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Corrections Law for
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Prisoner Assault: By Officers
Monthly
Law Journal Article: Staff Use of Force Against
Prisoners--Part I: Legal Standard and Individual Liability, 2008 (9) AELE Mo. L.J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Article: Staff
Use of Force Against Prisoners--Part II: Governmental and Supervisory Liability, 2008 (10) AELE Mo.
L.J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Article: Staff Use of Force Against
Prisoners--Part III: Use of Chemical Weapons, 2008 (11) AELE Mo.
L.J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Article: Staff
Use of Force Against Prisoners --Part IV: Firearms, 2009 (1) AELE Mo.
L. J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Article: Staff
Use of Force, Part V: Cell Extraction, 2009 (4) AELE Mo. L. J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Article: Use of
Force Against Immigration Detainees, 2011 (1) AELE Mo. L. J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Article: The Use of Electronic Control
Weapons Against Handcuffed or Restrained Persons - Part 2, 2012 (10) AELE
Mo. L. J. 101.
A woman arrested for drunk driving was taken first to one county’s police department and then to a second county’s jail. The second facility was informed that she was drunk, yelling, and spitting. A Cell Extraction Team met her upon arrival. She claimed that they roughly removed her from the vehicle and immediately applied a spit hood that nearly entirely obscured her vision. The Team then allegedly handcuffed her in a bent-over position, handled her forcefully, and threatened her with a Taser. The all-male team took her to a room where she was made to lie on her stomach and was strip-searched. Her pants were torn off her and an officer allegedly placed his hands on her genitals while a second allegedly groped her breasts. Following that, she asserted, she was made to walk to a cell wearing only her bra and the hood. The hood, she said, prevented her from attributing certain specific acts to specific officers. Her lawsuit asserted claims against four officers for excessive force. The officers’ motion for qualified immunity solely based on the argument that the plaintiff could not show each officer’s personal involvement in the alleged unconstitutional acts was denied. A federal appeals court ruled that a reasonable jury could find, based on the evidence in the record, that each defendant either committed or observed and failed to stop the allegedly unconstitutional acts. Fazica v. Jordan, #18-1457, 2019 U.S. App. Lexis 17307, 2019 Fed. App. 0125P, 2019 WL 2417358 (6th Cir.).
A federal appeals court overturned a trial court’s denial of prison officials’ motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit claiming use of excessive force against a prisoner. It found that the trial court failed to follow the law as set forth in prior controlling caselaw. The record below contained two versions of the relevant interaction between the prisoner and prison officials. Under Scott v. Harris, #05-1631, 550 U.S. 372 (2007), when the defendants asserted a qualified immunity defense, the trial court’s obligation was to decide whether the prison officials’ evidence blatantly contradicted the plaintiff's version of events. The trial court, however, rejected the teaching of Scott and denied the qualified immunity defense. The appeals court held that the trial court’s denial of qualified immunity was based on its error of law and remanded the case to another trial court judge for further proceedings consistent with the law. Underwood v. Barrett, #16-1725, 924 F.3d 19 (1st Cir. 2019).
A Florida inmate claimed that correctional officers physically assaulted him and that one of them sprayed a chemical agent on him for 16 minutes after he was handcuffed and compliant. Plaintiff also asserted that three supervisory officers watched the attack without doing anything to intervene. A federal appeals court overturned a grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants on excessive force and deliberate indifference claims. The trial court, the appeals court stated, may have mistakenly relied on O'Bryant v. Finch, #09-13493, 637 F.3d 1207 (11th Cir. 2011), to exclude the plaintiff’s statements from consideration, or it may have viewed the evidence submitted by the officers as establishing the kind of record that no reasonable jury could disbelieve regardless of the prisoner’s sworn statements to the contrary. In either event, the trial court erred in not accepting the prisoner’s version of events as true for the purposes of summary judgment. Sears v. Roberts, #15-15080, 922 F.3d 1199 (11th Cir. 2019).
A detainee died in a city jail after being shocked with a Taser in the dart mode in the chest when he resisted being placed in a new cell. The detainee was suffering from alcohol-withdrawal symptoms and exhibiting delusional behavior. His son filed a federal civil rights lawsuit asserting claims for excessive force. A federal appeals court ruled that a deputy was not entitled to qualified immunity, and that if the facts were as alleged by the plaintiff, he “clearly crossed” the constitutional line, when, having already shocked the detainee once for five seconds, dropping him to the floor, rendering him motionless, and causing him to urinate on himself, he shocked him again a full eight seconds later in the neck in stun mode. While the officer attempted to justify the second shock by the detainee’s failure to comply with an order to roll over and be handcuffed, the evidence indicated that he was simply not responsive at that time because of the effects of the first shock. “Really,” the court asked, “is there any surer indication of a grown man's inability to control his bodily functions than his wetting himself?” Further, “in eight seconds, we believe, any reasonable officer would have concluded that a detainee who lay inert on the floor, having soiled himself, was no longer putting up a fight.” However, the court ruled that the plaintiff’s allegations did not show a causal connection between either the use of force against the detainee or any deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs, on the one hand, and any policy or custom implemented by the defendant sheriff or a defendant captain, on the other. The court therefore granted summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity for the sheriff and captain. Piazza v. Jefferson County, #18-10487, 2019 U.S. App. Lexis13904 (7th Cir.).
A correctional officer shocked an inmate three times in the dart mode when the inmate refused to hold still for an identification photograph, using aggressive language and threatening to sue over anything he did not like. The first shock caused the prisoner to fall to the ground and kick and writhe for five seconds before lying still. He was then picked up and shocked two more times. The entire incident was recorded on video. The inmate sued, asserting a claim for excessive force. A federal appeals court overturned a grant of summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity against the plaintiff and ruled that a reasonable jury could find that the officer used multiple shocks not to induce the plaintiff’s cooperation, but to punish him for his intransigence through the wanton infliction of pain. The inmate’s allegations constituted “clearly established” violations of his Eighth Amendment rights. Brooks v. Jacumin, #17-7261, 2019 U.S. App. Lexis 14033 (4th Cir.).
A state prisoner claimed that he was assaulted by a prison corrections officer, naming “John Doe” as the officer who allegedly assaulted him but also describing and naming that officer as “Officer Deagan.” After the statute of limitations had expired, he amended his complaint to correctly name “C.O. Deagan” as “Officer Joseph Deacon.” The trial court dismissed on the ground that an amended complaint identifying a defendant to replace a “John Doe” placeholder does not relate back to the original complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)(1)(C). A federal appeals court vacated and remanded. The complaint was not a true John Doe complaint, and his amendment to correct a misspelling related back under 15 Rule 15(c)(1)(C). Ceara v. Deacon, #17-569, 2019 U.S. App. Lexis 4987, 2019 0
. While he was still curled up on the floor, the jailor and a co-worker allegedly kicked him, mocked him for soiling his pants, and stated, “We’re the law, dawg. We can do what we want.” They then threw him into a restraint chair, and the co-worker watched while the jailor allegedly punched his face. Bruises on his wrists indicated his attempts to free himself. The defendants allegedly then left him in the restraints, sitting in his own feces. He woke up on the floor and asked to see a doctor. The jailor testified that he and the co-worker took the prisoner to another room, where a “doctor” looked at him and that the “doctor” was actually the co-worker in disguise. When the prisoner filed a complaint, the jailor wrote a report stating that the prisoner was the aggressor. The co-worker signed the report and later wrote a corroborating report, claiming that the prisoner had slipped on the water and hit the wall. The co-worker was charged with depriving the prisoner of his civil rights, 18 U.S.C. 242, and falsifying a record to impede a federal investigation, 18 U.S.C. 1519.2. The court allowed the prosecution to introduce testimony that the co-worker had battered a different prisoner and concealed that crime over his objection and offer that if the jury believed that he committed the charged assault, he would admit intent. A federal appeals court vacated the ruling admitting the testimony. The charged conduct provided a sufficient basis for the jury to find intent. The prior-act evidence had only incremental probative value. Evidence of the co-worker’s guilt was not overwhelming. Absent the prior-act evidence, his arguments that the prisoner lied might have persuaded the jury. The prisoner testified that he could not remember much about the co-worker’s role. United States v. Asher, #17-6251, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 34947 (6th Cir.).
A prisoner formerly confined at a correctional facility claimed that prison guards there used excessive force in attacking him and that the beating and subsequently disciplinary proceedings occurred in retaliation for lawsuits and grievances that he had filed. At trial, the judge entered judgment as a matter of law for the defendants on all claims except those asserting excessive force by two officers. The jury decided those claims against the plaintiff. A federal appeals court reversed in part. Because the plaintiff’s trial testimony allowed for a permissible inference of retaliation, the judge should not have taken the retaliation claims from the jury. Thomas v. Anderson, #15-2830, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 32249 (7th Cir.).
A federal appeals court held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA) “gatekeeper function” against frivolous suits does not require a prison inmate to make a showing of a physical injury caused by an unconstitutional act. Rather, on Eighth Amendment claims, in order to recover compensatory damages, the PLRA requires a showing of some harm caused by some unconstitutional conduct that amounted to deliberate indifference and an accompanying showing of physical injury. In this prisoner inadequate medical care case, the plaintiff appealed the trial court's judgment awarding him only nominal and no punitive damages. The trial court held that defendants violated the plaintiff's Eighth Amendment rights by their deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs while he was in their custody, but that the PLRA precluded plaintiff's recovery of compensatory damages because he failed to meet 42 U.S.C. 1997e(e)'s physical injury threshold. The federal appeals court ruled that the plaintiff's severe pain resulted from an actual physical injury when an officer's takedown move broke his shoulder, and thus he met the PLRA's physical injury requirement under section 1997e(e). Therefore, the appeals court reversed and remanded with instructions for the trial court to calculate compensatory damages that result from the pain differential, if any, that plaintiff experienced from having to take non-prescription pain relievers instead of the ten prescribed hydrocodone tablets. The trial court did not, however, abuse its discretion by denying punitive damages. McAdoo v. Martin, #17-1952, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 21876 (8th Cir.).
After two inmates fought over some pencils, officers handcuffed one prisoner and walked him to a van to be transported to a segregation unit. He kicked through the windows and was carried out of the van. Officers allegedly slammed his face into the ground, placed him in another van and continued to beat him. When he got to the segregation unit, an officer punched him in his ribs, according to the plaintiff. The assault allegedly continued after his clothing was taken away. A psychologist who treated the plaintiff following his injuries testified that that he “discussed his frustration with the lack of attention to the grievance he filed 'when the C/O’s [correctional officers] kicked my ass.’” The trial court redacted the statement—“the C/O’s kicked my ass”—as inadmissible hearsay. A fellow prisoner and the plaintiff’s only witness to the alleged beating, was unavailable for trial, so designated portions from his deposition were read to the jury. A federal appeals court affirmed judgment in favor of the defendants, upholding those evidentiary rulings. Lovelace v. McKenna, #17-1393, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 18146 (7th Cir.).
A federal appeals court upheld judgment for the five plaintiff prisoners who were severely injured during cell extractions in two high security units. While the trial court lacked jurisdiction to conduct a trial while an interlocutory appeal from a prior qualified immunity ruling was pending, its error in doing so was harmless. As for an issue as to whether administrative remedies were exhausted as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act, the trial court did not “clearly err in ruling that a reasonable fear of retaliation made the grievance system effectively unavailable for plaintiffs because they reasonably believed that they would suffer additional physical force if they complained. Further, the trial court did not err in denying the defendants qualified immunity because abundant evidence was presented that the defendants inflicted severe injuries on the inmates while they were not resisting, and even while they were unconscious. The force used included multiple activations of Tasers. An award of attorneys’ fees of $5,378,174.66 was upheld. The attorneys; fees limitations of the Prison Litigation Reform Act were not applied because of California state law claims. $740,000 in compensatory damages was awarded, along with $210,000 in punitive damages. Rodriguez v. County of Los Angeles, #13-56292, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 14186 (9th Cir.).
A federal appeals court upheld a trial court’s denial of a plaintiff arrestee’s motion for a new trial in a lawsuit claiming that a police officer used excessive force by slamming his head into the bars and wall of his holding cell. The trial court properly determined that the jury’s seemingly contradictory verdict (finding that excessive force was used but awarding no damages) “could be harmonized” and therefore the plaintiff was not entitled to an award of compensatory damages. In doing this, the trial court was not limited to the specific theories of the case presented by the parties to the lawsuit, but may adopt any reasonable view of the case that was consistent with the facts and the testimony. In this case, the jury's finding on causation of the plaintiff’s injuries was ambiguous and might have referred only to the de minimus (minimal) injuries that the plaintiff suffered while being forced into the holding cell. Ali v. Kipp, #16-4225, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 13263 (2nd Cir.).
