Marquez

Correctional Officer Richard Gutierrez appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity, which he filed in defense of a § 1983 action brought by an inmate, Vincent Marquez, whom he shot in the leg during a prisoner melee at the California State Prison-Sacramento (CSPS). The district court found triable issues of fact regarding the need for this force and the threat that Gutierrez reasonably perceived, leading it to conclude that genuine factual disputes exist as to Marquez’s excessive force claim under the Eighth Amendment and as to Gutierrez’s entitlement to qualified immunity. However, in doing so the district court collapsed the qualified immunity inquiry and the constitutional inquiry rather than treating them separately, as Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 , 121 S.Ct. 2151 , 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), Jeffers v. Gomez, 267 F.3d 895, 903 (9th Cir.2001), and Estate of Ford v. Ramirez-Palmer, 301 F.3d 1043, 1050-53 (9th Cir.2002), which applies Saucier to the Eighth Amendment but was rendered after the district court’s decision in this case, instruct. Analyzing the inquiries separately, we conclude that, assuming the…