DISCLAIMER: Any unofficial case summaries below are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
112091P.pdf 07/27/2012 Norman Carpenter v. Deputy Harold Gage
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 11-2091
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas - Fayetteville
[PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Smith and Gruender, Circuit Judges]
Civil case - civil rights. A reasonable police officer could have believed
that exigent circumstances justified entering plaintiff's home without a
warrant, and the district court did not err in dismissing plaintiff's claim
alleging an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment; officers
had probable cause to arrest plaintiff based on dispatcher's report that he
had assaulted the first responders to a possible medical emergency in the
home; force used to subdue and arrest plaintiff was not unreasonable
under the circumstances, and the police defendants were entitled to
qualified immunity on his excessive force claim; officers were not
deliberately indifferent to plaintiff's medical needs as there was
insufficient evidence to show that his need for medical treatment was so
obvious that they exhibited deliberate indifference by taking him to jail;
as the individual officers had not violated the Constitution, the sheriff and
county could not be liable for failure to train. Judge Smith, concurring in
part and dissenting in part.