In Young v. Hawaii, the en banc Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Second Amendment does not guarantee an unfettered, general right to openly carry arms in public.  In reaching its conclusion, the Court concluded that the State of Hawaii’s restrictions on the open carrying of firearms reflect longstanding prohibitions, and therefore, the…

In Hernandez v. Town of Gilbert, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that no clearly established law controlled in the specific context of a suspect who continued to resist police and refused to surrender throughout an incident in which the officers escalated from a minimal use of force through lesser uses of force before…

In Moser v. Las Vegas Metro. Police Dept., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a federal District Court did not adequately address the objective meaning of a police officer’s Facebook comment in its analysis under a United States Supreme Court test to weigh the officer’s First Amendment right against the government’s interest in…

While the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine is advancing our effort to recover from the pandemic, one significant limitation is the degree of acceptance and level of trust placed in the vaccine and fear of an adverse reaction.  This uncertainty has clear implications for law enforcement agencies. The purpose of this client alert is to…

The availability of effective vaccines offers a major advancement in our emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic.  As a component of this progress, the determination of how to optimize the benefits of the vaccine among public sector employees also raises important leadership questions regarding its use.  Our great preference would be for members of our organizations…

In Wright v. Beck,[1] the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff, who continued to assert a claim of right to previously seized firearms and reasonably believed that the police department was still reviewing the matter, was entitled to notice under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause that police intended to seek a…

In a case filed on October 27, 2020, in Cortesluna v. Luna,[1] the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment to an officer who the plaintiff claimed used excessive force.  In reaching its conclusion, the Court determined that the officer was not entitled to qualified immunity for briefly placing…

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Ventura v. Rutledge[1] concluded that an officer who used deadly force was entitled to qualified immunity.  In reaching its conclusion, the Court determined that no existing precedent squarely governed the specific facts here, where the officer shot and killed a man who (1) had a drawn knife as…