The majority's opinion outraged
Judge Marsha Berzon, who called it "off the wall."
"I fail utterly to comprehend how my colleagues are able to conclude that it was objectively reasonable to use any force against Brooks, let alone three activations of a Taser, in response to such a trivial offense," she wrote.
She argued that
under Washington law, the officers had no authority to take Brooks into custody: Failure to sign a traffic infraction is not an arrestable offense, and it's not illegal to resist an unlawful arrest.
Berzon said the majority's notion that Brooks obstructed
officers was so far-fetched that even the officers themselves didn't make that legal argument.
To obstruct an officer, one must obstruct the officer's official duties, and the officers' only duties in this case were to detain Brooks long enough to identify her, check for warrants, write up the citation and give it to her. Brooks' failure to sign did not interfere with those duties, she said.
Furthermore, Brooks posed no apparent threat, and the officers could not have known how stunning her would affect the fetus, or whether it might prompt premature labor _ another reason their actions were inexcusable, Berzon said.
Brooks' lawyer, Eric Zubel, said he would ask the 9th Circuit to rehear the case.
"This is outrageous _ that something like this could happen to a pregnant woman, in front of an elementary school, at 8:30 in the morning, to