Jail & Prison Suicides - Deliberate Indifference Standards

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Jail & Prison Suicides - Deliberate Indifference Standards

Freeman, Mathis & Gary, LLP

Exerpt - See link below for complete article

In the prison or jail setting, inmates'' claims run the gamut of everything from complaints about food that is cold to claims about lack of proper medical attention to claims about inadequate access to the law library. With respect to claims about the conditions of confinement, including those for overcrowding and cold food, and claims about allegedly improper medical attention, the standard that is utilized is "deliberate indifference."

This is true whether the claim is asserted under the Eighth Amendment (which applies to claims by convicted prisoners) or the Fourteenth Amendment (which applies to claims by pretrial detainees). Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1490 (11th Cir. 1996). Please note the distinction between the claims of pretrial and convicted inmates so that you do not erroneously proceed under the incorrect and inapplicable Amendment. See Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S.Ct. 1401 (1977).

In addition to making certain that suit is brought pursuant to the correct constitutional provision, it is critical that a plaintiff allege and establish that the actions of the individuals and/or entity were deliberately indifferent, as opposed to merely negligent. Both the Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit have made clear that even "gross negligence" is insufficient to support either an Eighth Amendment or a Fourteenth Amendment claim. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (1974); Cottrell v. Caldwell, supra, at 1490 ("In any event, the Supreme Court''s recent decision in Farmer v. Brennan, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994), which was released after this case left the district court, makes it clear that ''gross negligence'' is not part of the standard for judging custody mistreatment cases under the Due Process Clause.").

Instead, the standard to be applied in both jail and prison conditions cases is the standard of "deliberate indifference." Farmer v. Brennan, supra; Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 111 S.Ct. 2321 (1991); Cottrell v. Caldwell, supra. A very good discussion by the Eleventh Circuit of what conduct is and is not deliberately indifferent can be found in Hill v. DeKalb Youth Detention Center, 40 F.3d 1176 (11th Cir. 1994). In Farmer, the Supreme Court undertook to define and explain the term "deliberate indifference."

In that case, a transsexual inmate with feminine characteristics who was incarcerated with other males claimed to have been beaten and raped by another inmate. In his lawsuit, the inmate alleged that Wisconsin prison officials had acted with deliberate indifference to his safety in violation of the Eighth Amendment because they knew that the penitentiary had a violent environment and a history of inmate assaults and that he would be particularly vulnerable to sexual attack. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the prison officials, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed.

On review of the case by the Supreme Court, the Court was called upon to define the term "deliberate indifference." In so doing, the Court made reference to the subjective component of the inquiry:

We hold . . . that a prison official cannot be found liable under the Eighth Amendment for denying an inmate humane conditions of confinement unless the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference. . . . [A]n official''s failure to alleviate a significant risk that he should have perceived but did not, while no cause for commendation, cannot under our cases be condemned as the infliction of punishment.

Farmer, 114 S.Ct. at 1979 (emphasis supplied). Thus, in the case of inmate-on-inmate violence, as in other jail-related claims, the plaintiff must demonstrate that jail officials knew of a substantial risk of serious harm. "Deliberate indifference" requires that a deliberate choice be made to do or not to do something. Failing to take action when the risk is not perceived is not deliberate and is not unconstitutional.

An illustrative situation of mere negligence was presented in Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662 (1986). There, an inmate (Daniels) who slipped on a pillow left on the jail stairs by a deputy sheriff (Williams) brought suit under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, claiming that Williams'' actions deprived him of his "liberty" interest in freedom from bodily injury without due process of law. Finding that Williams'' acts were, at most, negligent, the Eastern District of Virginia granted Williams'' motion for summary judgment, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed.

The Supreme Court granted Daniels'' petition for writ of certiorari to address "the inconsistent approaches taken by the lower courts in determining when tortious conduct by state officials rises to the level of a constitutional tort" and "the apparent lack of adequate guidance by [the Supreme Court]." Daniels, 474 U.S. at 329, 106 S.Ct. at 664. In affirming the lower courts'' decisions in favor of Williams, the Court made clear that the Fourteenth Amendment is not "a font of tort law:"

. . . Historically, the guarantee of due process has been applied to deliberate decisions of government officials to deprive a person of life, liberty or property. . . . No decision of this Court before Parratt supported the view that negligent conduct by a state official, even though causing injury, constitutes a deprivation under the Due Process Clause. This history reflects the traditional and common-sense notion that the Due Process Clause, like its forebear in the Magna Carta . . . was "intended to secure the individual from the arbitrary exercise of the powers of government." . . . By requiring the government to follow appropriate procedures when its agents decide to "deprive any person of life, liberty or property," the Due Process Clause promotes fairness in such decisions. And by barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them, . . ., it serves to prevent governmental power from being used "for the purposes of oppression." . . .

We think that the actions of prison custodians in leaving a pillow on the prison stairs, or mislaying an inmate''s property, are quite remote from the concerns just discussed. Far from an abuse of power, lack of due care suggests no more than a failure to measure up to the conduct of a reasonable person. To hold that injury caused by such conduct is a deprivation within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment would trivialize the centuries-old principle of due process of law.

. . . Our Constitution deals with the large concerns of the governors and the governed, but it does not purport to supplant traditional tort law in laying down rules of conduct to regulate liability for injuries that attend living together in society. We have previously rejected reasoning that "would make of the Fourteenth Amendment a font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever systems may already be administered by the States" . . . .

Daniels, 474 U.S. at 331-32, 106 S.Ct. at 665 (citations omitted).

The deliberate indifference standard also is applied in cases involving jail or prison suicides. The plaintiff, a representative of the deceased inmate''s estate, must show that the jail official displayed "deliberate indifference" to the prisoner''s taking of his own life. Tittle v. Jefferson County Commission, 10 F.3d 1535, 1539 (11th Cir. 1994); Popham v. City of Talladega, 908 F.2d 1561, 1563 (11th Cir. 1990); Edwards v. Gilbert, 867 F.2d 1271, 1274-75 (11th Cir. 1989).

A finding of deliberate indifference requires that officials have notice of the suicidal tendency of the individual whose rights are at issue in order to be held liable for the suicide of that individual. Popham, 908 F.2d at 1564 ("absent knowledge of a detainee''s suicidal tendencies, the cases have consistently held that failure to prevent suicide has never been held to constitute deliberate indifference"). See also Haney v. City of Cumming, 69 F. 3d 1098 (11th Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1209 (1996); Schmelz v. Monroe County, 954 F.2d 1540, 1545 (11th Cir. 1992) ("[defendants] cannot be liable under � 1983 for the suicide of a prisoner ''who never had threatened or attempted suicide and who had never been considered a suicide risk''"). Furthermore, the deliberate indifference standard requires a strong likelihood rather than a mere possibility that self-infliction of harm will occur. Popham, 908 F.2d at 1563.

� 1999 Freeman, Mathis & Gary, LLP

These materials have been prepared for educational and information purposes only. They are not legal advice or legal opinions on any specific matters.

http://library.lp.findlaw.com/articles/file/00584/000547/title/Subject/topic/Criminal%20Law_Correctional%20Institution/filename/criminallaw_1_123

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