A prisoner challenged a trial court’s dismissal of his lawsuit arising out of the incident that led to his disciplinary hearing as barred for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Heck v. Humphrey, #93-6188, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S. Ct. 2364 (1994), which as extended by Edwards v. Balisok, #95-1352, 520 U.S. 641 (1997) strips a district court of jurisdiction in a § 1983 suit brought by an imprisoned plaintiff “if ‘a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity’” of a punishment that “deprive[d] him of good-time credits,” also referred to as gain time. A federal appeals court vacated the judgment, ruling that the lawsuit was not barred by Heck. In this case, the plaintiff was punished and lost good time, but his 42 U.S.C. 1983 suit, if successful, would not necessarily imply that his punishment was invalid. The court explained that, because success in this section 1983 suit would not necessarily be “logically contradictory” with the underlying punishment, the suit was not barred by Heck. The essence of the prisoner’s claim was that an officer used excessive force against him, and that could be true even if the prisoner did lunge at the officer, which was the basis of his punishment, Dixon v. Pollock, #16-15040, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 10215 (11th Cir.).
As three correctional officers were preparing inmates to walk from the cell house to dinner, an inmate rushed out of his cell and attacked one of them. The other two officers took him to the ground, ordered him to “cuff up,” and claimed that he violently resisted. They denied striking him after he was restrained, but the inmate claimed that he was compliant and restrained in handcuffs when one of the officers used pepper spray on him. He also asserted that the officers then continued to beat him while he was restrained. His version of the incident was supported by his former cellmate and he stayed in the infirmary overnight with various cuts and bruises, a shoulder that appeared abnormal and complaints of pain. The next morning, the facility doctor sent him to a hospital, where another doctor treated his dislocated shoulder about 24 hours after the fight. A federal appeals court upheld dismissal of deliberate indifference claims against facility nurses because the plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) on claims against them. It also upheld trial court findings that the officers were more credible than the plaintiff and his witnesses and judgment in favor of all the remaining defendants. It was reasonable to infer from the officers’ testimony that the inmate sustained his injuries, including the facial injuries, when the officers tackled him and wrestled him into submission after he attacked them. Wilborn v. Ealey, #16-2106, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 2825 (7th Cir.).
Although there is no automatic right for a pro se prisoner to have a court recruit a lawyer for them, their request for counsel is entitled to careful consideration. In this case, the trial court abused its discretion in failing to recruit counsel for him. It found that he had made reasonable efforts to obtain counsel, and that he stated that he had only an eighth grade education and was heavily medicated with psychotropic drugs. The trial court did not address or specifically conclude that it disbelieved his explanation that another inmate helped him prepare the documents that it looked at as evidence of his ability to litigate his case himself. Concretely, he claimed that guards beat him and taunted him with racial slurs as punishment for filing grievances. These claims were dismissed by the trial court because these claims about the incident conflicted with his disciplinary record. The suit would not have been barred had he argued that the guards used more force than was reasonably necessary to subdue him, but he “plead[ed] himself out of court” by insisting that he did nothing to provoke the beating. An appointed lawyer may have been able to avoid this result. Robinson v. Scrogum, #16-3363, 2017 U.S. App. Lexis 24434 (7th Cir.).
Correctional officers were entitled to qualified
immunity on an excessive force claim brought on behalf of the estate of an
inmate who died. The prisoner was actively resisting the extraction procedure
by ignoring directives to lie down on his bunk and resisting the officers’
efforts to subdue him once they entered his cell, and their testimony about the
degree of his resistance was corroborated. Under the totality of these
circumstances, none of their actions, either singly or in combination, amounted
to an objectively unreasonable application of force. Genuine issues of fact,
however, remained on the question of whether they were deliberately indifferent
to his serious medical needs when they allegedly allowed him to scream, howl,
and bang against his cell door for eight hours without attempting to talk to
him or seek medical care for him. Ryan v. Armstrong, #16-1341, 850 F.3d 419
(8th Cir. 2017).
A federal appeals court
reinstated a prisoner’s claim that he was beaten by prison officers while he
was restrained in handcuffs and legs irons. There was a genuine issue of
material fact as to whether the officers’ use of force resulted in the unnecessary
and wanton infliction of pain or suffering. The court upheld the dismissal of a
claim against one officer for failure to intervene, however, as the prisoner
had failed to exhaust his available administrative remedies on that claim as
required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Manley
v. Rowley, #15-15320, 2017 U.S. App. Lexis
1590 (9th Cir.).
An Illinois prisoner claimed that while he was being transferred to a new
facility, officers subjected him to excessive force and failure to protect by
lifting him over their heads and throwing him, head first, into a van. He
claimed that this was their reaction to his request to be placed in a prison
where he had no known enemies. He also claimed that other prisoners were
allowed to refuse transfers on that basis. The officers disputed these claims.
A federal appeals court upheld a verdict for the officers. It rejected the
argument that he was entitled to a new trial because the trial court denied him
a continuance after his attorney withdrew on the eve of trial. It also denied
his request for an appointed lawyer as his past litigation experience and
submitted pleadings showed that he was competent to represent himself. Jackson
v. Willis, #14-3226, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 23282 (7th Cir.).
A jury awarded damages of $409,751 on federal and
state claims that correctional officers hit him, fracturing a portion of his
eye socket, choked him, and then left him in his cell without medical
attention. The trial court reduced the damages to $307,733.82 and also awarded
attorneys’ fees with 10% of the damage award to be applied to the fees.
Liability was upheld by a federal appeals court, rejecting arguments that
Illinois sovereign immunity applied to state-law claims against a state
employee who violates constitutional or statutory law. The court also ruled,
however, that under 42 U.S.C. 1997e(d) of the Prison
Litigation Reform Act, the attorney fee award must first be satisfied from up
to 25 percent of the damage award, and the district court did not have
discretion to reduce that maximum percentage. Murphy v. Smith, #15-3384, 2016
U.S. App. Lexis 22871 (7th Cir.).
A former jail detainee
sued four county detention officers, claiming that they beat him without
justification. A jury found one of the officer liable, awarding both $10,000 in
compensatory damages and $4,000 in punitive damages. A federal appeals court
held that the trial court did not err in concluding that he complied with the
Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. 1997(e)(a), exhaustion of
remedies requirement, Further sufficient evidence supported the jury's finding
that the officer was liable for excessive force. Since that was enough to
support the damages awarded, the appeals court did not have to address the
defendant officer's challenges to the jury's other findings of bystander
liability or state law assault. Cowart v. Erwin, #15-10404, 2016 U.S. App.
Lexis 16736 (5th Cir.).
An inmate sued a corrections officer for
excessive force over an altercation the two had engaged in about a decade ago.
A jury found that the officer had used excessive force but only awarded nominal
damages of $1 on the grounds that no injury had occurred. A federal appeals
court upheld this result. "By making the deprivation of such rights . . .
actionable for nominal damages without proof of actual injury, the law
recognizes the importance to organized society that those rights be scrupulously
observed; but at the same time, it remains true to the principle that
substantial damages should be awarded only to compensate actual injury,"
and there was alternative evidence that the plaintiff had hit his head on a
table, which was an accident the officer was not responsible for. Moore v.
Liszewski, #14-3244, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 17428 (7th Cir.).
A former inmate sued
several correctional officers and prison officials claiming that officers used
excessive force against him and then fabricated evidence, leading to his
prosecution and prolonged detention. Malicious prosecution claims were
improperly rejected on summary judgment. Actual malice could be inferred if the
plaintiff, as he claimed, was prosecuted without probable cause. The officers'
reports were improperly excluded from evidence when they were being offered to
show that the defendants submitted false reports to justify their use of force
and eny him a fair trial. Rentas v. Ruffin, #14-2475, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 4306
(2nd Cir.).
A man arrested for DUI was placed in a holding
cell at a police station and died there. Summary judgment in favor of the
defendants on claims for excessive force and denial of medical care was
improper. From the evidence, a reasonable jury could have concluded that the
injuries suffered by the arrestee were the result of excessive force in
transporting him to the holding cell, or it could disbelieve that. A trial was
required. Miranda-Rivera v. Toledo-Davila, #14-1535, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 2480
(1st Cir.).
On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court in Kingsley
v. Hendrickson, #14-6368, 2015 U.S. Lexis 4073, of a prisoner's claim for
alleged assault by officers, including the use of a Taser in the stun mode and
other force against a detainee, a federal appeals court vacated the district
court's judgment for the defendants and ordered a new trial, as the plaintiff
urged them to. Under the law as stated by the U.S. Supreme Court, the appeals
court reasoned, the plaintiff should prevail if he is able to show that the
officers acted in an unreasonable manner "without regard to their
subjective intent." "The evidence of record would have supported a
finding for him under that theory, but the jury was told that it also had to
find the officers had a proscribed intent. This last requirement increased,
significantly, his burden of proof. The error was not harmless." The
appeals court rejected the defendants' argument that they should be entitled to
qualified immunity since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision resolved a circuit
split on the law, altering the law on liability, and thus the standard adopted
was not "clearly established law" prior to the Supreme Court's
ruling. The appeals court noted that the Supreme Court's instructions to it did
not mention returning to the issue of qualified immunity. The appeals court
also stated that it did not think a qualified immunity defense was viable in
this case, as "the scope of the right in issue must be drawn more narrowly
than the right of a pretrial detainee to be free from excessive force during
his detention; instead, we must examine whether the law clearly established
that the use of a Taser on a non-resisting detainee, lying prone and handcuffed
behind his back, was constitutionally excessive." On that specific issue,
the appeals court believed, the law was clearly established at the time of the
incident, if the plaintiff was not resisting at the time the Taser was used.
Kingsley v. Hendrickson, #12-3639, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 15963 (7th Cir.).
A magistrate judge improperly dismissed a
prisoner's complaint of infliction of cruel and unusual punishment by a guard
at the screening stage under 28 .S.C. Sec. 195A before any response by the
defendants. The decision below stated that “standing alone, verbal harassment
of an inmate does not constitute a constitutional violation." Reversing, a
federal appeals court ruled that it was arbitrary to draw a categorical
distinction between physical and verbal harassment. Pain bad enough to amount
to cruel and unusual punishment can be psychological or physical. While most
verbal harassment does not rise to that level, some can. Before dismissing the
complaint, the magistrate should have considered asking the plaintiff inmate
for amplification and clarification. Beal v. Foster, #14-2489, 2015 U.S. App.
Lexis 17338 (7th Cir.).
A DUI arrestee was transported to a crowded jail where
he refused to enter a cell. An altercation ensued between him and a number of
officers. The trial court erroneously rejected a federal civil rights lawsuit
for excessive force on the basis that his resulting injuries were "de
minimis," as they included a concussion, scalp laceration, and bruising.
No prior case law found such injuries to be de minimis, and there was testimony
that three officers each beat or kicked him after he was handcuffed and subdued
on the cell floor. The appeals court also vacated the dismissal of one
officer's assault and battery counterclaim. Davis v. White, #14-1722, 2015 U.S.
App. Lexis 13045 (8th Cir.).
The U.S. Supreme Court has vacated and
remanded a federal appeals court decision rejecting liability for the use of a
Taser in the stun mode and other force against a detainee. In the case, a jail
detainee claimed that jailers used excessive force against him when they moved
him to a different cell after he refused orders to take down a yellow sheet of
paper covering the light in his cell. The prisoner refused to cooperate with
the move, lying face down on his bunk and refusing to get up. He was forcibly
removed and handcuffed and placed on a bunk. When the officers tried to remove
the handcuffs, he allegedly resisted, which he later denied. The officers then
allegedly smashed his head into the concrete bunk, which they later denied. A
Taser was then applied to the detainee's back in stun mode for five seconds. He
declined the attentions of a nurse. The trial court noted the case law that
held that it was reasonable to use force against an inmate who refused to
comply with orders but concluded that the issue in the case was "whether
[the] defendants' response to plaintiff's obstinance was reasonable under the
circumstances or whether it was excessive and was intended to cause [the]
plaintiff harm." The court also concluded that, because a jury could find
that the defendants had acted with malice, qualified immunity was not
available. Later, a jury returned a verdict for the defendants, which was
upheld on appeal. The Fourteenth Amendment governed the plaintiff's claims
as a pretrial detainee. The federal appeals court held that the jury was adequately
instructed on the elements of that claim. The jury instructions, the court
said, properly required them to find, in order to impose liability, that the
defendants knew that their use of force posed a risk of harm to the plaintiff,
but that they recklessly disregarded his safety. Kingsley v. Hendrickson,
#12-3639, 744 F.3d 443, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 3972, 2014 WL 806956 (7th Cir.
