A federal judge in Portland improperly instructed a jury that an inmate had to show a prison guard acted "maliciously and sadistically'' in slamming the prisoner's head against a steel door and concrete floor to prove excessive force, an appeals panel ruled.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case brought by Sean Hoard, then an inmate at Snake River Correctional Institution near Ontario, back to U.S. District Court for a new trial.

In a sharply worded opinion, the federal appeals panel wrote that a prison officer who slams an unresisting inmate's head into a concrete floor until he bleeds is no less liable for excessive force whether he does so dispassionately or with pleasure.

The trial judge's instructions were erroneous, and the appeals court needed to intervene to prevent "a miscarriage of justice," wrote 9th Circuit Judge Richard A. Paez.

"There is no doubt that the Constitution does not require proof of sadism or pleasure from extreme cruelty for excessive force claims brought under the Eighth Amendment,'' the appeals court found.

To prove excessive force, the inmate would need to show that the officer acted in bad faith and intended harm, the court noted. But U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown added a "non-existent'' element to the burden of proof, the opinion said.

Jurors might have returned a different verdict in August 2016 had they received the proper instructions, the appeals panel found.

"This was a grave injustice,'' Paez wrote. "The gravity of the injustice here outweighs the high cost of remanding for a new trial.''

Joshua Hafenbrack, the inmate's lawyer, said he hadn't had time to contact Hoard and declined comment. The Oregon Department of Justice, which represented two guards involved in the case, didn't respond for comment.

Hoard, now 26, alleged one guard used excessive force against him and the second failed to intervene. Hoard was serving an 82-month sentence for aggravated assault and third-degree assault.

The case stemmed from an encounter on Dec. 21, 2012, after Hoard asked for a razor for his personal use. At the time, he was confined to the prison's intensive management unit, a maximum-custody area for inmates who have demonstrated behavioral problems.

A guard gave Hoard a razor, which Hoard smashed into pieces, flushing smaller fragments into the toilet and sweeping larger parts into a trash can. Several officers removed Hoard from his cell as they searched it for missing razor parts.

Accounts of what happened next differed at trial. According to Hoard, he was handcuffed and placed outside the cell during the search. Another guard, Jerial Hartman , grabbed him by the collar and started to jerk him around, threatening, "This is going to hurt,'' Hoard testified. Hoard called out to another officer, who emerged from the cell and told Hartman to loosen his grip, Hoard said.

But once that officer returned to the cell, Hartman grabbed Hoard by the back of his head and slammed his face against a steel door, causing Hoard to lose consciousness, he said. When he came to, blood was dripping from his face and nose. He also noticed his pants and underwear had been pulled down to his ankles. Hoard said he curled up in a fetal position on the floor and that's when Hartman slammed his face into the concrete floor.

The officers contend Hoard was agitated outside of the cell and began to "thrash his head back and forth.'' Hartman testified he ordered Hoard to calm down. When he wouldn't, corrections Officer Espiridion Saldivar helped Hartman restrain Hoard.

Hoard's combative behavior warranted the "reactive use of force,'' Assistant Attorney General Jessica Spooner argued on behalf of the officers.

Saldivar testified he "grabbed and swept" Hoard's legs and that the movement pulled Hoard's pants and underwear down. He and Hartman placed the inmate on the floor using minimal force, though Hoard resisted, Saldivar said.

Hartman testified he didn't see any sign of injuries to Hoard, yet a response report described blood on the floor in front of Hoard's cell.

The altercation wasn't video-recorded. A prison nurse cleaned blood from Hoard's face and bandaged a cut above his eye. He reported continued pain to his jaw, and the prison gave him pain medicine and a mouthguard.

A captain's report on the encounter didn't mention Hoard's body had been exposed from the waist down, didn't mention Hoard's jaw injury or the officers' use of leg restraints on Hoard. A preliminary prison review found that the reports lacked crucial detail and recommended a more in-depth review, but one was never done.

At trial, Brown instructed jurors that Hoard had to prove that Hartman had "acted maliciously and sadistically'' in causing harm to him. Midway through deliberations, four jurors asked for maliciously and sadistically to be defined. Brown gave a supplemental instruction for jurors, telling them that sadistically meant "deriving pleasure from extreme cruelty.'' Another four hours passed before the jury found in favor of the prison guards.

But afterward, one of the jurors told the judge that jurors were concerned that the officers' reports omitted mention of Hoard's injuries. Another told the court there were "things that need(ed) to be addressed in this kind of...incarceration situation.''

-- Maxine Bernstein

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