Jeffers

These appeals by California correctional officers, a former prison warden and the former state Director of the Department of Corrections from the denial by the district court of their motions for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity require us to decide whether emergency responses and prison security measures, undertaken to control a large-scale disturbance in a prison yard, constituted Eighth Amendment violations under circumstances in which Appellee Donnell Jef- *850 fers, an inmate, was wounded by a rifle shot fired by a correctional officer.

To determine whether the rights assured Jeffers by the Eighth Amendment were violated, we must examine “ ‘whether force was applied in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline or maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.’ ” Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 320-21 , 106 S.Ct. 1078 , 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986) (quoting Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1033 (2d Cir.1973) (Friendly, J.)).

Jeffers was shot in the neck during a major prison disturbance at California State Prison-Sacramento (“CSP-Sac”) on September 27, 1996. He sued correctional officers at CSP-Sac, the former warden at CSP-Sac…