Blanford v. Sacramento County

Incident Summary & Facts

On November 13, 2000, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department received several reports of a man in a ski mask carrying a sword and behaving erratically in a suburban neighborhood; dispatch added that he had been seen licking the sword and walking in the middle of the street. Deputies Brett Anderson and Todd Hengel found Matthew Blanford carrying a 2½-foot Civil War-era cavalry saber by the handle. With guns drawn, they ordered, “Sheriff’s department, stop, drop the sword.” Blanford kept walking; unknown to the deputies, he was listening to a Discman at full volume through headphones hidden under his knit cap.

The deputies followed at “a safe distance of 20 to 25 feet as they were trained to do for persons with edged weapons,” repeating commands to stop and drop the sword and warning, “We’ll shoot.” At a street corner, Blanford stopped, raised the sword, and made a loud growling or roaring sound. He then walked toward a house (his parents’ home, which the deputies did not know), tried the front door, and headed down a walkway toward a side gate leading to the back yard. He later testified that he saw the deputies and heard “Drop the sword” there but did not comply. The deputies fired as he rounded the corner to the gate (first volley). Blanford went through the gate; Anderson kicked it open, saw him about ten feet away trying to open a garage door into the residence, ordered him again to drop the sword, and fired (second volley). As Blanford turned toward the back yard still holding the sword, Anderson kept firing (third volley); a bullet severed his spine, leaving him paraplegic. The encounter lasted about two minutes, with roughly fourteen seconds between the first and last shots. He had just taken antipsychotic medication, and no one was home.

The district court granted summary judgment to all defendants, analyzing each volley separately and finding qualified immunity in the alternative. Blanford appealed.

Core Legal Issue

Whether deputies violated the Fourth Amendment by using deadly force against a noncompliant man armed with a sword who was trying to enter a residence and its yard, and if so, whether the right was clearly established in November 2000 so as to defeat qualified immunity.

The Holding

The Ninth Circuit held that all three volleys were objectively reasonable, and that even if they were not, no clearly established law would have put the deputies on notice that their conduct was unlawful. The court affirmed summary judgment for the defendants (Judge Noonan dissenting).

The Court’s Analysis:

• Officer’s perspective: Facts unknown to the deputies (headphones, medication, that he lived there, that no one was home) are excluded under Graham’s ban on “20/20 vision of hindsight.”
• First volley: Probable cause under Garner existed because Blanford “was armed, refused to give up his weapon, was not surrounded, and was trying to get inside a private residence,” where his sword “could inflict injury that the deputies would not then be in a position to prevent.” Raising the sword and growling was a crime under Cal. Penal Code § 417.8 and signaled a threat.
• Second and third volleys: Blanford was still armed, trying to enter, and “quite close to the deputies.” The third volley was “the most difficult,” but it was not unreasonable to keep firing when he “did not stop moving or holding the sword,” given everything that had happened since the encounter began.
• Distinguishing precedent: Unlike Deorle, the deputies repeatedly ordered Blanford to drop the weapon and warned they would shoot, and he did not comply. The possibility of mental illness was properly considered, but securing the sword was a reasonable priority, and help being on the way was “immaterial” given that he was about to get inside.
• Qualified immunity: No precedent as of 2000 gave fair warning that officers could not use deadly force to stop “someone with an edged sword,” repeatedly warned, from entering a residence.
• Dissent (Noonan, J.): Applying the Graham factors, there was no real crime, no immediate threat (the deputies “kept a safe distance,” and “[h]e had nothing but the sword”), and no active resistance. The asserted danger to people in the house was speculation, so the case belonged before a jury.