SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge who sided with a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who struck and killed a cyclist in Salem, Oregon, in 2023 was wrong to dismiss the case, the Oregon attorney general’s office argued to a Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday.
Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General Philip Thoennes said that DEA agent Samuel Landis’s conduct was “not reasonable” when he drove through an intersection and hit 53-year-old Salem resident Marganne Allen on her bicycle during a fentanyl-related surveillance operation in a residential area.
The oral arguments heard on Tuesday revolve around whether Landis is immune from criminal prosecution from the state of Oregon while he was conducting law enforcement operations…