Woman Convicted of Resisting Officer Can Sue for Excessive Force

A woman convicted of willfully resisting a sheriff’s deputy in Sonoma County, Calif., during an arrest can bring a federal civil rights lawsuit for excessive force based on the encounter, a full panel of Ninth Circuit judges ruled Tuesday.

The jury that convicted Gabrielle Lemos issued a general verdict after being told it could convict based on any one of four acts she allegedly committed. Because Lemos’ excessive force claim involved only one of those four acts, she can maintain this claim without arguing that her conviction was unlawful, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said.

The ...