He writes a law blog - the Bob Loblaw Law Blog.
This is a stunningly bad decision by the Ninth Circuit. The dissenting opinion lays it out better than I could:
Here is what happened to Malaika Brooks, a pregnant mother, as she was driving her son to school one day: Two, soon three, police officers surrounded her. The officers thought she was speeding in a school zone; she says she was not. Brooks provided her identification when asked, so there was no doubt who she was or where to find her. The officers wrote her a ticket but she refused to sign it. Refusing to sign a speeding ticket was at the time a nonarrestable misdemeanor; now, in Washington, it is not even that. Brooks had no weapons and had not harmed or threatened to harm a soul. Although she had told the officers she was seven months pregnant, they proceeded to use a Taser on her, not once but three times, causing her to scream with pain and leaving burn marks and permanent scars.
...
Obviously, the sensible reaction to her refusal to acknowledge the ticket in writing would have been to so note on the ticket and send her on her way. Instead, a traffic offense - assuming it occurred - turned into an encounter that inflicted physical and, in all likelihood, emotional pain on a citizen who was not in any way dangerous to anyone. As “the situation here was far from that of a lone police officer suddenly confronted by a dangerous armed felon threatening immediate violence,” Deorle v. Rutherford, 272 F.3d 1272, 1283 (9th Cir. 2001), we should be holding the force used constitutionally excessive. But the majority does the opposite: it sanctions the use of painful force causing permanent scars against a citizen who threatened no harm.
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This is not a close case. Any reasonable officer should have known that using a Taser repeatedly on a pregnant woman who had committed a trivial, nonviolent crime and who posed no realistic threat to the safety of others was unlawful.
Worth noting: despite the Ninth Circuit's reputation as a liberal haven of reckless, activist judges, the two judges in the majority who think that it's okay for police officers to tase pregnant women who pose no threat to their safety were Reagan appointees. The dissenter, who thinks it's clear that this should not be considered acceptable (and whose legal analysis is a hell of a lot stronger in this opinion), is a Clinton appointee.
Here is what happened to Malaika Brooks, a pregnant mother, as she was driving her son to school one day: Two, soon three, police officers surrounded her. The officers thought she was speeding in a school zone; she says she was not. Brooks provided her identification when asked, so there was no doubt who she was or where to find her. The officers wrote her a ticket but she refused to sign it. Refusing to sign a speeding ticket was at the time a nonarrestable misdemeanor; now, in Washington, it is not even that. Brooks had no weapons and had not harmed or threatened to harm a soul. Although she had told the officers she was seven months pregnant, they proceeded to use a Taser on her, not once but three times, causing her to scream with pain and leaving burn marks and permanent scars.
...
Obviously, the sensible reaction to her refusal to acknowledge the ticket in writing would have been to so note on the ticket and send her on her way. Instead, a traffic offense - assuming it occurred - turned into an encounter that inflicted physical and, in all likelihood, emotional pain on a citizen who was not in any way dangerous to anyone. As “the situation here was far from that of a lone police officer suddenly confronted by a dangerous armed felon threatening immediate violence,” Deorle v. Rutherford, 272 F.3d 1272, 1283 (9th Cir. 2001), we should be holding the force used constitutionally excessive. But the majority does the opposite: it sanctions the use of painful force causing permanent scars against a citizen who threatened no harm.
...
This is not a close case. Any reasonable officer should have known that using a Taser repeatedly on a pregnant woman who had committed a trivial, nonviolent crime and who posed no realistic threat to the safety of others was unlawful.
Worth noting: despite the Ninth Circuit's reputation as a liberal haven of reckless, activist judges, the two judges in the majority who think that it's okay for police officers to tase pregnant women who pose no threat to their safety were Reagan appointees. The dissenter, who thinks it's clear that this should not be considered acceptable (and whose legal analysis is a hell of a lot stronger in this opinion), is a Clinton appointee.