Court Opinion

ID: 9501029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 18:50:57.577911+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:16.992359
License: Public Domain

WATFORD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The question facing the officers in this case was whether bashing a mother opossum on the head three times with a metal shovel constitutes “maliciously and intentionally ... wound[ing] a living animal” in violation of California Penal Code section 597(a). I am not sure such conduct in fact violates the statute; even today, California law remains unclear on that score. At the same time, nothing in California law has clearly established that such conduct does not violate the statute. The best guidance available on the scope of section 597(a) is People v. Thomason, 84 Cal.App.4th 1064, 101 Cal.Rptr.2d 247 (2000), which held that, even though animals covered by Penal Code section 599c and associated game regulations may be killed at will, they are still protected by section 597(a)’s prohibition on malicious and intentional wounding. Whether bashing a mother opossum on the head three times with a metal shovel is sufficiently egregious to constitute a malicious and intentional wounding is certainly debatable. But the very fact that reasonable minds could disagree is what entitles the officers to qualified immunity here. See Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, — U.S.-, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2083, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011).