Earlier this week, a federal court of appeals ruled that three Seattle police officers who used a stun gun on a pregnant woman had violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. However, the officers will remain immune from criminal charges and prosecution, the court ruled, because the law governing police use of stun guns was not yet determined at the time of the attempted arrest.

The incident took place in 2004 as the pregnant woman was driving her son to school. Police reportedly stopped her vehicle after finding that she was driving 32 mph in the 20 mph school zone. She denied that she was speeding, insisting that the officers had actually clocked the car ahead of her driving above the speed limit. She refused to sign the traffic ticket, thinking that she would be admitting her guilt by doing so.

After she refused to sign the ticket, the officers decided to arrest her. They reached into her vehicle, turned it off, and dropped the keys on the floor. The woman told police that she was seven months pregnant but refused to get out of her car. The officers then stunned her three times with a Taser, once each in the neck, shoulder, and thigh. When she became immobilized, they pulled her out of the car, laid her face-down in the street, and arrested her.

Although the woman's baby was not harmed during the altercation, she filed a lawsuit against the officers who had arrested her, claiming that they had violated her right to be free from excessive force. Initially, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed her suit, finding that the police had not used excessive force against the woman. She appealed, and this week the full appeals court ruled that, because the woman did not pose a threat to the safety of the officers or the community, the force used against her was excessive.

Source: Seattle Times, "Court: Seattle police used excessive force on pregnant woman," John de Leon, Oct. 17, 2011