The Informant

In a landmark ruling yesterday, a panel of judges from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that police use of tasers can constitute excessive force, and that officers should exercise discretion in deploying such electronic weapons against suspects.

Tuesday’s ruling, available below, upheld the decision by a lower court judge that Coronado Police Officer Brian MacPherson used excessive force when he tasered Carl Bryan in 2005 after Bryan fled from a traffic stop. Bryan had been originally been pulled over for speeding – after being tased, he keeled over face-first, breaking four teeth on the road and bruising his face.

Bryan v. MacPherson is a critical decision because it sets limits on police usage of tasers. Taser International, Inc, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company which manufactures the devices, has waged several legal battles to avoid settling with victims over allegations of excessive force or wrongful death that result from tasers.

The Ninth District ruled not to review the decision despite dissent from Judges Richard Tallman, Consuelo Callahan and N. Randy Smith, who believed MacPherson’s use of his taser did not constitute excessive force.

The majority’s response, written by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, was unsparing. Wardlaw’s opinion took issue with the basis for the dissent, stating that it was based “upon the largely unsupported and nonsensical belief that use of a device designed to fire a dart up to one-half inch into bare skin and deliver a 1200 volt charge somehow does not constitute an intermediate use of force.”

It will be interesting to see how Bryan v. MacPherson affects police training and taserings of suspects by California police officers – and whether similar challenges to taser usage will crop up in other states.