Advancing Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices

May 25, 2022

Issued on the second anniversary of George Floyd's murder, Executive Order 14074 banned the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints by federal law enforcement, restricted no-knock warrants, mandated body-worn cameras, and created a National Law Enforcement Accountability Database. The order applied directly only to federal agencies but also used federal grant conditions to incentivize state and local adoption of similar standards. The primary constitutional tensions involved federalism and the Spending Clause: while the federal government can set standards for its own officers, conditioning federal grants on policing reform standards for state and local departments raised questions about coercive federalism under South Dakota v. Dole and NFIB v. Sebelius.