Levy Firestone Muse partner Joshua A. Levy and criminal and civil litigation lawyer Steven M. Salky have authored an article for the June 2020 issue of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ journal The Champion that reviews and proposes reforms for the majority of state laws allowing police use of deadly force.
In the article, Levy and Salky advocate that “state laws could instead help make clear that allowing suspects to escape immediate apprehension for almost every crime is a more reasonable alternative than killing them,” and review the recent killings of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks to formulate a model for reform and “to focus attention on creating alternatives to the use and escalation of force and different incentives for police interaction.” After all, per Levy and Salky:
If the police are to regain the respect of the public they serve, the use of deadly force must be limited to only those arrests where the use of such force is objectively necessary to prevent imminent loss of life or serious bodily injury to the police or third parties.
Read the full article, “Reforming Policy Use of Deadly Force to Arrest,” on The Champion’s website (for NACDL members only) or download a PDF here.