Opinion ID: 2452067
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Law Of Qualified Immunity And Excessive Force In Alaska

Text: In Alaska, questions concerning qualified immunity for claims of excessive force are governed both by the Fourth Amendment [17] and by state statute. [18] We considered the question of qualified immunity for a claim of excessive force in Samaniego v. City of Kodiak, [19] where we concluded that [r]egardless of whether the individual officer actually believed that his use of force was reasonableand regardless of the reasonableness of that beliefthe officer is not privileged to use an objectively unreasonable level of force in making an arrest. [20] Samaniego relied upon the federal test for qualified immunity first adopted by Breck v. Ulmer. [21] But in 2001 the United States Supreme Court created a new federal standard for qualified immunity when it decided Saucier v. Katz. [22] Saucier held that a ruling on qualified immunity is a question entirely distinct from whether or not excessive force was used in an arrest, and that a ruling on [qualified immunity] should be made early in the proceedings so that the costs and expenses of trial are avoided where the defense is dispositive. [23] The Court also characterized qualified immunity as an entitlement not to stand trial or face the other burdens of litigation and held that [t]he privilege is `an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and like an absolute immunity, [the privilege] is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to a trial.' [24] Saucier set out a two-part test for determining entitlement to qualified immunity. The initial inquiry is: Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right? [25] The second inquiry, necessary only if the first query is answered in the affirmative, is whether the right was clearly established. [26] In other words, [t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. [27] If the law did not put the officer on notice that his conduct would be clearly unlawful, summary judgment based on qualified immunity is appropriate. [28] The Supreme Court also emphasized the order of the excessive force analysis, concluding that the violation of a constitutional right must be established as the threshold question before a court moves on to consider whether it was clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful. [29] Seven years later, in Sheldon v. City of Ambler , our court again addressed qualified immunity as a defense to an excessive force claim under Alaska law. [30] We noted in Sheldon that we usually follow[] federal case law in the area of qualified immunity but also that we are not bound to follow federal law in designing our own judicial standard for excessive force. [31] Sheldon did not entirely overrule Samaniego, but it recognized a revised test for qualified immunity in Alaska: Samaniego as modified by the two-part analysis of Saucier. Under the rule that emerged from Sheldon, a police officer in Alaska is entitled to qualified immunity in an excessive force case if the officer's conduct was objectively reasonable or the officer reasonably believed that the conduct was lawful, even if it was not. [32] On the latter prong of the test we stressed that  merely subjective beliefs about reasonableness are not enough; the beliefs must also be ones a reasonable officer could have had about the legality of his [or her] actions. [33] Sheldon rejected the idea that AS 11.81.370 and AS 12.25.070 provide sufficient notice to an officer of the legality or illegality of the officer's actions. [34] We stated that courts inquiring into the presence of notice should look to our own jurisdiction and other jurisdictions to see if there are any cases, laws, or regulations which would suggest that the type of action taken by the officer is considered unlawful. [35] Notice can be imputed from the presence of relevant laws or regulations, as can lack of notice from a dearth of relevant authority. [36] Alternatively, notice can also be assumed if the officer's conduct is so egregious, so excessive, that he [or she] should have known it was unlawful, that the nature of the act gave sufficient warning that [the actions taken] were excessive means to restrain someone. One should not let the lack of explicit law in an area be a substitute for the reasonable officer's common sense. [37] Saucier established an ordered two-step analysis on questions of excessive force in which consideration of whether a constitutional right was violated necessarily preceded the question of whether or not it would have been clear to a reasonable officer that the conduct at issue was unlawful. [38] But we have never required Saucier's sequential analysis of excessive force in Alaska. In fact, in Sheldon, we deferred to the superior court's finding that a genuine issue of material fact persisted as to whether the officer's use of force was excessive, but affirmed its grant of qualified immunity at the summary judgment level on the grounds that the officer could have reasonably believed his use of a bear hug to subdue a citizen was lawful. [39] We have reached no substantive conclusions on when use of a taser is excessive force in the context of an arrest. But multiple federal courts have reached conclusions about taser usage and excessive force, and we refer to those decisions for guidance in our discussion below.