No Qualified Immunity For CHP Officer.

After being penned in by police officers, the driver of a stolen vehicle refused to turn off the engine following a 100 mph police chase. One officer opened fire on the driver, killing her. A jury awarded $30,000 each to the two children of the driver, and the court awarded almost a half a million dollars in fees and costs. The trial court declined to grant the police officer judgment as a matter of law, after finding a jury could have reasonably concluded the officer acted with a purpose to harm which was unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement objective based on evidence the deceased was contained in a dead-end street, she repeatedly told the officer to commit an act which was anatomically impossible when he ordered her to get out of the car, no officers were in the path of her car, the other officers testified they did not feel threatened, five other officers had their guns drawn but did not fire and the officer shot the deceased twelve times. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, stating that “once a jury has found (with reasonable support in the evidence) such a due process violation on the part of the officer, he may not successfully assert qualified immunity in a post-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law.”  A.D., a minor and J.E., a minor v. Markgraf and California Highway Patrol (Ninth Cir.; April 3, 2013) (Case No. 09-16460, 09-17635).