RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A federal judge urged both sides to settle a precedent-setting lawsuit filed by a man who claims Hemet police acted unreasonably when they allowed one of their dogs to bite him during a 1999 arrest.
Police were called to Thomas Smith's home on a domestic-abuse complaint from his wife, who said her husband was unarmed and had no weapons in the house.
Smith refused officer commands to remove his hands from his pajama pockets as he stood on the front porch of the home and additional officers were called in, police said. There was a struggle and Smith was eventually subdued with pepper spray and the police dog.
Smith pleaded guilty to charges of resisting, delaying and obstructing a police officer and spousal battery.
He later filed a federal excessive force lawsuit against the city of Hemet, its Police Department and some of its officers.
When the case reached the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, judges used it to broaden the definition of deadly force to include "serious bodily injury." But the court stopped short of including police dogs, leaving that decision to district courts.
"There are many times in a case when you are ripe for settlement," U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips told attorneys during a hearing Monday in Riverside. She scheduled a conference call with both sides later in the week.
Attorney Elizabeth R. Feffer, representing Hemet, planned to talk to the City Council in closed session on Tuesday.
"If you're a plaintiff, you always have to weigh a serious settlement discussion," Smith attorney Donald W. Cook told The Press-Enterprise Monday. "But, they have the combination to the safe."
If there is progress, the judge said she would like to turn the matter over to a magistrate for further talks.
Before Smith's case, the appellate court refused to take the definition any further than "force reasonably likely to kill," rejecting addition of the phrase "or result in serious bodily injury."
The Hemet Police Department considered pepper spray and police dogs to be "intermediate" force, the most severe action short of deadly force, the appellate court said.
Hemet appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the high court declined to take up the case, meaning the 9th Circuit's new definition of deadly force stands.
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