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 the three defendants were entitled to immunity.

Lewiston police Chief William Welch said Wednesday he was happy with the judgment.

“This reinforces what the 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,” Welch said.

The ruling was “as good as we could hope for,” Edward Benjamin Jr., the lawyer who represented the three officers in the federal appeal, said in a voice-mail message.

Benjamin said the only option now for Berube and his lawyers is the U.S. Supreme Court, “if they want to go that route.”

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 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.

In his complaint, Berube said police fired 26 rounds in all, hitting him 18 times. He spent weeks in the hospital recovering from his wounds. He was indicted on counts of criminal mischief and criminal threatening.

He spent weeks in the hospital recovering from wounds that included a paralyzed leg and a shattered hip.

Berube pleaded guilty to a felony charge of criminal threatening and received a suspended four-year prison sentence.