson, a case about what legal protections people have with regard to excessive force in jails. In 2010, when Michael Kingsley was awaiting trial on a drug charge in a Wisconsin jail, he refused a guard’s orders, and was handcuffed, beaten, and Tased. When he sued them, the guards argued that their use of force was not objectively “reckless” under the circumstances, because he was resisting them, and dangerous. But Kingsley countered that the violence was subjectively “unreasonable.” click here to read the whole article