9th Cir.;
12-15654
The court of appeals reversed in part and affirmed in part a district court judgment and remanded the action for further proceedings. The court held that a police officer was not entitled to qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage on a Fourth Amendment unlawful entry claim where the officer made a warrantless entry into a family’s apparently peaceful home after a neighbor’s “prowler call” despite the apparent absence of exigent circumstances or an evident emergency. The court held further that the district court unfairly weighed the summary judgment evidence in favor of police officers, rather than the plaintiffs, in finding that the officers enjoyed qualified immunity on the plaintiffs’ excessive force claims where they handcuffed compliant children at the family home and detained the compliant father outside the house despite knowledge he had committed no crime.
