Continuous-Encounter Excessive-Force Analysis After Barnes: Fifth Circuit Emphasizes Video Evidence and Prior Resistance in Qualified Immunity

Introduction

In Johnson v. Smith, No. 24-30791 (5th Cir. Nov. 5, 2025) (per curiam) (unpublished), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of two St. Tammany Parish deputies on federal excessive-force claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The case arose from a chaotic scene inside a private residence where multiple minors, including the plaintiff’s daughter R.C., were encountered during a burglary investigation and marijuana-related inquiry. Three separate videos (a fixed security camera, a bystander cell phone, and an officer body camera) captured the key events.

The core dispute turned on whether the deputies used excessive force when, during a brief interval after R.C. had already assaulted officers and been handcuffed, she stood up without warning and resumed physical resistance. The panel placed decisive weight on the videos and, relying on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. 73 (2025), treated R.C.’s conduct as part of a single, continuous encounter rather than isolating seconds of relative calm into a distinct episode. The court held the plaintiff failed to identify clearly established law prohibiting the deputies’ measured, short-lived control techniques in the face of renewed resistance.

The Fifth Circuit also affirmed the district court’s decision to decline supplemental jurisdiction over Louisiana constitutional and tort claims, leaving those matters to the Louisiana courts. The panel did not reach the defendants’ alternative argument that the federal claims were barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994).

Although the opinion is unpublished and therefore nonprecedential under 5th Cir. R. 47.5, it is instructive in at least three respects: (1) it operationalizes Barnes’s “no time limit” approach to totality-of-the-circumstances by integrating immediately preceding resistance into the analysis; (2) it reinforces the supremacy of video evidence at summary judgment under Scott v. Harris; and (3) it underscores the plaintiff’s burden, in the qualified-immunity context, to cite truly analogous precedent that “squarely governs” the specific facts.

Summary of the Opinion

The panel affirmed summary judgment for Deputies Christopher Vado and John Connolly on § 1983 excessive-force claims based on qualified immunity. The court “start[ed] and end[ed]” with the second qualified-immunity prong—clearly established law—holding that the plaintiff failed to show precedent prohibiting the force used in the circumstances depicted on video.

As to Deputy Vado, the videos showed R.C. had just assaulted and struggled with officers; about a minute later, she stood up unannounced while handcuffed, screamed at officers, and resumed struggling. The court deemed that continued resistance and held the cited authorities—each addressing force against non-resisting or subdued arrestees—inapposite.

As to Deputy Connolly, the body-worn camera recording showed he applied a knee to R.C.’s buttocks/lower back for approximately 10 seconds while she was kicking, thrashing, and screaming, and he removed the pressure once she stopped resisting. The court held no clearly established law (as of January 2023) forbade this brief control technique in response to active resistance. Later decisions—such as Ramirez v. Killian, 113 F.4th 415 (5th Cir. 2024)—could not retroactively supply the clearly-established rule.

With the federal claims resolved, the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court’s discretionary decision to dismiss the remaining state-law claims (battery, negligence, Louisiana Constitution, and respondeat superior against the Sheriff) without prejudice under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c), emphasizing comity, fairness, and the predominance of state issues. The panel did not consider the alternative Heck bar.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and Their Influence

