Jones

MEMORANDUM ***

In this interlocutory appeal, four California prison guards argue that the district court erred by denying their motion for summary judgment. The motion sought qualified immunity with regard to Rodney Wayne Jones’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim that they used excessive force against him while he was incarcerated in Salinas Valley State Prison.

In reviewing an interlocutory appeal from a denial of qualified immunity, we do *448 not have jurisdiction to “conduct an inquiry into the sufficiency of evidence to support a finding that the [guards] did in fact violate [Jones’s] constitutional right.” Wilkins v. City of Oakland, 350 F.3d 949, 952 (9th Cir.2003). Instead, we assume that Jones’s version of the material facts is true and, accordingly, confine our inquiry to determining whether: (1) the guards violated his Eighth Amendment rights when they repeatedly slammed him to the ground, taunted him with racist slurs, and refused to pull up his sweat pants and boxer shorts after they fell down, leaving him naked below the waist as they escorted him in full view of other staff and inmates; and (2) it would have been clear to a reasonable officer that such conduct was…