2014). In reversing by a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the
detainee only had to show that the force purposefully or knowingly used was
objectively unreasonable, as that standard adequately protected an officer who
acted in good faith. The jury instructions were erroneous because they
suggested that the jury should weigh the officers' subjective reasons for using
force, whether the officers actually intended to violate, or recklessly
disregarded the detainee's rights, and the issue of whether that error was
harmless would depend in part on the detailed specifics of the case. This
determination must be made from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the
scene, including what the officer knew at the time, and must account for the
"legitimate interests [stemming from the government's] need to manage the
facility in which the individual is detained," appropriately deferring to
"policies and practices that in th[e] judgment" of jail officials
"are needed to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain
institutional security." Kingsley v. Hendrickson, #14-6368, 192 L. Ed. 2d
416, 2015 U.S. Lexis 4073.
In a prisoner's lawsuit claiming that prison
guards used excessive force against him, a jury returned a verdict for the
defendants. A federal appeals court reversed and remanded for a new trial as
the trial judge had abused her discretion by allowing three prisoner witnesses
to refuse to answer the plaintiff's questions simply because they were
unwilling to testify, and failing to even explain, on the record, why she
believed that efforts to compel them to testify would have been futile.
Allowing witnesses to opt out of testifying deprived the plaintiff of a chance
to corroborate his version of the incident, and eyewitness testimony was
critical in doing so. The trial judge's error was not harmless as it could not
be said that it was more probable than not that the jury was unaffected by it.
When necessary and material witnesses refuse to testify, a trial judge must try
to encourage them to testify unless some constitutional, statutory, or
common-law rule bars the testimony, or, at a minimum, explain on the record why
she did not do so. Barnett v. Norman, #13-15234, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 5145 (9th
Cir.).
Corizon Health, a private medical firm which
services more than 345,000 inmates in 27 states, along with a California
county, reached a settlement in a lawsuit based on the death of a man detained
in the county jail for failing to appear in court on a warrant for drunken
driving after being arrested for jaywalking. The decedent's family claimed that
the firm's employees failed to properly diagnose the detainee, who was
suffering from alcohol withdrawal (delirium tremens with hallucinations) and
had allegedly been beaten by 10 deputies at the jail, as well as shocked with a
Taser in the dart mode, first for two cycles or ten seconds, and then for at
least 27 more seconds in five separate sessions. The lawsuit further claims
that the detainee should have been hospitalized for the alcohol withdrawal. The
defendants agreed to pay $8.3 million to the family. The private medical firm
also agreed to stop using licensed vocational nurses to perform work intended
for registered nurses, a practice that allegedly had saved the company 35% in
labor costs. An unsupervised licensed vocational nurse, instead of an RN, did
the medical screening of the decedent when he was placed in custody at the
jail. The county sheriff stated that the decedent had, before his death,
attacked jail officers, after acting erratically, making a mess of his cell,
breaking food trays, screaming, and blocking a toilet. The county previously
entered into a separate $1 million settlement with one of the deceased
detainee's minor children. Harrison v. Alameda County and Corizon Health Care,
Inc., #3:11-cv-02868, U.S. Dist. Ct., (N.D. Cal. February 27, 2015). Prior
decisions in the case are M.H. v. County of Alameda, #11-cv-02868, 2012 U.S.
Dist. Lexis 6412 (N.D. Cal.), and M.H. v. County of Alameda, #11-cv-02868, 2013
U.S. Dist. Lexis 55902 (N.D. Cal.).
When an inmate did not comply with an officer's
orders to back up to a cell door to be placed in restraints, the officer
sprayed a chemical agent into the cell, subsequently issuing the prisoner a
major misconduct ticket. Overturning qualified immunity for the officer in an
excessive force lawsuit, a federal appeals court ruled that there was a genuine
factual issue of whether, as the prisoner claimed, he was sleeping and covered
from head to toe in his blanket at the time the chemical agent was sprayed into
the cell. If the facts were as the prisoner alleged, rather than as the officer
stated, then the use of force would have violated clearly established law.
Roberson v. Torres, #13-1405, 770 F.3d 398 (6th Cir. 2014).
In a prisoner's lawsuit claiming that
correctional officers used excessive force in restraining him, a federal
appeals court reversed a grant of summary judgment on claims against one
officer, as he had exhausted available administrative remedies against that
defendant. The law did not require the jury instruction given that it was
established that he had resisted the officers (because he was found guilty of
resisting in a disciplinary hearing), and the plaintiff was prejudiced on his
claims that were tried by the instruction given, so the judgment based on a
jury verdict for the remaining defendants was vacated. Wilkerson v. Wheeler, #11-17911,
2014 U.S. App. Lexis 21809 (9th Cir.).
A prisoner sued four prison officials over an incident
in which a correctional officer allegedly assaulted him, causing him physical
injuries. During a trial of the case, a juror fell asleep off-and-on for two
hours. The jury retuned a verdict for the defendants, and a motion for a new
trial based on the sleeping juror was denied. A federal appeals court upheld
this result, noting that the plaintiff had been aware of the juror's purported
misconduct, and had declined to object to her retention on the jury at the time
when the magistrate judge informed the parties, after interviewing the juror,
that he would not dismiss her from the jury. Cummings v. Dept. of Corrections,
#11-13507, 757 F.3d 1228 (11th Cir. 2014).
The city of New York has reached a $2.75 million
settlement with the family of a Rikers Island inmate who allegedly died from
blunt force trauma to the head. The family's lawsuit claimed that the inmate
had been kicked in the face and chest by one correction officer while being
pinned down by two other officers. The medical examiner's office ruled the
death a homicide. The prisoner suffered from kidney problems, required
dialysis, and walked with a cane. He had filed a lawsuit over his medical treatment
and the family claimed that officers had grown impatient with his persistent
requests for medical treatment and punished him by beating him to death. The
city did not admit fault in reaching the settlement. $916,575 of the settlement
will be paid as fees to the plaintiffs' attorneys, along with $22,796.43 in
costs. Daniels v. City of New York, #13-Civ.-6286, U.S. Dis. Ct. (S.D.N.Y. Aug.
7, 2014).
The widow of a detainee at a county jail claimed
that officers used excessive force while extracting him from his cell, which
resulted in his asphyxiation and death, and that some defendants acted with
deliberate indifference to his medical needs during the incident. The appeals
court, overturning summary judgment for the defendants, found that there were
genuine issues of material fact from which a jury could conclude that excessive
force was used. Further proceedings were needed to consider whether individual
defendants should face trial on either direct liability for use of force or on
a bystander liability theory. The appeals court upheld summary judgment for the
individual defendants on the claim concerning deliberate indifference to
serious medical needs and for the municipality on an inadequate training claim.
Kitchen v. Dallas County Texas, #13-10545 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 13699 (5th
Cir.).
A prisoner's claim that a deputy slammed him,
while handcuffed and restrained, headfirst into a concrete wall, if true, was
sufficient to allow a reasonable jury to conclude that the deputy inflicted
serious pain upon him with sadistic and malicious intent. Any reasonable jail
employee would know that the conduct claimed violated the Eighth Amendment, so
qualified immunity was not appropriate. A videotape of the incident did not
contradict the prisoner's allegations. Cordell v. McKinney, #13-4203, 2014 U.S.
App. Lexis 13500, 2014 Fed. App. 155P (6th Cir.).
A Vietnam veteran who suffers from posttraumatic
stress, chronic back pain, and pain in his knees was arrested for delivering a
controlled substance; he was taken to a county detention facility. He claimed
to have told personnel there about all of his medical problems, but they said
he told them only of his back pain. When he complained later about pain,
demanding to be taken to a hospital, he allegedly kicked out and hit a
correctional officer. He was told he had to get up from his bunk or a Taser
would be used on him. He stated that he could not do so because of his pain. A
Taser was fired at him in the dart mode and activated twice. The second time,
he claimed, he accidently kicked the officer. A federal appeals court found
that the first use of the Taser was reasonable, based on the fact that the
officer could have believed that the detainee's kick was intentional, but as to
the second use of the Taser, a jury could find that the detainee was then
nonviolent and that an objectively reasonable officer would not use a Taser to
induce compliance at that point, as such methods "cannot be used as a
first resort to induce compliance of a nonviolent inmate in routine
circumstances." This, the appeals court held, was clearly established law
at the time of the incident, so qualified immunity did not apply. The appeals
court also upheld the trial court's denial of qualified immunity on a failure
to intervene claim concerning another officer who was present. Smith v.
Conway County, #13-3095, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 13516 (8th Cir.).
A former lieutenant at the Roxbury Correctional
Institution (RCI) in Hagerstown, Maryland, was sentenced by a federal court to 36
months in prison for obstruction of justice in connection with his involvement
in a series of assaults against an inmate at the facility. He pleaded guilty to
a charge of destruction of records. According to court documents filed in
connection with his guilty plea, he acknowledged that he intentionally used a
magnetic device to erase incriminating surveillance video footage related to
the officers' assaults of the inmate. Officers from three different shifts
assaulted Davis in March 2008, in retaliation for a prior incident in which he
struck an officer. To date, 16 current or former officers at the facility were
convicted in connection with the series of assaults that the prisoner suffered
on March 8 through 9, 2008. One former officer still awaits sentencing. U.S. v.
Stigile, #1:13-cr-00084, U.S. Dist. Ct. (D. Maryland).
A prisoner claimed that his Eighth Amendment
rights were violated when a sergeant pepper-sprayed him because he refused to
return to his cell after showering. He further claimed that another officer
then turned off the water, which prevented him from rinsing off the pepper
spray for ten to fifteen minutes. A federal appeals court upheld summary
judgment for the defendant on the excessive force claim, noting that the
prisoner had been warned that he would be pepper sprayed if he did not comply
with orders, and that he either threw an object at or spit at the sergeant
three times, with a small quantity of pepper spray used after each act of
defiance. There was no indication of a malicious intent to harm or that the
force used was excessive. The other officer was entitled to qualified immunity
on the delayed decontamination claim, as the prisoner failed to establish that
he acted with deliberate indifference to a serious medical need. Burns v.
Eaton, #13-1730, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 9596 (8th Cir.).
A man arrested on a warrant for failing to appear in court on a drug charge
died in custody during booking. A number of officers restrained him when he
allegedly acted in an insubordinate manner, pinning him face-down to the ground
while one put him in a carotid restraint and another used a Taser on him in the
stun mode on his leg for eight seconds after he was handcuffed. The appeals
court upheld the trial court's denial of the defendants' motion for summary
judgment on the basis of qualified immunity on both excessive force and denial
of medical care claims. There was evidence that, viewed in the light most
favorable to the plaintiff, showed that the officers used various types of
force on the arrestee while he was handcuffed, not resisting, and on his
stomach. Estate of Booker v. Gomez, #12-1496, 745 F.3d 405 (10th Cir. 2014).
During a disturbance by other detainees,
detainees in one cell pod placed a blanket under their door to prevent water
coming from a stopped up toilet in the area of the disturbance from entering
their cell. They were allegedly lying submissively on the ground. Entering,
officers allegedly used excessive force against them, including throwing a
flash-bang grenade into the pod, which detonated near a detainee's face,
burning him and causing permanent hearing damage. Other detainees in the pod
were allegedly kicked in the face or ribs, shot with bean-bag guns, or
handcuffed and dragged to where they had to lay in the standing water. At no
time, according to the lawsuit, did these detainees resist or act aggressively.
The sheriff was entitled to qualified immunity, as he was not at the detention
center, used no excessive force himself, and had no opportunity to intervene to
prevent others from using excessive force. Officers who allegedly used
excessive force, however, were not entitled to qualified immunity, nor were
other officers who were present but allegedly did not intervene to protect the
plaintiffs. Edwards v. Byrd, #13-1560, (2014 U.S. App. Lexis 7670 8th Cir.).
A federal jury awarded a total of $451,000 in
damages to a man serving a life sentence for murdering seven employees of a
Brown's Chicken restaurant. The award was based on his claim that a county jail
deputy beat him in 2002 a few hours after he was placed in a maximum security
wing at the jail. The beating left him with facial fractures requiring surgery
during which two metal plates were inserted into his face. The deputy was
subsequently fired. The deputy claimed that the beating was in self-defense and
he was acquitted of battery charges. The award consisted of $225,000 in
compensatory damages on the excessive force claim, and $226,000 in punitive
damages. Degorski v. Wilson, #1:04-cv-03367, (N.D. Ill., March 7, 2014).