• Video-Evidence Line: Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 (2007); Carnaby v. City of Houston, 636 F.3d 183 (5th Cir. 2011); Griggs v. Brewer, 841 F.3d 308 (5th Cir. 2016); Scott v. City of Mandeville, 69 F.4th 249 (5th Cir. 2023)
  The court reiterated that when video contradicts a party’s account, the facts are taken “in the light depicted by the videotape.” That framing foreclosed plaintiff’s characterization of R.C. as “not actively resisting.” Each of the three videos captured resistance: initial assaults and lunges, an unannounced attempt to stand up while screaming, followed by kicking and thrashing.
• Totality-of-Circumstances and Timing: Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. 73 (2025)
  The panel leaned heavily on the Supreme Court’s recent instruction that excessive-force analysis has “no time limit”; earlier events inform later assessments. This directly rebutted plaintiff’s effort to isolate the seconds before the challenged force, reframing the episode as a continuous encounter marked by minutes-old assaultive behavior. Barnes thus validates officers’ consideration of immediate prior resistance when assessing threats and calibrating force.
• Qualified Immunity Structure: Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731 (2011); Joseph ex rel. Joseph v. Bartlett, 981 F.3d 319 (5th Cir. 2020); Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335 (1986); Cass v. City of Abilene, 814 F.3d 721 (5th Cir. 2016)
  The panel “started and ended” with the clearly established prong and emphasized the plaintiff’s burden to identify a case that “squarely governs” the specific facts. The “strictly enforced” demand for a close factual analog—so that only the plainly incompetent or knowing violator would act as the officer did—drove the result.
• Excessive-Force Basics: Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989); Ramirez v. Martinez, 716 F.3d 369 (5th Cir. 2013)
  The court reiterated the objective-reasonableness inquiry and the Graham factors (severity, immediate threat, active resistance). Active resistance was the linchpin; the court repeatedly distinguished authorities involving non-resisting arrestees.
• What Counts as Clearly Excessive When Resistance Stops: Timpa v. Dillard, 20 F.4th 1020 (5th Cir. 2021); Carroll v. Ellington, 800 F.3d 154 (5th Cir. 2015); Aguirre v. City of San Antonio, 995 F.3d 395 (5th Cir. 2021); Curran v. Aleshire, 800 F.3d 656 (5th Cir. 2015); Ramirez v. Killian, 113 F.4th 415 (5th Cir. 2024)
  The plaintiff’s case list largely addressed force applied after resistance ceased or to non-threatening, non-resisting individuals. The panel held those cases inapplicable because the videos here showed continued resistance. Killian post-dated the incident and therefore could not “clearly establish” the law as of January 2023. Curran’s guidance—that gratuitous force after resistance ends violates clearly established law—did not map onto this record because resistance had not ceased.
• Measured and Ascending Force in Response to Resistance: Poole v. City of Shreveport, 691 F.3d 624 (5th Cir. 2012)
  Poole supplied the most factually relevant analog, endorsing “measured and ascending” restraint—including pinning—when a suspect refuses commands and actively resists. The panel used Poole to situate Connolly’s brief knee pressure as a proportionate response to active thrashing and kicking that ceased when resistance stopped.
• Supplemental Jurisdiction: 28 U.S.C. § 1367; Enochs v. Lampasas County, 641 F.3d 155 (5th Cir. 2011); Parker & Parsley v. Dresser, 972 F.2d 580 (5th Cir. 1992); United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715 (1966); Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343 (1988)
  With the federal claims resolved, the panel endorsed dismissal of the state claims without prejudice, emphasizing comity and a “surer-footed reading” of Louisiana law (especially given asserted Louisiana constitutional claims). No abuse of discretion was found.
• Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994)
  Raised but not reached. The panel’s qualified-immunity disposition mooted any need to decide whether R.C.’s no-contest pleas to battery of a police officer and resisting barred the § 1983 claims.

Legal Reasoning

The court applied qualified immunity at summary judgment with the altered burden: once the officers made a good-faith assertion of qualified immunity, the burden shifted to the plaintiff to show the defense was unavailable. The court chose to resolve the case solely on the “clearly established” prong without deciding whether a constitutional violation occurred—an approach expressly permitted under Supreme Court precedent.

Two analytic pillars supported the result:

1. Video-determined facts and the “continuous encounter” frame. The videos, which the court “gave greater weight,” showed:
   • R.C. had just lunged at and struck officers, fought being controlled, and continued shouting after being handcuffed.
   • R.C. then stood up without warning while screaming; Vado ordered her to stay down, grabbed her arm, and she resumed resisting.
   • As Connolly approached, R.C. kicked and thrashed; Connolly briefly used his knee against her left buttocks/lower back while officers tried to keep her on her side. A bystander warned “she can’t breathe,” to which an officer replied, “If she can’t breathe, she needs to chill out.” Approximately 10 seconds later—at the point resistance ceased—Connolly removed his knee.
   Applying Barnes, the panel refused to treat the seconds before the disputed force as hermetically sealed from the just-moments-before assaults. Prior resistance, especially occurring “about a minute” earlier, permissibly informed the officers’ perception of threat when R.C. stood and screamed. The court also accepted the district court’s premise that a handcuffed arrestee who stands up unannounced and screams at officers is, by itself, actively resisting.
2. Strict “clearly established” requirement and the resisting/non-resisting distinction. The plaintiff’s authorities were either temporally inapposite (post-dating the incident) or factually distinguishable because they involved non-resisting or subdued arrestees. The panel treated the resisting/non-resisting line as dispositive. Given the videos, the relevant question became whether clearly established law forbade “measured and ascending” restraint in response to active resistance. Poole pointed the other way, and no on-point case prohibited Vado’s arm control or Connolly’s brief knee pressure, discontinued upon cessation of resistance.

Because plaintiff did not carry the burden to identify a case that “squarely governs the specific facts,” the court concluded that only an officer who was “plainly incompetent” or who “knowingly violate[d] the law” would be stripped of immunity—and these deputies did not fall into either category on this record.

