A federal appeals court in California has denied immunity to a police officer who tasered a driver stopped for driving without a seatbelt. The driver posed no physical threat to the officer. From the New York Times:

In a vividly worded opinion issued by the court this week, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw described a “bad morning” for Carl Bryan, a 21-year-old Californian who drove over large stretches of Southern California to retrieve car keys mistakenly taken by a friend and ended up being Tasered by a Coronado, Calif., policeman and breaking four teeth when he fell to the ground.

The inappropriate use of tasers is widely known. It is about time that some sort of national standards are set.

Update: More details from Jonathan Turley, who’s blog I highly recommend.