A jail detainee claimed that jailers used
excessive force against him when they moved him to a different cell after he
refused orders to take down a yellow sheet of paper covering the light in his
cell. The prisoner refused to cooperate with the move, lying face down on his
bunk and refusing to get up. He was forcibly removed and handcuffed and placed
on a bunk. When the officers tried to remove the handcuffs, he allegedly
resisted, which he later denied. The officers then allegedly smashed his head
into the concrete bunk, which they later denied. A Taser was then applied to
the detainee's back in stun mode for five seconds. He declined the attentions
of a nurse. The trial court noted the case law that held that it was reasonable
to use force against an inmate who refused to comply with orders but concluded
that the issue in the case was "whether [the] defendants' response to
plaintiff's obstinance was reasonable under the circumstances or whether it was
excessive and was intended to cause [the] plaintiff harm." The court also
concluded that, because a jury could find that the defendants had acted with
malice, qualified immunity was not available. The jury returned a verdict
for the defendants, which was upheld on appeal. The Fourteenth Amendment
governed the plaintiff's claims as a pretrial detainee. The jury was adequately
instructed on the elements of that claim. The jury instructions properly
required them to find, in order to impose liability, that the defendants knew
that their use of force posed a risk of harm to the plaintiff, but that they
recklessly disregarded his safety. Kingsley v. Hendrickson, #12-3639, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis
3972 (7th Cir.).
In a prisoner's lawsuit claiming that
correctional officers used excessive force against him, federal rules of
evidence barred the admission of his no contest (nolo contendere) on a charge
of assault arising out of the same incident. The erroneous admission was not
harmless, requiring further proceeding, when the plea could be used to assess
his credibility when his trial testimony was at odds with that plea. A new
trial was ordered. Sharif v. Picone, #12-4468, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 1084 (3rd
Cir.).
A man was taken to a county corrections center on
charges of assaulting a peace officer. He was later adjudicated not guilty by
reason of insanity, but remained in a detention facility while awaiting
placement elsewhere. He later had a seizure in his cell. Because of his prior
assaultive behavior, it was decided that measures should be taken to control
him upon entering his cell to take him to get medical attention. He did not
respond to requests to submit to handcuffing. When one wrist was cuffed and he
kept struggling, he was warned that a Taser would be used on him if he failed
to submit. A Taser was used against him in the dart mode once and he put his
hands up as if surrendering, saying "Okay, Okay, Okay." But he
continued to resist, so the Taser was activated again and he ceased resisting
and was handcuffed. Later in a hospital emergency room, he attacked a deputy
with his hands raised and fists clenched and a Taser was used on him again in
the dart mode. A federal appeals court rejected a Fourteenth Amendment
excessive force claim. A video recording of the incident at the detention facility
showed that the deputies repeatedly attempted to handcuff the plaintiff before
finally resorting to the Taser after warning him. His thrashing round with a
loose handcuff put them in danger. The deputies had no constitutional
obligation to exhaust every possible alternative solution before using a Taser
under such circumstances. The excessive force claim at the hospital failed too
as the plaintiff, although restrained by leg irons, lunged towards the deputy
with his hands raised. The deputy lacked time to deliberate what to do and
there was no indication that he acted with any sadistic or malicious intent.
Shreve v. Franklin County, Ohio, #13-3119, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 2225, 2014 Fed
App. 0028P (6th Cir.).
A prisoner claimed that three correctional
officers wearing masks sprayed him with a mixture of vinegar, machine oil, and
fecal matter. The federal appeals court overturned the dismissal of the
lawsuit, finding that the complaint plausibly alleged violations of
constitutional rights, that the alleged actions could not be regarded as a
"de minimus" use of force, and even if it was, it would have been
"repugnant to the conscience of mankind." Hogan v. Fischer, #12-4246,
2013 U.S. App. Lexis 25337 (2nd Cir.).
A prisoner engaged in a hunger strike to protest
what he claimed was unwarranted prison discipline was supposed to be placed in
a separate cell after missing three meals. He claimed that two prison employees
put him in an isolated cell, holding him down while two others retaliated against
him for his hunger strike and a previous grievance he had filed against an
officer by punching him in the stomach. He sued, acting as his own lawyer, and
the defendants denied that any assault took place. The plaintiff was sent back
to prison to wait for the jury's verdict rather than keeping him at the
courthouse. A verdict for the defendants was returned, but the prisoner was not
immediately notified. A federal appeals court ruled that the plaintiff's total
exclusion from the courtroom when the jurors returned had denied him the right
to poll the jury, which might have made a difference. Even without it, a juror
said that they were convinced that the defendants had been involved in what
happened to the plaintiff but that they could not find the defendants liable
because of a lack of evidence. Verser v. Corr. Officer Robinson, #11-2091, 2013
U.S. App. Lexis 25322 (7th Cir.).
A DUI arrestee resisted, resulting in arresting
officers carrying out a takedown from which he did not suffer any apparent
injuries. At the jail, it was disputed whether or not he continued to be
noncompliant when personnel there attempted to search him, and they too carried
out a takedown. He woke up late, he claimed, with facial and head pain and a
broken tooth. Despite that, he filled out a medical screening form indicating
no medical or physical conditions that the jail should be aware of. After
release, CT scans at a hospital showed fractures requiring surgery. While the
trial court dismissed excessive force, failure to intervene, and deliberate
indifference claims and found the defendants entitled to qualified immunity, a
federal appeals court reversed based on disputed material facts. It also noted
that the right to be free from excessive force during booking, based on the facts
as alleged by the plaintiff, was clearly established. Further proceedings were
also ordered on assault, battery, negligence, emotional distress, and loss of
consortium claims as well as a spoilation of evidence claim. Burgess v.
Fischer, #12-4191, (4th Cir.).
In Wilkins v. Gaddy, #08-10914, 559 U.S. 34
(2010), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the argument that a prisoner, to impose
liability on a correctional officer for excessive use of force, must show more
than a "de minimus" (minimal) injury. On remand, the prisoner was
awarded $0.99 in damages by the jury, which was rounded up to $1. The trial
court awarded attorneys' fees limited to $1.40, based on the limit of
attorneys' fees in the Prison Litigation Reform Act of no more than 150% of the
money damages awarded, rather than the over $92,000 in attorneys' fees
requested. A federal appeals court has rejected an argument that this
limitation on attorneys' fees was unconstitutional. The court applied rational
basis scrutiny and that Congress could have believed that this limit would help
deter frivolous, marginal and trivial claims. Wilkins v. Gaddy, #12-8148, 2013
U.S. App. Lexis 22389 (4th Cir.).
A prisoner claimed that a correctional officer
used excessive force against him, assaulting him for approximately two minutes
and knocking his head against a gate before moving him to a holding cell. A
federal appeals court held that the officer was entitled to qualified immunity
because the prisoner suffered no more than de minimus (minimal) injuries, if
that, and combined with the lack of extraordinary circumstances, this did not
violate any clearly established Eighth Amendment right in the Fourth Circuit in
2007, the date of the incident. Hill v. Crum, #12-6705, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis
16848 (4th Cir.). Editor's Note: The requirement of more than de minimus
injury was rejected after the date of this incident by the U.S. Supreme Court
in Wilkins v. Gaddy, #08-10914, 130 S, Ct. 1175 (2010).
A paraplegic prisoner confined to a wheelchair
sued, asserting claims for 14 alleged incidents of excessive force against him,
denial of needed medical treatment, and the confiscation of his wheelchair,
which was then replaced with one that lacked needed leg rests. He claimed that,
with the supplied wheelchair, he was unable to shower or brush his teeth and
sometimes was left lying in his own excrement for day. A federal appeals court
upheld the dismissal of most of these claims for failure to exhaust
administrative remedies by filing and pursuing grievances, as required by the
Prison Litigation Reform Act. The trial judge was entitled to make a factual
determination without the participation of a jury that the plaintiff was aware
of the prison's grievance procedure and was able to access it. The appeals
court found, however, that the prisoner did adequately exhaust administrative
remedies as to two specific incidents. While he did not appeal his grievances
concerning those two incidents, no appeal was available because no actual
decision on the grievances concerning those incidents was received. Small v. Whittick, #11-2378, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 17739 (3rd
Cir.).
An inmate sought money damages and injunctive
relief, claiming that a two-year suspension of his visiting privileges after he
was suspected of receiving contraband (marijuana) during a visit violated his
First Amendment right of association, his Fourteenth Amendment procedural due
process rights, and his Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual
punishment. His claim for injunctive relief was moot as his visitation rights
had already been restored. The warden was entitled to qualified immunity on
money damages claims since his actions had not violated any clearly established
right to visitation. The suspension of privileges was not arbitrary, and it was
believed that he swallowed the drugs given to him by the visitor. No error was
shown invalidating a jury verdict in favor of a guard on an excessive force
claim. Williams v. Ozmint, #11-6940, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 9754 (4th Cir.).
A prisoner claimed he suffered injuries during a
fight with officers that occurred because he refused to exit his cell. By the
time he notified the prison of the incident and that a videotape
"probably" existed, the tapes were recorded over. Besides an
excessive force claim, he asserted a claim for spoiliation of evidence. The
prisoner was denied appointed counsel as he was sufficiently competent to
handle the straightforward claims himself. The prisoner lost at trial. A
federal appeals court affirmed, and ruled that the prisoner failed to show that
there was any duty to preserve the videotape, or that the recording was
destroyed in bad faith. Bracey v. Grondin, #12-1644, 712 F.3d 1012 (7th Cir.
2013).
An inmate got involved in a fight with officers
who were taking him to administrative segregation. The officers used pepper
spray on him, threw him on the floor and put leg restraints on him, and one of
them allegedly turned his left wrist upward in a sharp motion, dislocating it.
He claimed that the use of force had continued against him at a time when he
was not resisting. The court found that the officers were entitled to qualified
immunity on the excessive force claims, but not on the claim that one of them
acted with deliberate indifference in delaying allowing him to wash off the
pepper spray. Claims against one officer for alleged retaliatory death threats
were also allowed to go forward, Santiago v. Blair, #11-3693, 2012 U.S. App.
Lexis 26854 (8th Cir.).
A prisoner was entitled to receive vegetarian
meals on religious grounds. When an officer brought him a non-vegetarian
breakfast, he alleged put his fingertips on the open food port in his cell
door. He claimed that the officer them sprayed him with pepper spray with no
warning. His lawsuit claimed that the use of the spray was excessive force, and
that denying him a vegetarian meal violated his equal protection rights.
Qualified immunity was denied on the excessive force claim because it was not
clear from the officer's version of the incident that force was required or
that the prisoner posed a threat. The force used seem extensive and
disproportionate to the level of the disturbance created by the prisoner
putting his fingertips on the port. The court rejected his equal protection
claim as he was not treated any different than any other prison when an officer
did not know that he was supposed to receive a vegetarian meal. Furnace v.
Sullivan, #10-15961, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 1110 (9th Cir.).
A prisoner caused a commotion in his cell to
object to what he thought were unreasonable restrictions on exercise and
telephone use. Several officers entered the cell, and allowed the prisoner's
cellmate to leave. The prisoner was told to remain facing the wall, but turned
his head away from the wall to speak to an officer. A Taser was then fired in
the dart mode into the prisoner's body. The prisoner claimed that the officer
"tricked" him into turning his head so as to create an excuse to
discharge the Taser and that the officer then continued to apply the Taser to
him for an unreasonable length of time although he offered no resistance or
provocation. He also claimed that, when he was escorted to the prison
infirmary, he was intimidated into signing a form which refused medical
treatment for the injuries he allegedly received as a result of the Taser
application. The court found that the prisoner's claims were time barred by a
one year statute of limitations. While the statute of limitations was tolled
(extended) while the prisoner pursued an administrative grievance over the
incident, more than one year elapsed after the grievance was resolved before he
filed his lawsuit. A state court filing seeking judicial review of the
grievance did not extend the time for filing the lawsuit as it did not assert
his federal claim. Cook v. Lamont, # 11-00358, 2013 U.S. Dist. Lexis 11138
(M.D. La.).
A man had a seizure while walking near a corner.
