Locke v. County of Hubbard, et al.

In this brief, NPAP urges the Court to reverse the District Court’s grant of qualified immunity to Defendants-Appellees. The District Court’s opinion granting qualified immunity to Defendants- Appellees Aukes and Parks adopted far too restrictive a definition of “clearly established law” and should be reversed. The law of this Circuit is clear that, when analyzing a defendant officer’s use of force against a non-threatening, non-violent protestor, the key inquiry for the purposes of determining “clearly established law” is not whether the precise tactic the defendant employed had ever previously been deemed excessive, but whether the defendant had fair warning that the degree of force he used—regardless of the tactic employed to achieve such force—was more than de minimis. The District Court’s departure from this longstanding rule was reversible error.