9th dismisses Riley shooting appeal

SANDPOINT — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is dismissing an appeal filed by the city on behalf of Sandpoint Police officers who shot and killed a woman during a confrontation in 2014.

The city, which is being sued by the family of Jeanetta Riley, argued the officers should be granted a qualified immunity, a doctrine which protects government officials from liability for civil damages as long as their conduct does not violate laws or the Constitution.

Riley, 35, was killed outside Bonner General Health after refusing commands to drop the knife she was holding and walking toward the officers. Officers were summoned to the hospital after dispatchers received a report of a woman making death threats.

Officer Michael Valenzuela fired three shots from a rifle, one of which struck Riley in the sternum, according to federal court records. Officer Skylar Ziegler fired twice with a sidearm, hitting Riley once in the back. Both shots were fatal, court documents state.

Riley’s family filed a lawsuit alleging her civil rights were violated by the use of excessive force by law enforcement.

The city moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, but U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill denied the motion last year, finding that the use of force was excessive and violated Riley’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Winmill noted in a 33-page ruling that Riley had made unspecific threats to kill, but the seriousness of those threats were undercut because her husband, Shane, was calmly standing beside her. And while verbally aggressive, Riley made no overt threats. Riley refused to drop the knife, but she was never warned that deadly force would be deployed, ruled Winmill, who added that officers could have used Tasers to subdue her.

“No reasonable officer could believe that Jeanetta’s verbal resistance justified the use of deadly force. And a jury could find that a reasonable officer would conclude that Jeanetta committed no crime,” Winmill ruled.

But the city forfeited its qualified immunity argument on appeal by failing to present the facts in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the 9th Circuit ruled.

“Both in their briefing and at oral argument, defendants merely dispute the circumstances attendant to Jeanetta’s encounter with the police and contend that she posed an immediate threat to the officers based on their version of the facts,” said the case panel, which consisted of circuit judges Kim McLane Wardlaw and John Owens, in addition to Senior U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow.

The case panel said it had a narrow band of jurisdiction regarding pretrial appeals involving qualified immunity, but it could only be utilized if the appellant conceded the facts and sought judgment on the law.

“Addressing the defendants’ purely factual disputes with the district court’s qualified-immunity determination is beyond the limited scope of our appellate jurisdiction,” the court said in an five-page memorandum released on Wednesday.

The appellate court ruling does not bar the city from reviving qualified-immunity claims elsewhere in the litigation, which remains ongoing in U.S. District Court.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.