He had previously suffered a traumatic brain injury that made him susceptible
to such seizures. He became aggressive when emergency medical personnel tried
to take him to the hospital, and assaulted an EMT. He was taken to a county
corrections center on charges of assaulting a peace officer. He was later
adjudicated not guilty by reason of insanity, but remained in a detention
facility while awaiting placement elsewhere. He later had another seizure in
his cell. Because of his prior assaultive behavior, it was decided that
measures should be taken to control him upon entering his cell to take him to
get medical attention. He did not respond to requests to submit to handcuffing.
When one wrist was cuffed and he kept struggling, he was warned that a Taser
would be used on him if he failed to submit. A Taser was used against him in
the dart mode once and he put his hands up as if surrendering, saying
"Okay, Okay, Okay." But he continued to resist, so the Taser was
activated again and he ceased resisting and was handcuffed. Later in a hospital
emergency room, he attacked a deputy with his hands raised and fists clenched
and a Taser was used on him again in the dart mode. The court found the
defendant officers entitled to qualified immunity on all uses of the Taser,
which they did not use with conscience-shocking malice of or sadism in either
the cell or the hospital incidents. While the evidence refuted the plaintiff's
claim that he had been handcuffed during the second use of the Taser against
him in his cell, even if he had been, his continued resistance made the use of
force against him justified. In the hospital incident, he was shackled to a bed,
but had the ability to move around the room and was trying to attack a deputy
when the Taser was used. Because the officers did not violate the plaintiff's
rights, claims against the county also failed. Shreve v. Franklin County, Ohio,
#2:10-cv-644, 2013 U.S. Dist. Lexis 992 (S.D. Ohio).
A prisoner claimed that a corrections officer
used excessive force against him in his cell by yanking his hands through a
slot in the cell door before removing his handcuffs. Before the lawsuit was
filed, there were color photos of the prisoner's injuries as well as stationary
video footage of the area where the alleged assault occurred, which were used
in an internal investigation. The prisoner asked the officer, during discovery,
to produce the photos and video footage but this evidence could not be located
by prison officials, and they must have been lost or destroyed. The prisoner
was not entitled to a jury instruction concerning making an adverse inference
against him because of this missing evidence. There was no indication that the
officer should be held responsible for the loss of this evidence or that he had
previously had possession of it so as to destroy it. The appeals court noted
that to require all defendants in situations like this officer "take affirmative
steps to ensure that their employing prison continues to maintain evidentiary
records for every incident with a prisoner would impose an added burden on
prison employees." Adkins v. Wolever, # 11–1656, 692 F.3d 499
(6th Cir. 2012).
The state of Nevada has reached a $450,000
settlement with the mother of an inmate who died in state prison. The board
that approved the award was told by the state that he died from an adverse
reaction to an administered anti-psychotic drug, even though his death certificate
labeled his death a homicide. The plaintiff's attorney claimed that the
prisoner "literally was strangled to death by the correctional
officers" who were holding him down to administer the medication. Johnson
v. Palmer, #2:11-cv-01604, U.S. District Court (D. Nev. Aug. 2012).
A correctional officer applied a "sleeper
hold" to a pre-trial detainee, restrained in handcuffs and shackles, who
continued to resist. The officer allegedly rendered the detainee unconscious
using the hold and failed to tell a nurse at the jail that he was
"gurgling," and then lying silent and motionless, and needed medical
attention. The officer was convicted of depriving the detainee of his rights
and of obstructing a federal investigation into the detainee's subsequent death
by falsifying documents. The evidence was sufficient to prove that the officer
used force to put the detainee into a position requiring medical attention, and
then acted with deliberate indifference towards his serious medical needs.
United States v. Gray, #11-3143, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 18528, 2012 Fed App.
0297P (6th Cir.).
A correctional officer applied a "sleeper
hold" to a pre-trial detainee, restrained in handcuffs and shackles, who
continued to resist. The officer allegedly rendered the detainee unconscious
using the hold and failed to tell a nurse at the jail that he was
"gurgling," and then lying silent and motionless, and needed medical
attention. The officer was convicted of depriving the detainee of his rights
and of obstructing a federal investigation into the detainee's subsequent death
by falsifying documents. The evidence was sufficient to prove that the officer
used force to put the detainee into a position requiring medical attention, and
then acted with deliberate indifference towards his serious medical needs.
United States v. Gray, #11-3143, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 18528, 2012 Fed App.
0297P (6th Cir.).
A prisoner not involved in a fight between two
other inmates claimed he struck in the arm by a shotgun pellet fired by a guard
was a nearby catwalk. He allegedly had to wait four days for medical attention,
suffering significant pain in the interim. Right after the incident, a medical
aide allegedly assured him that she would go and get medication and medical
supplies for him, but did not return with it. He asserted a valid claim for
excessive use of force, as there was sufficient evidence to support an
inference that an officer acted maliciously in using deadly force against
prisoners not involved in the fight. The delay in treatment supported a claim
for deliberate indifference to a serious medical need. Claims against one
officer concerning medical care were properly dismissed, as he summoned medical
assistance as soon as he became aware of the prisoner's injury. The prisoner also
stated a valid First Amendment claim, based on his assertion that he was
transferred to another facility in retaliation for threatening to bring a
grievance over the incident. Gomez v. Randle, #11-2962, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis
9656 (7th Cir.).
The trial court awarded $505,671.40 in attorneys'
fees and $24,549.94 in costs, ordering the plaintiff to pay $5,000 of the fee
award. The court ordered that all four defendants bee jointly and severally
liable for the remaining $500,671.40, to ensure that the attorneys' fees were
paid. This action was taken, in part, because the county indicated that it
might not indemnify the defendant against whom the largest award was made
because he was in prison and thought to be judgment-proof. An appeal of the
judgment on liability was affirmed, Jimenez v. Franklin, #07-56149, 333 Fed.
Appx. 299, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 21564 (Unpub. 9th Cir.) but that appeal did not
raise the issue of joint and several liability for the attorneys' fees. An
additional $41,830.10 in fees were awarded for that appeal, bringing the fee
award to $547,501.50, or 150% of the total damage award, the fee limit under
the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1997e(d)(2). The county did
not pay $225,000 of the attorneys' fee award. A federal appeals
court rejected an argument by the deputy found liable for $1 that he could not
be held jointly and severally liable for the unpaid fees because of the
statute's attorneys' fee cap of 150% of damages, as he had not raised the issue
in the earlier appeal. Jimenez v. Franklin, #10-56199, 2012 U.S. App.
Lexis 10260 (9th Cir.).
A guard bent the wrist of a prisoner who failed
to comply with a command to "get against the wall." He slammed the
prisoner against the wall when he still failed to cooperate. The prisoner sued,
claiming that his wrist was swollen, skinned, and red. The appeals court ruled
that the trial judge properly dismissed the lawsuit for failure to state a
claim. Any injury occurred while the guard was engaged in a good-faith effort
to maintain prison order. The appeals court disagreed with the trial court,
however, that the alleged minimal degree of injury alone would have been enough
to merit the dismissal, since a prisoner suing for the use of force need not
show a significant injury if the force was used in a sadistic or malicious
manner to cause pain. Custodians, the court commented, "must be able to
handle, sometimes mishandle, their charges, if a building crammed with
disgruntled people who disdain authority [] is to be manageable." Guitron
v. Paul, #11-2718, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 7132 (7th Cir.).
A prisoner's lawsuit claiming that prison
employees used excessive force in removing him from his cell, breaking his arm,
was properly dismissed for failure to properly exhaust available administrative
remedies. Prison rules required him to file an internal complaint over the
incident within 48 hours, which he did not do. The fact that he discussed his
injuries with prison personnel within 48 hours, or participated in a later
internal affairs investigation of the personnel involved in the incident did
not alter the result. Pavey v. Conley, #10-3878, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 23318
(7th Cir.).
Prisoners stuffed a toilet, causing flooding, as
well as breaking light, because they were angry over being denied time in the
jail yard. A jail administrator allegedly then pushed one of these prisoners
who refused to "catch the wall" when ordered to do so. The prisoner
filed a federal civil rights lawsuit for excessive use of force. A federal
appeals court upheld the trial judge's ruling for the defendant, finding that
it was reasonable for him to use some amount of force against the prisoner
under these circumstances for his own safety. The medical records did not
support the prisoner's claimed version of the events, as they were not
consistent with the defendant having beaten him with a flashlight. Story v.
Norwood, #10-3178, 659 F.3d 680 (8th Cir. 2011).
A prisoner claimed that guards beat him
with excessive force after he pulled at his restraints and attempted to grab as
food cart. He further claimed that he was denied adequate medical attention
after the incident. The trial court erroneously granted summary judgment to the
guards on the excessive force claim, as there was an unresolved factual dispute
as to whether the prisoner ceased resisting after he was taken to the floor,
and whether the beating continued after his resistance ceased. Claims
concerning his medical care lacked merit, however, as the record showed that
the prisoner received "extensive" treatment for his toe and neck
injuries. Alspaugh v. McConnell, #08-2330, 643 F.3d 162
(6th Cir. 2011), rehearing denied, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 14675 (6th
Cir.).
Prisoners who sued a county for alleged acts of
excessive force against them by correctional employees were entitled to a new
trial on their claims. The model jury instructions that the trial court gave
the jury on municipal liability and what constitutes an unconstitutional custom
or practice failed to adequately state that this could be proven "through
evidence that incidents of excessive force were not investigated and their
perpetrators were not disciplined." Hunter v. County of Sacramento,
#09-15288, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 15309 (9th Cir.).
Two former prisoners at a county jail claimed
that deputies, in separate incidents, used excessive force against them. A
federal appeals court held that the plaintiff prisoners were entitled to a new
trial on their claims against the county because the jury instructions did not
adequately define what a practice or custom was for purposes of imposing
municipal liability. The trial court should have included the plaintiffs'
proposed instructions relating to jail officials' alleged failure to
investigate incidents of excessive force and to take disciplinary action
against guards who used such force "despite the existence of an official
policy prohibiting the use of excessive force." Hunter v. County of
Sacramento, #09-15288, (9th Cir.).
A prisoner was assisting law enforcement in an
investigation into drug trafficking within a county prison. While in protective
custody for his own safety, he was found dead in his cell. While prison
authorities maintained that he committed suicide, the executors of his estate
filed a lawsuit claiming that he had been killed by prison guards because of
his cooperation with the investigation. A federal appeals court ruled that,
regardless of whether that was true, the plaintiffs could not establish
supervisory liability on the part of defendant prison officials, since they had
not alleged that they had any personal knowledge of threats to the prisoner and
acted with deliberate indifference to those threats. Dock v. Rush, #10-4458,
2011 U.S. App. Lexis 12877 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
Video recordings of two cell extractions showed
that correctional officers used only that force needed in light of the
prisoner's refusal to comply with orders, and that the prisoner was not
injured. His excessive force claim was therefore rejected. Adderly v. Ferrier,
#10-3636, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 4904 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
An arrestee who was uncooperative and refused to change
into a jail uniform failed to show that an officer used excessive force against
him during the booking procedure at a county detention facility. The detainee,
who was constantly yelling and cursing during the incident, complained that the
uniform trouser options were either the wrong size or a "displeasing"
color, The court below found the officers' version of the incident credible,
that the detainee jumped off the bench towards an officer, reasonably making
that officer fear that he was facing a threat to his safety, and justifying the
use of an arm-bar maneuver in defense. Hicks v. Norwood, #10-3218, 2011 U.S.
App. Lexis 10423 (8th Cir.).
A jury returned a verdict against a prisoner on
his claim that officers at a county jail had severely beat and injured him over
an extended period of time. Officers present at the time gave conflicting
testimony as to whether or not the plaintiff had swung at an officer, whether
he had been hit at all, and whether force had been properly used to restrain
him. A federal appeals court found that the trial court had applied the wrong
legal standard in denying the plaintiff's motion for a new trial, incorrectly
stating that it could not grant a new trial unless the evidence relied on by
the jury contradicted indisputable physicals facts or laws. Instead, the court
had the discretion to grant a new trial if it believed that the verdict was
against the manifest weight of the evidence. Further proceedings were ordered
using that legal standard. Mejia v. Cook County, Illinois, #09-3540, 2011 U.S.
App. Lexis 8316 (7th Cir.).
Despite a prisoner's claim that he could not
obtain the legal materials he needed to assert his claims about a beating by a
corrections officer and inadequate medical care for resulting injury, the
record showed that he was granted several extensions of time, but failed to
communicate with the court until the month after he obtained the materials in
question. Under these circumstances, the dismissal of his lawsuit for failure
to obtain service on defendant corrections officers was upheld. McGrew v.
McQueen, #09-30937, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 4852 (5th Cir.).