Impact

Although unpublished, this decision is a clear signal of how Fifth Circuit panels are likely to apply Barnes and video evidence in qualified-immunity cases involving rapidly unfolding encounters:

• Continuous-encounter lens is outcome-shaping. Plaintiffs cannot isolate “calm seconds” between bursts of resistance to reframe a continuous struggle as a separate, “conceptually distinct” incident. Immediate past resistance (even a minute earlier) informs reasonableness.
• Video supremacy persists. The court will credit what the cameras show over testimonial characterizations. Plaintiffs must directly engage with the video record rather than rely on generalized assertions.
• Resisting vs. non-resisting remains the threshold divide. Much of the Fifth Circuit’s clearly-established law turns on whether the suspect was subdued or non-resisting. Where the videos show active resistance, authorities like Timpa, Carroll, and Aguirre (post-restraint or non-resisting scenarios) will not carry a plaintiff’s burden.
• Brief, targeted control techniques may withstand clearly-established challenges. Here, a ~10-second knee on the buttocks/lower back—removed when resistance ceased—was not barred by clearly established law as of January 2023. Plaintiffs challenging similar techniques must find pre-incident cases addressing active resistance during the specific restraint.
• Temporal limits on “clearly established” are strictly enforced. Decisions like Ramirez v. Killian (2024) cannot retroactively define the law for a 2023 incident. Counsel must cite controlling or closely analogous authority existing on the date of the use of force.
• State claims likely return to state court when federal claims fall. The opinion reinforces the routine practice of dismissing pendent state-law claims without prejudice after federal claims are resolved, especially when state constitutional issues are present.

For law enforcement agencies, the case reinforces training points about:

• Maintaining “measured and ascending” force that tracks ongoing resistance, and promptly de-escalating when resistance ends;
• Recognizing that body cameras and third-party videos will be dispositive; and
• Understanding that statements captured on audio (e.g., comments about breathing) may feature in litigation, even if not legally decisive when resistance is active.

For civil-rights plaintiffs, the case underscores the need to:

• Identify pre-incident authority involving active resistance and the specific restraint used;
• Use expert analysis to explicate why the video depicts non-resistance or disproportionate force notwithstanding motion and audio chaos; and
• Anticipate supplemental-jurisdiction dismissal and be prepared to litigate state claims in state court.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Qualified Immunity (QI): A legal shield for government officials. To defeat QI, a plaintiff must show both a constitutional violation and that, at the time, it was clearly established that the specific conduct was unlawful. Courts can decide either prong first; here, the court resolved the case on the “clearly established” prong.
• Clearly Established Law: Prior cases must “squarely govern” the facts. General rules (“don’t use excessive force”) are not enough; plaintiffs must cite analogous cases decided before the incident.
• Excessive Force under the Fourth Amendment: Assessed for objective reasonableness using factors like severity of the crime, immediate threat, and active resistance. Continued resistance typically justifies continued restraint; gratuitous force after resistance ends can violate the Constitution.
• “Measured and Ascending” Force: A calibrated response that increases only as suspect resistance escalates. Fifth Circuit cases approve such escalation during active resistance and require de-escalation once resistance ceases.
• Video Evidence at Summary Judgment: When videos exist, courts credit the video over contradictory accounts. Plaintiffs cannot rely on bare assertions that conflict with the recordings.
• Continuous-Encounter Analysis (Barnes): Courts consider the entire sequence; there is “no time limit” on what prior events matter. A brief lull does not reset the clock if the suspect immediately resumes resistance.
• Supplemental Jurisdiction: Federal courts may hear related state-law claims, but after dismissing all federal claims, they often decline to keep the state claims—especially where state constitutional questions or issues of comity counsel letting state courts decide.
• Heck v. Humphrey Bar: A § 1983 claim cannot proceed if success would necessarily imply the invalidity of a criminal conviction that has not been set aside. The Fifth Circuit did not reach this issue here.

Conclusion

Johnson v. Smith illustrates the Fifth Circuit’s post-Barnes approach to excessive-force claims in rapidly evolving encounters: videos rule, the encounter is viewed as a whole, and the resisting/non-resisting distinction largely determines whether existing precedent clearly prohibits the officers’ force. The panel treated R.C.’s unannounced effort to stand and her renewed kicking and thrashing as continued active resistance; with the videos in hand, the court concluded that no pre-incident authority “squarely” forbade Vado’s arm control or Connolly’s ~10-second knee restraint followed by prompt release when resistance ceased.

On the federal side, the decision reaffirms a demanding clearly-established standard that places a heavy burden on plaintiffs to produce closely analogous precedent. On the state-law side, it exemplifies the routine dismissal without prejudice of pendent claims once federal questions are gone—particularly when state constitutional provisions are at issue—so that state courts may give a surer-footed reading of their own law.

While nonprecedential, the opinion provides a practical roadmap for litigants and courts in the Fifth Circuit: integrate near-in-time resistance into the reasonableness calculus, anchor the analysis in the video record, and insist on case citations that genuinely match the facts at hand.