Alaska Employment Law

The 9th Circuit (per Raymond Fisher) has held that U. S. District Judge John Sedwick used the incorrect legal standard of culpability to apply to “a police officer who kills a suspect in the course of investigating a suspicious car parked alongside an Alaska highway, under circumstances that suggest the officer may have helped to create an emergency situation by his own excessive actions.” 

Sedwick had refused to grant summary judgment for the officer, using the “deliberate indifference standard.”  The panel now reverses and remands.

We conclude that a different and more demanding standard
of culpability than deliberate indifference applies. Rather, in an urgent situation of the kind involved here, the established standard is whether Osborn acted with a purpose to harm Casey without regard to legitimate law enforcement objectives.

Porter v. Osborn, 2008 WL _______ (9th Cir. Oct. 20, 2008)

Mark Osterman of Anchorage represents the plaintiffs.  Ruth Botstein, Anchorage AAG, represents the State.