A Texas prisoner claimed that he was complying
with an officer's orders to face the wall and put his hands behind his back
when the officer repeatedly poked him in the face and left eye, causing him
momentary blindness and cuts and abrasions around his eye, and eventually
causing the eye to become infected, swollen, and discolored. The appeals court
upheld summary judgment for the officer on the basis of qualified immunity as
the plaintiff prisoner had not presented sufficient evidence that his injuries
were objectively "harmful enough" to amount to a constitutional
violation. Mosley v. White, #09-41091, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 25398 (Unpub. 5th
Cir.).
A Texas prisoner presented claims of excessive
force against two officers that were "plausible." He alleged that
after he refused to remove his arm from a cell food slot when he was denied a
meal that they threatened him with a beating and threatened to break his arm.
After he withdrew his arm, they allegedly returned with a team who sprayed a
chemical agent into his cell. He again thrust his arm through the slot, and one
officer allegedly used excessive force, twisting and snapping his finger,
causing it to break. The court found that, if the facts were as alleged, there
was no showing that the use of the chemical spray was necessary, or that it was
justified to allegedly intentionally break his finger. Dismissal of the
lawsuit, therefore, was premature. Moss v. Brown, #10-10207, 2010 U.S. App.
Lexis 25570 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
An officer used force in a good-faith attempt to
restore discipline, rather than sadistically and maliciously in responding to
an inmate who used profanity and provoked a verbal altercation. The two men
bumped chests, and the officer bent the prisoner over a table and punched him
in the nose when he continued to resist as other inmates started to circle
around. The officer required the assistance of a co-worker to subdue the
prisoner. The officer was aware of the prisoner's nosebleed, but did not
believe that it was a serious medical condition requiring immediate treatment.
McClyde v. Jackson, #10-20139, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 26076 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
An African-American Muslim prisoner was
told by one correctional officer that he could not enter a gym carrying the two
books he was holding, a Quran and a book on the basics of Islam. As he walked
back towards his housing unit to return the books, another officer allegedly
knocked the books out of his hand, slammed him to the ground, and handcuffed
him. The first officer filed misconduct charges against the prisoner, asserting
that he disobeyed orders to stop walking away, which was why the second officer
responded with force. As a punishment, the prisoner had to spend time in a
restricted housing unit. A federal appeals court rejected the prisoner's claim
that the second officer subjected him to racial and religious discrimination,
and used excessive force against him. Rejecting these claims, the court noted
that the second officer had not been in a position to see what books it was the
prisoner was carrying, and that there was no indication of racial or religious
animosity in his actions. The force used was minimal, and only caused
abrasions. Washam v. Klopotoski, #10-3291, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 25272 (Unpub.
3rd Cir.).
A woman detained at a county jail following a domestic
disturbance became involved in an altercation with a female deputy. After other
officers aided this deputy in restraining the detainee and she remained
restrained on the floor, the deputy allegedly grabbed her head and slammed it
to the floor seven to eight times, causing cuts and bruises on her face and
leaving a pool of blood on the floor. Upholding a denial of summary judgment
for the deputy on an excessive force claim, a federal appeals court ruled that
this conduct, if true, was force obviously beyond what the law would allow.
Summary judgment was granted, however, on a claim of deliberate indifference to
serious medical needs arising from the incident. Pourmoghani-Esfahani v. Gee,
#10-10020, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 23205 (11th Cir.).
In an excessive force lawsuit brought by a
disorderly conduct detainee claiming that a correctional officer at a county
jail beat him until he sustained a lasting brain injury, the appeals court held
that no reasonable jury could find for the plaintiff when he conceded that he
had no memory of being beaten by anyone at anytime relevant to the lawsuit.
Harriman v. Hancock County, #09-2284, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 24838 (1st Cir.).
A Texas inmate claimed that his constitutional
rights were violated when an officer ordered him to walk down stairs while
handcuffed and wearing wet shower shoes. The officer allegedly used excessive
force and verbal threats against him. Upholding the dismissal of the lawsuit, a
federal appeals court found that the officer's alleged conduct, if true, might be
negligent, but did not demonstrate a deliberate indifference to a serious risk
of harm to the prisoner. He did not claim that the officer pushed him or
otherwise physically forced him down the stairs, or used excessive force in
handcuffing him. And "mere threatening language does not amount to a
constitutional violation, giving rise to liability." Widner v. Aguilar,
#10-10205, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 22286 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
An excessive force claim filed by a federal
immigration detainee held in a county jail presented two legal issues,
according to a federal appeals court: "What provision of the Constitution
should this court use to analyze a federal immigration detainee's claim of
excessive force? And does a county's failure to adopt a prophylactic policy
with a standard of care higher than what the Constitution requires suffice, by
itself, to suggest deliberate indifference to the Constitution's protections
against excessive force?" The court concluded that due process, rather
than the Fourth or Eighth Amendment, provided the proper legal standard to
analyze such an excessive force claim by immigration detainees who did not
challenge the lawfulness of their detention, and that, in order to create a
triable issue of fact on the use of excessive force in such a case, the
detainee must do more than show that the county failed to adopt the "most
protective possible policy" against the application of force. The detainee
was removed from his cell and placed in a restraint chair after becoming disruptive
in his cell. A member of the certified emergency response team
("CERT") dealing with him then allegedly proceeded to taser him
"at least three times" while he was restrained. The trial court found
this use of force excessive, and awarded the detainee $100,000 in damages
against the officer who used the taser against him. Summary judgment was
granted, however, to the county, on the basis that all the evidence suggested
that the tasering was no "more than a random act or isolated event which
occurred outside of the policies and procedures implemented by" the county
sheriff. The award against the individual officer was not appealed. Applying
the due process standard, the appeals court rejected the claim that the
officer's supervisor, who had not himself been personally involved in the use
of force, should also be held individually liable. It also rejected claims that
the supervisor or sheriff, in their official capacities, should be liable for
failure to adequately train CERT team members. "The undisputed facts show
that the county trained jailers to use tasers only if and when an inmate should
become violent, combative, and pose a direct threat to the security of staff.
The record also shows that" the officer knew he was acting in defiance of
this policy when he tasered the detainee. Far from exhibiting deliberate
indifference to the detainee's due process rights against the use of excessive
force or causing his injury -- "the county actively sought to protect
those rights" and it was only the officer's improper actions, taken in
defiance of county policy, that caused the detainee's injuries. The
appeals court rejected the argument that the county's "failure to
enforce a prophylactic policy imposing a standard of care well in excess of
what due process requires," banning the use of a taser on an immigration
detainee, was "enough by itself to create a triable question over whether
county officials were deliberately indifferent to the Constitution." Porro
v. Barnes, No. 10-6002 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 2324 (10th Cir.).
A federal appeals court ruled that a prisoner asserting
a claim for excessive use of force failed to show that prison guards acted
"maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing him
harm" when using pepper spray on him after he repeatedly refused to comply
with orders to cease holding his blanket up to his cell door. Horne v.
Rutledge, #09-17378, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 20564 (Unpub. 9th Cir.).
In a prisoner's lawsuit claiming that a
correctional officer used excessive force against him, the defendant officer
could not be awarded qualified immunity when his motion was based on
assumptions of disputed fact contrary to those alleged by the prisoner. The
prisoner claimed that the officer, during a dispute, ordered him to roll over
onto his stomach while he was laying on the ground, but that before he could
comply, the officer tased him in his genital area, causing him to pass out and
wake up in a wheelchair, and causing incontinence, impotence, nerve damage, and
a need for extensive psychological treatment. He claimed he was posing no
threat to the officer at the time. The officer contended that the inmate was
agitated and that his "angry behavior continued unabated" so that it
was safer to use the Taser than have to wrestle with him on the hard concrete
ground of the cell. Mahamed v. Anderson, #09-2030, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 15767
(Unpub. 8th Cir.).
Ten mentally ill or "otherwise
vulnerable" inmates claimed that the use of chemical agents against them
constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The prisoners settled their claims
against the individual officers, and the court later entered judgment in favor
of two of the remaining plaintiffs on claims that repeated sprayings of such
inmates under a use of force policy violated the Eighth Amendment. Upholding an
award for these plaintiffs, a federal appeals court ruled that the defendants
had waived any challenge they might have had to the application of a
"deliberate indifference" rather than stricter legal standard, that a
deceased inmate could still be a prevailing plaintiff entitled to an award of
attorneys' fees despite his death rendering moot any injunctive relief about
him being further sprayed, and that the trial court did not clearly err in
finding that a plaintiff had suffered psychological injury from being subjected
to the spray. An injunction was upheld against the "non-spontaneous"
use of chemical agents on the one remaining plaintiff without consultation with
the correctional department's trained mental health staff. Thomas v. Bryant,
#09-11658, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 17419 (11th Cir.).
The issue before the appeals court was whether
the Fourth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment applied to claims of excessive
force against four corrections officers asserted by a pretrial detainee in the
process of being booked, but no longer in the custody of the arresting officer
who arrested him without a warrant. He claimed that he was improperly beaten
and repeatedly tased while being held in the booking room prior to his photo
being taken and before he had a probable cause hearing. The court ruled that
the Fourth Amendment protects pre-trial detainees arrested without a warrant
through the completion of their probable-cause hearings. The trial court,
therefore, acted in error in applying a Fourteenth Amendment legal standard,
and further proceedings were ordered as to claims against three of the
officers. The error was harmless, however, as to claims against a fourth
officer, as the trial court, applying the Fourteenth Amendment standard, found that
he was not entitled to qualified immunity. Any violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment excessive force standard, the court commented, would necessarily also
violate the Fourth Amendment. Aldini v. Johnson, #09-3183, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis
13207 (6th Cir.).
A correctional officer used no more force than
necessary against an inmate who kicked his cell door, yelled profanity, refused
orders to stop, and threw some object from his bed at the officer. The use of a
short burst of pepper spray against the prisoner was not excessive under the
circumstances. Easley v. Dept. of Rehabilitation and Correction, #2009-05277,
2010 Ohio Misc. Lexis 110 (Ct. of Claims).
A correctional officer was entitled to summary
judgment in a prisoner's excessive force lawsuit when no reasonable jury could
conclude that the officer had acted with "such wantonness as is tantamount
to a knowing willingness" that she should suffer injuries. The court
rejected both a federal civil rights excessive force claim and a state law
battery claim. Griffin v. Hardrick, #09-5757, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 9752 (6th
Cir.).
While trying to remove an detainee to a padded
cell because he was suffering from delirium tremens (DTs) caused by alcohol
withdrawal, a deputy allegedly took him to a concrete floor headfirst. A
federal appeals court ruled that there was no evidence that the deputy acted in
a malicious, wanton, or sadistic manner. The detainee did not cooperate with
attempts to handcuff him, and the floor was covered by mats. During the takedown,
the mats apparently shifted, causing the detainee's head to hit the floor. The
plaintiff could proceed, however, with a claim that the deputy then acted with
deliberate indifference to the detainee's serious need for medical care for his
injuries, which resulted in his death. Scarbro v. New Hanover County, #08-1644,
2010 U.S. App. Lexis 6782 (Unpub. 4th Cir.).
A detainee claimed that excessive force was used
in placing him in solitary confinement. A federal appeals court ordered that
the prisoner should be appointed a lawyer to present argument as to whether, at
the time, he had been a pretrial detainee. If he had, the court noted, he could
not be subjected to segregation or other heightened restraints under 2nd
Circuit precedents if no pre-deprivation hearing was held to determine whether
he had violated any rule, since pre-trial detainees cannot otherwise be
punished. In this case, there was no evidence in the record that the plaintiff
violated any rule or that he was provided with a pre-deprivation hearing. His
claim that he was placed in solitary confinement and subjected to excessive
force had "merit sufficient to warrant appointment of counsel."
Johnston v. Maha, #08-6048, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 10373 (2nd Cir.).
Force used at an Ohio prison against a prisoner
occurred in the context of a dangerous fight between prisoners and staff
members at a maximum security prison. While the plaintiff prisoner tried to
"minimize" his role in the fight, he admitted to disobeying direct
orders to return to his cell and arguing with officers. There was less
credibility to the prisoner's version of the incident than to the version told
by two officers. The force used was justified by the prisoner's aggressive
actions and only force necessary under the circumstances was used. Moore v.
Ohio State Penitentiary, #2007-09658, 2010 Ohio Misc. Lexis 25 (Ct. of Claims).
