Osagie K. Obasogie, 107 Va.L.Rev. 1545

Excited Delirium and Police use of Force

Submitted by Re'Neisha Stevenson on Wed, 10/26/2022 - 15:42

This Article provides the first comprehensive assessment of excited delirium in law and legal scholarship. Drawing upon an original dataset that collects information on in-custody deaths over the past decade tied to excited delirium, this Article documents the extent to which this condition has been articulated by legal and medical actors as a cause of death in situations where police have used force. The data show, among other findings, that at least 56% of deaths that occur in police custody that are attributed to excited delirium involve Black and Latinx victims.