In Peck v. Montoya, published October 18, 2022, the 9th Circuit court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part a district court’s denial of a summary judgment motion, based on qualified immunity, brought by defendant deputies in a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 case. Deputies responded to a 911 call that a man was acting erratically and had threatened to shoot a person. The deputies formed a perimeter around the suspect’s house and watched him through a large window. The suspect was visibly agitated and continued to act erratically, taunting the deputies about shooting him. A deputy observed a holstered revolver lying on the couch. The deputy alerted the other deputies. In response, the suspect began yelling, “I’ll show you my gun! You wanna see my gun?” Another deputy warned the suspect not to go near the gun. According to the deputies, the suspect began moving toward the gun, bent over, reached for, and grabbed onto the gun. As soon as he did so, one deputy began firing at the suspect through the window. Another deputy said he began firing when the suspect raised the gun toward the other deputies. A neighbor who witnessed the interaction, however, testified that the suspect was moving away from the gun several seconds before the shooting. According to the suspect’s wife, when she reached her husband after the shooting, she did not see a gun in his hands or near his body; the gun was ultimately found unloaded and holstered under the coffee table. A ballistics expert concluded that the wounds did not support one of the shooting deputy’s version of the story. The suspect’s wife sued the deputies for use of excessive force in violation of the 4th Amendment and deprivation of a familial relationship in violation of the 14th Amendment. The district court denied summary judgment on both claims for all defendants. The defendants brought an interlocutory appeal.
The 9th Circuit affirmed denial of summary judgment on the 4th Amendment claim as to the shooting deputies. On an interlocutory appeal from denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity, the appellate court has no jurisdiction to entertain arguments that the evidence does not support the district court’s finding of a genuine issue of fact. Here, the district court found a genuine issue of fact on whether the suspect was moving away from the gun when the deputies fired. Resolving that issue against the defendants, it was clearly established that firing at an unarmed man who, although in the presence of a gun, never picked it up and in fact was moving away from it when shot, was excessive under the 4th Amendment. The court reversed denial of summary judgment on the 4th Amendment claim for the deputies who did not fire. An actor may be deemed to have caused a plaintiff to be subjected to a constitutional violation, and thus to be an integral participant in the violation, only if (1) the defendant knew about and acquiesced in the constitutionally defective conduct as part of a common plan with those whose conduct constituted the violation, or (2) the defendant set in motion a series of acts by others that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known would cause others to inflict the constitutional injury. The other deputies did not meet that standard simply by being present at during the unplanned shooting. Finally, all of the deputies were entitled to qualified immunity to the wife’s 14th Amendment familial relationship claim. The law was not clearly established that a spouse (as opposed to a parent or child) could assert such a claim. Further, even under the law relating to parent and child claims, the claim here failed. Under the circumstances here, requiring a snap judgment under escalating circumstances, the deputies use of deadly force did not “shock the conscience” because the deputies did not shoot the suspect for any purpose other than their (possibly mistaken) perception of the need for self-defense.
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