Blanford

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MATTHEW AARON BLANFORD, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, v. No. 03-17146 SACRAMENTO COUNTY; LOU BLANAS, D.C. No. Sacramento County Sheriff; BRETT  CV-01-02068- ANDERSON, Sacramento County GEB/GGH Sheriff’s Deputy; TODD HENGEL,

OPINION

Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy, Defendants-Appellees.  Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Garland E. Burrell, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted April 15, 2005—San Francisco, California

Filed May 6, 2005

Before: John T. Noonan, David R. Thompson, and Pamela Ann Rymer, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Rymer; Dissent by Judge Noonan

4965 4968 BLANFORD v. SACRAMENTO COUNTY

COUNSEL

Stewart Katz, John M. Poswall, for plaintiff-appellant Mat- thew Aaron Blanford. BLANFORD v. SACRAMENTO COUNTY 4969 Terence J. Cassidy (argued), Jennifer E. Duggan, Carl J. Cal- nero (on the brief), Porter, Scott, Weiberg & Delehant, for defendants-appellees County of Sacramento, Lou Blanas, Brett Anderson, and Todd…

Opinion by Judge RYMER. Dissent by Judge NOONAN.

Matthew Aaron Blanford appeals the summary judgment in favor of Brett Anderson, Todd Hengel, Lou Blanas, and *1112 Sacramento County 1 in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging claims of excessive force and unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Blanford was shot and severely injured after he ignored warnings and commands to stop and drop an edged sword that he was carrying and instead tried to enter a house in a residential area. There is no doubt that the facts of this ease are tragic and that the ease is a difficult one. Nevertheless, because Deputies Anderson and Hengel did not exceed constitutional limits on the usé of deadly force when they shot Blanford' and because, even if their actions did violate Blanford’s constitutional rights, a reasonable law enforcement officer in their position at the time would not have known that shooting Blanford was a violation of clearly established law, the deputies are entitled to qualified immunity. We therefore affirm.

I

On the afternoon of November 13, 2000, the Sacramento County Sheriffs Department received several reports that a man (who turned out to be Blanford)…

dissenting:

Matthew Blanford, a twenty-year-old college student, was shot and rendered a paraplegic by the police of Sacramento County. The shooting occurred in broad daylight at Matthew Blanford’s residence where he lived with his parents. His “crime” had been bizarre behavior — he was on medication for bipolar disorder. At the timé that he was shot, he was not threatening the police or any other known person, and he was not attempting to escape. Under these circumstances, the important governmental interest served by sparing the two shooters a jury trial is the interest of protecting impatient officers for conduct for which the County of Sacramento awarded a citation.

The standards to be applied are well-known. Lethal force may not be employed unless necessary to prevent escape “and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or physical injury to the officer or others.” Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 3 , 105 S.Ct. 1694 , 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985). The reasonableness of the officer’s conduct is to be evaluated with “careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including the severity .of the crime at…