BOSTON – A federal appeals court Wednesday threw out a Norway man’s lawsuit alleging that Lewiston police used excessive force when they shot him during a confrontation in the police department parking lot nearly four years ago.

In reversing a judge’s ruling that Vince Berube’s suit should be allowed to go to trial, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the three defendants were entitled to immunity.

Berube was suffering from self-inflicted stab wounds on the night of Dec. 17, 2003, when he used a hammer to smash the windows of police cruisers.

Officers Carly Conley, Eric Syphers and Matthew Vierling maintained that they acted in self-defense when Berube threatened one of them with a hammer and ignored orders to stop moving and show his hands. An investigation by the state attorney general found that use of deadly force was justified.

Berube, who spent weeks in the hospital recovering from wounds that included a paralyzed leg and a shattered hip, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of criminal threatening and was given a suspended four-year prison sentence.

He claimed in his lawsuit that he was the victim of an assault and battery, that his civil and constitutional rights were violated and that he was arrested in a “wanton or oppressive” manner.

The appeals court disagreed, saying that the officers found themselves being forced to deal with a situation that was “tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving.”

“Faced with the necessity of making a split-second judgment on a rainy night about how to neutralize the threat they perceived from Berube, the officers’ actions cannot be said to have been ‘plainly incompetent,”‘ the court said.

Lewiston Police Chief William Welch said he was pleased with the ruling, which “reinforces what the [Maine] attorney general, and our own investigation had determined, that the officers acted appropriately and within the scope of their duties as a law enforcement officer.”