The trial court acted erroneously in granting a
correctional officer summary judgment on a prisoner's excessive force claim
when the record indicated that she engaged in a calculated attempt to use a
moderate amount of force in a manner that threatened the use of significantly
greater force, and that, if the facts were as the prisoner claimed, the force
was used for the sole purpose of humiliating him rather than for any proper
purpose. The officer allegedly used a weapon, a rubber headed hammer, pressing
it against the prisoner's head in the crowded prison corridor in a manner that
bent his head halfway backwards, which was not a minimal use of force. Abreu v.
Nicholls, #08-3567, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 4407 (Unpub. 2nd Cir.).
A jail detainee claimed that deputies used
excessive force against him, subjecting him to repeated Taser shocks and also
shooting him twice with beanbag rounds from a shotgun. The defendants were not
entitled to qualified immunity when they allegedly did this while he was
already on his knees, holding his hands in the air before they entered his cell
and remained there while they subjected him to the Taser and beanbag rounds. Council
v. Sutton, #09-13968, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 2886 (Unpub. 11th Cir.).
The Director of the Pennsylvania Department of
Corrections and a prison superintendent could not be held liable for the
alleged use of excessive force against a prisoner when there was no evidence
that they were involved in the incident in any way. Claims against a sergeant
and other officers concerning their alleged verbal abuse of the prisoner, while
involving behavior that, if true, was "distasteful," did not rise to
the level of violation of the plaintiff's Eighth Amendment rights. The
prisoner's other claims, that the sergeant deprived him of one meal on a single
occasion and that an officer improperly confiscated his identification card
were also not of constitutional magnitude. Lindsey v. O'Connor, #08-4579, 2009
U.S. App. Lexis 10258 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
The bulk of the evidence presented did not
support a prisoner's claim that a corrections officer used excessive force
against him. Affidavits from a fellow prisoner stating that he saw the officer
use force against the plaintiff were "conclusory." Even if these
affidavits had been admitted into evidence, they would not have established
that the force used was excessive, and the officer himself admitted to having
used force against the plaintiff. The refusal to grant the prisoner's request
for an appointed lawyer was not improper, when the record showed that the
prisoner had competently and adequately represented himself, and that the
issues in the case were not complex. Huynh v. Baze, #07-11296, 2009 U.S. App.
Lexis 6034 (5th Cir.).
The U.S. Supreme Court held that a federal
appeals court incorrectly dismissed a prisoner's complaint that a correctional
officer used excessive force against him based on a determination that his
allegedly resulting injuries were "de minimus" (minimal). Such claims
of the use of excessive force against prisoners, under the principles set forth
in Hudson v. McMillian, #90-6531, 503 U.S. 1 (1992), should be decided based on
the nature of the force used rather than the extent of the injuries. In this
case, the prisoner asserted that the officer, acting without provocation,
responded to his request for a grievance form by snatching him off the ground,
slamming him into a concrete floor, and then proceeding to punch, kick, knee,
and choke him, until another officer intervened. These actions allegedly
resulted in a bruised heel, lower back pain, increased blood pressure, migraine
headaches, dizziness, and psychological trauma. The legal standard for whether
the force employed was excessive, the Court noted, was not the extent of the
injuries, but whether the force was "applied in a good-faith effort to
maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically to cause
harm." Wilkins v. Gaddy, #08-10914, 2010 U.S. Lexis 1036.
As a prisoner was getting ready to be transported
to a court appearance, he and an officer argued about bringing a change of
clothes. A supervising officer responded to the officer's call for backup, and
allegedly punched the plaintiff prisoner in the mouth without any provocation,
causing him to lose one tooth and suffer two other loose teeth. The supervising
officer, however, stated that the prisoner had acted aggressively and lunged at
the officer, so that he employed a takedown procedure involving pushing the
prisoner against a wall and handcuffing him after spinning him around. The
court found that a trial court judgment in favor of the supervising officer was
supported by evidence that the prisoner, enraged, would not listen to reason,
and would not remain still until the defendant acted to subdue him. Brown v.
Acting Director Metro Dade Correctional, #08-15612, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 446
(Unpub.11th Cir.).
A jury properly awarded a prisoner $75,000 in
compensatory damages and $125,000 in punitive damages on his claim that a
correctional officer attacked him without justification for the purpose of
maliciously doing him harm. The officer allegedly called the prisoner a
"son of a bitch" and a "mother fucker" for no apparent
reason, resulting in the prisoner telling him to "keep his mother"
off the streets. While the prisoner made no threatening movements towards the
officer, and was "hardly capable" of challenging the officer
physically, because of prior injuries from car accidents, the officer then
waited for the prisoner in his housing unit, grabbed him, threw him against a
wall, slammed him onto a concrete floor, and pressed his knees onto the
prisoner's back while another officer cuffed him. The car accidents had
previously rendered the prisoner partially crippled, with damage to the right
side of his brain and the left side of his body, affecting his ability to walk,
as well as causing a herniated disk in his neck, and neck and back pain. The
court found that both the compensatory and punitive damage awards were
justified by the evidence. Hendrickson v. Cooper, #09-1375, 2009 U.S. App.
Lexis 28114 (7th Cir.).
A federal appeals court upheld a trial court's
refusal to submit an inmate's excessive force claim against correctional
officers to the jury on the basis of the Fourth Amendment as well as the Eighth
Amendment, since the Eighth Amendment provided the appropriate legal standard
for his claims. The jury's verdict for all of the individual defendants eliminated
any possibility of municipal liability, since no individual was found to have
violated the plaintiff's rights. The trial court properly bifurcated the
proceedings, trying the individual liability claims first, and thereby
eliminating the need for any proceedings on the municipal liability claims.
Bonilla v. Jaronczyk, #08-1470, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 26167 (Unpub. 2nd Cir.).
A correctional officer was improperly granted
judgment as a matter of law on an excessive force claim. According to the
plaintiff prisoner and another inmate, the officer stated that she was kicking
him in retribution for his having assaulted another officer. At the time, the
prisoner had already been taken to a more secure cell and was no longer
attacking anyone. He also was allegedly still handcuffed after the move, and
any threat he posed to the officers or anyone had ended, eliminating any
justification for the continued use of force. Davis v. Berks County, #08-3026,
2009 U.S. App. Lexis 24925 (Unpub 3rd Cir.).
An African-American motorist stopped for
DUI was taken to a city jail based on a claim that there was a misdemeanor
warrant for his arrest. He claimed that, at the jail, officers physically
attacked him, causing him a spinal cord injury, and then dragged him into a
cell where he was left until a civilian jail employee complained about his
condition. A federal appeals court upheld the denial of summary judgment to the
defendant officers on claims of race discrimination, excessive force, and
delayed medical treatment, finding that a reasonable jury could conclude that
the reason for the excessive use of force and delayed medical treatment was
race. Harris v. City of Circleville, #08-3252, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 21641 (6th
Cir.).
A prisoner complaining about a search of his cell
and confiscation of his legal papers and other property failed to show a
violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, since his status of incarceration
meant that he had no right to privacy or protection from unreasonable searches.
His due process rights were not violated, since there were adequate
post-deprivation remedies for the seizure of his property, and he failed to
show a violation of his First Amendment rights, since he alleged no actual
injury that resulted from the removal of his legal papers and did not claim
that the seizure of religious materials prevented him from observing any
religious belief or practice. He also failed to show that there was a
retaliatory motive for the search and a videotape of the search refuted any
claim that an officer used excessive force in restraining the plaintiff.
Tindell v. Beard, #09-3063, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 24642 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
In a prisoner's lawsuit over the alleged
excessive use of force by a correctional officer, several supervisory officials
could not be held liable since they did not participate in the events allegedly
causing the prisoner injuries. Another official was entitled to qualified
immunity as the prisoner himself stated that he responded in a timely manner to
the alleged incident. Thompson v. Johnson, #08-10614, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis
21974 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
The plaintiff inmate did not face atypical
hardships based on any of the conditions of a Behavioral Action Plan, such as
denying him a mattress because of his attempts to use it to harm himself, so he
had no valid due process claim. The conditions imposed also did not amount to
cruel and unusual punishment, since they were not punitive, but instead
intended to protect him from self-harm, and were regularly re-evaluated. The
prisoner also failed to show an excessive use of force based on an incident in
which guards attempted to subdue him using five-point restraints,
incapacitating agents, and a Taser. Bowers v. Pollard, #09-1771, 2009 U.S. App.
Lexis 20855 (Unpub. 7th Cir.).
A federal appeals court upheld a jury's rejection
of a prisoner's claim that a guard used excessive force against him, reaching
into his cell and choking him. The guard denied even touching the prisoner. A
federal appeals court upheld this result, finding that the trial court did not
act erroneously in refusing to allow the plaintiff to, just before trial,
attempt to add state law assault and battery claims to his federal civil rights
excessive force claim, or in giving jury instructions stating that, for
liability, the jury had to find a violation of Eighth Amendment rights. Cruz v.
Safford, #08-3083, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 19399 (7th Cir.).
An inmate claimed that prison employees used
excessive force against him and injured him while restraining him after he
attacked them as they entered his cell. In light of his repeated threats and
physical attack on them, he failed to show that the force they used was
excessive. He also failed to show that he was denied needed medical treatment
for injuries allegedly resulting from the incident. Thomas v. Owens, #08-20299,
2009 U.S. App. Lexis 15729 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
The amount of force used by officers in
compelling a prisoner's compliance with a strip search was justified by his
actions. He admitted to verbally refusing to comply with orders and beginning
to pull up his boxer shorts. Even though he claimed to have only accidentally
fallen on an intervening officer, the prisoner himself made statements
indicating that he was aware the officers could have regarded this as an
attack. His purported injuries only amounted to minor bruising and bumping. The
defendant officers were entitled to summary judgment. Lyons v. Fields,
#3:07cv86, 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 17345 (N.D. Fla.).
In a lawsuit brought by a detainee's estate over
a fatal beating by officers, a jury awarded $56.5 million in damages against
the officers, of which $29 million were compensatory damages. The county that
employed the officers provided them with legal defense in the case. Over a year
after the jury made its award, an amendment to an Indiana state statute, Ind.
Code § 34-13-4-1, changed a discretionary duty of counties to indemnify
employees for compensatory damages when providing them with legal defense to a
mandatory requirement. The estate sought to collect the damages from the county
under the amended law. A federal appeals court found that the law in effect at
the time of the award allowed the county to decline to pay the damages, and
that the mended law did not apply retroactively. Estate of Moreland v. Dieter,
#08-1478, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 17866 (7th Cir.).
While
there was some "physical contact" between a defendant sheriff and the
plaintiff prisoner, the force used was minimal. The prisoner's only alleged
injuries were soreness and swelling under his left eye, which was insufficient
to support an award of damages. Harris v. Salley, #09-6345, 2009 U.S. App.
Lexis 17238 (Unpub. 4th Cir.).
Upholding a jury award for an inmate in an
excessive force lawsuit, a federal appeals court found that the plaintiff
inmate's testimony concerning officers' alleged blows to his head and face, the
way in which handcuffs were fastened on him, and the "recurring pain"
he suffered as a result was sufficient to support the result. The appeals court
also upheld a jury finding that defendants were aware of and disregarded claims
of inmate abuse, based on a prison administrator's acknowledgment that, during
a prison lockout during which the incident in question occurred, he received
daily reports of inmate abuse which he and a deputy commissioner of corrections
forwarded to the commissioner of corrections. A total of $42,000 in damages was
awarded against the prison administrator, deputy commissioner, and
commissioner. In Re: Bayside Prison Litigation, Linsey v. Fauver, #07-3739,
2009 U.S. App. Lexis 16262 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
An inmate should be allowed to proceed with his
excessive force claims against two correctional officers when genuine issues of
fact existed both as to the level of force used and the extent of the
prisoner's allegedly resulting injuries. The trial court, however, properly
rejected claims against one officer based on the time the prisoner spent in a
restraint chair, since there was no evidence of a resulting serious injury, and
dismissed claims against another officer based on the failure to allege
sufficient facts about his involvement in the incident. Williams v. Collier,
#08-6759, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 16288 (Unpub. 4th Cir.).
Trial court did not act erroneously in determining
that an officer did not use excessive force against a prisoner in an incident
in the shower and that officers did not use excessive force against him in an
incident in an infirmary cell. The evidence showed that the prisoner was
belligerent in the shower and attacked an officer, justifying the use of force
to subdue him, including the use of capstun. Subsequently, the prisoner's
refusal to stop shouting and banging on his infirmary cell door at 2 a.m.
similarly justified the use of force, including capstun. The appeals court
further ruled, however, that the prisoner alleged a viable excessive force
claim against three officers arising from their conduct in the shower room
incident, in that they purportedly kicked him in the ribs and punched him in the
head after he had stopped resisting and was prostrate on the ground with one
officer sitting on him. If true, this was conduct that a reasonable officer
would have known was improper. Giles v. Kearney, #07-4140, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis
15597 (3rd Cir.).
A prison employee who used a stinger grenade in
the course of extracting a prisoner from his cell was not entitled to summary
judgment in an excessive force lawsuit when several factors suggested that he
used the grenade in a malicious and sadistic manner rather than in a good faith
effort to maintain or restore order. The court suggested that, under the
circumstances, cell entry, rather than the use of the grenade, might have been
a "viable" alternative. The prisoner also created a factual issue as
to whether a subsequent strip search was carried out in a manner designed to
humiliate him. Jackson v. Geri, #07-cv-656, 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 47508 (W.D.
Wis.).
A prisoner could not support his excessive force
claim against one officer with the "fantastical" claim that he had
attempted to kill him by placing a lethal venomous white tipped spider with
white dots on its back in the cell. None of the other alleged actions by any of
the officers amounted to excessive use of force, and the prisoner did not show
that he suffered physical injuries, needed medical attention, or that his
supposed psychic injuries were caused by the defendants' conduct. Browne v. San
Francisco Sheriff's Dept., #C 03-0047, 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 40515 (N.D. Cal.).
An inmate claimed that he was severely beaten by
Special Operations Group personnel who were in the process of securing the
prison during a lockdown that followed an inmate's killing of a guard. Evidence
of the prisoner's injuries, including photographs, his own testimony, and the
testimony of an ombudswoman, supported the jury's decision to award the
plaintiff compensatory and punitive damages against a prison administrator who
was allegedly deliberately indifferent to a serious risk of harm to him. The
award totaled $45,000 in compensatory, and $200,000 in punitive damages.
Further proceedings were needed, however, to reconsider the amount of the
punitive damage award, which the court stated might be supportable, but which
merited a "hard look," which it believed was not done by the court
below following the trial. Mejias v. Roth, #07-3913, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 12767
(Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
Officers' statements that one of them used
"distraction strikes" were in conflict with a prisoner's claim that
he received a direct blow from a fist and medical records that also stated
that. A videotape of the incident entered into evidence failed to resolve this
factual dispute. The plaintiff prisoner also disputed the officers' assertion
that he tried to bite an officer. There was a genuine factual dispute,
therefore as to whether the officers acted in an objectively reasonable manner
or used excessive force. Based on the prisoner's affidavit claiming that six
inmates at the county detention facility were assaulted while placed in restraints,
there was also a genuine factual issue as to whether the county sheriff had an
unconstitutional use of force policy. Watts v. Smart, #08-40381, 2009 U.S. App.
Lexis 9593 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
The plaintiff prisoner failed to show that
excessive force was used against him, or even establish a genuine issue of fact
for trial when all of his attachments to his response to the defendants' motion
for summary judgment were irrelevant, unsworn, or even supported the
defendants' argument that he only suffered minor injuries. He also failed to
present any evidence to show that misconduct reports filed against him
following the incident were false or that any prison official had refused to
investigate his version of the incident. Summary judgment was properly granted
for the correctional defendants in the prisoners' excessive force lawsuit.
McCullough v. Miller, #08-4339, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 10886 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
Even if there was little need for the use of
force against the prisoner, and little threat to the safety of other inmates or
staff members, since the prisoner was in his cell at the time, he failed to
show a violation of his Eighth Amendment rights. The officer only struck him
once and merely inflamed an old injury, causing the prisoner's finger to become
swollen. The minor amount of force used, the minor resulting injury, and a
finding that the officer did not act in a sadistic or malicious manner
supported the dismissal of individual capacity claims against the officer for
excessive use of force. The court also rejected the argument that official
capacity claims, which were barred by the Eleventh Amendment, could be pursued
because of the state of Pennsylvania's waiver of sovereign immunity for claims
involving state property. The court did not agree with the prisoner's argument
that inmates such as himself were state property, as the Thirteenth Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution prohibits human beings from being property. Matthews
v. Villella, #4:08-CV-0964, 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 8858 (M.D. Pa.).
A prisoner could proceed with his claims that a
captain slammed his head and face into a concrete sidewalk, rendering him
unconscious. If the prisoner's version of the incident were believed, it
established the excessive use of force. On claims against the captain in his
official capacity and against the correctional center, the defendants were
entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity because these were essentially claims
against the State of Louisiana. Cain v. White, #08-1015, 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis
23322 (W.D. La.).
Pretrial detainee failed to show that an officer
acted in a malicious and sadistic manner in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment's due process clause in allegedly kicking him. At the time, the
detainee was "combative" and engaged in a struggle with other
officers, and the force used amounted to a good faith attempt to restore or
maintain discipline. Fennell v. Gilstrap, #08-12553, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 5047
(11th Cir.).
A prisoner stated a viable claim against an
officer for excessive use of force when he alleged that the officer slammed his
hands in a cell trap door in response to another prisoner's false warning,
disregarded pleas to release the prisoner's hands, and pulled his arm through
the cell's trap door, placing all his weight on the arm, resulting in a broken
arm. The prisoner failed to establish, however, that a warden he named as a
defendant in his lawsuit was personally involved in the incident in any way.
Luke v. Lenz, #09-cv-91, 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 15145 (W.D. Wis.).
Trial court improperly issued summary judgment to
defendants in pretrial detainee's lawsuit claiming that he was subjected to
excessive force at a county detention center. The wheelchair reliant detainee,
who has an amputated leg, claimed that he was held down, kicked, lifted out of
his wheelchair, and carried to his cell by his jaw after failing to comply with
an order to leave a shower, and that he did not threaten or assault officers.
If true, a reasonable jury could find that excessive force was used. Roby v.
McCoy, No. 07-3647, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 3677 (Unpub. 8th Cir.).
A trial court did not act erroneously in
dismissing two claims of excessive force filed by a former inmate, who
subsequently died. Nothing in the materials filed on the first claim supported
an inference that the plaintiff had been threatened with personal injury or
assaulted by a correctional officer, while the second claim merely asserted
that "excessive" force was used, but the evidence showed that the officer
did not act in a malicious or sadistic manner, and any injuries suffer by the
prison were minor and limited to shortness of breath for a few minutes. Wright
v. Goord, No. 06-1728, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 1951 (2nd Cir.).
Prisoner failed to show that the force used against
him in his cell was excessive, or that engaging in further discovery would
establish that. The evidence showed that the prisoner refused to obey commands
to allow guards to secure his cell door properly by releasing control of a food
slot in the door, that he was warned that failure to obey would result in the
use of chemical agents and the sending of a "move team" into his
cell, and that he was restrained by force when he failed to comply. Poe v.
Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice, No. 08-20148, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 706 (Unpub.
5th Cir.).
Prisoner's lawsuit claiming that a correctional
officer twice confined her in an isolated locked classroom and imposed physical
and verbal abuse on her, including forcible rape, established liability for violation
of constitutional rights as well as state law claims, since the officer failed
to respond to the accusations. The prisoner failed, however, to establish a
claim for emotional distress under New York state law, since she failed to
assert that the officer acted with the intent or disregard of a substantial
probability to cause severe emotional distress. Further proceedings were
required on the amount of damages to be awarded. Ortiz v. Lasker, 08-CV-6001,
2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 101363 (W.D.N.Y.).
Prisoner failed to present evidence that
correctional officials condoned, permitted, or participated in correctional
officers' alleged attack on him, nor that they ratified the alleged attack or
allowed a policy to exist that caused the attack. The officials, therefore,
could not be held liable, while further proceedings were needed on the claims
against the officers. Liner v. Goord, 98-CV-6343L, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 79522
(W.D.N.Y.).
Officers were not entitled to summary judgment of
prisoner's claim that they used excessive force against him, beating him with
batons for ten minutes, and kicking and punching him. While there was some
evidence in the record that his visible injuries were not consistent with those
expected to be present follow such a beating, there was a factual issue as to
whether his version of the incident or that of the officers was more credible.
Moore v Casselberry, 05-CV-6063L, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 88764 (W.D.N.Y.).
Even considering medical records submitted by a
prisoner of his purported injuries from an alleged attack by a correctional
officer, the plaintiff prisoner failed to show that he suffered more than
"de minimus" (minimal) injuries, and several injuries he claimed were
actually preexisting conditions. The prisoner presented no evidence that the
alleged attack had anything to do with his worsened blood pressure, his back
pain or migraine headaches or his mental health problems. Wilkins v. Gaddy,
08-CV-138-01, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 81474 (W.D.N.C.).
Correctional officers were not entitled to
qualified immunity on inmate's claim that they used excessive force against
him. If the inmate's version of events was true, the officers could not have
reasonably believed that their actions were lawful under the Eighth Amendment.
The court also ruled that a jury verdict that the officers used excessive force
in subduing the prisoner would not have necessarily implied the invalidity of a
disciplinary hearing finding the prisoner guilty of an assault on prison staff
members, creating a disturbance, refusing to submit to a search and frisk, and
refusing a direct order. Tapp v. Tougas, 9:05-CV-1479, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis
76170 (N.D.N.Y.).
There was a genuine issue of fact as to whether a
correctional officer retaliated against him for filing grievances by writing up
false disciplinary reports and intentionally closing a cell door on him,
resulting in injury. Shaw v. Cowart, No. 07-14884, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 23500
(Unpub.11th Cir.).
Prisoner failed to show that officers used
excessive force against him. While he called his actions "respectful"
and "peaceful," it was clear that he was, at the time force was used
against him, trying to walk away from an officer restraining him in an attempt
to approach a second officer during a shakedown of his cell. The court also
properly concluded that any injury suffered by the prisoner was minimal when no
bruises or contusions were shown. Pruitt v. Hatchet, No. 05-30834, 2008 U.S.
App. Lexis 19826 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
Evidence in a lawsuit claiming that jail
personnel used excessive force against a prisoner and denied medical care to
him, resulting in him dying in his cell supported a jury's verdict rejecting
claims for violations of the decedent's rights. The detainee had been involved
in two separate auto accidents just prior to his arrest, one of them serious,
and an autopsy concluded that he died of natural causes, specifically a heart
attack. Moore v. Tuleja, No. 07-3137, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 20997 (7th Cir.).
Federal civil rights lawsuit for death of
prisoner was rejected because it only alleged negligence by prison employees in
causing the death. The prisoner was struck in the head by a plastic bullet
fired by a prison employee, and other prison employees subjected him to pepper
spray and placed a plastic bag over his head to increase the burning effect.
Supervisory employees, the court found, were not alleged to have set into
motion actions that they reasonably should have known would cause other
employees to violate the prisoner's constitutional rights. State law claims
were barred by the statute of limitations. Provencio v. Vazquez, No.
1:07-CV-0069, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 73255 (E.D. Cal.).
Prisoner who claimed that he was beaten by
correctional officers failed to show that the warden was personally involved in
the violation of his rights or that there was an unlawful county policy or
custom concerning the use of excessive force or that such a policy caused his
injuries. Further, he failed to show that the force used against him was
excessive under the circumstances. Hernandez v. York County, No. 07-4774, 2008
U.S. App. Lexis 17985 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
Prisoner stated a possible claim for excessive
use of force by three guards who allegedly were members of a team that sprayed
him with pepper spray, slammed him into a wall, and choked and stunned him with
a Taser for at least five minutes after forcing him to the floor. Rollen v.
Horton, No. 3:08-0227, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 59657 (M.D. Tenn.).
When a prisoner refused to obey a jailer's orders
during a disagreement, creating a disturbance, there was a need to use force
and a short burst of pepper spray was not excessive. The prisoner's assertion,
however, that he was confined in a small cell following the incident and was
not allowed to wash off the spray was sufficient to state a claim for excessive
use of force. Danley v. Allen, No. 07-12328, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 17837 (11th
Cir.).
The plaintiffs in a wrongful death lawsuit
concerning the death of an inmate after he was forcibly removed from his cell
by seven correctional officers sufficient alleged facts which, if true, would
show that the officers violated the prisoner's clearly established Eighth
Amendment rights, so that the defendants were properly denied qualified
immunity on those claims. Additionally, when summary judgment was denied on
certain claims based on the existence of disputed issues of material fact,
there was no jurisdiction to hear an appeal of those denials. Iko v. Raley, No.
07-7569, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 16607 (4th Cir.).
Federal appeals court upholds jury verdict for
defendant corrections officers in lawsuit brought by prisoner allegedly injured
by them when they used force to extract him from his cell. The plaintiff
prisoner admitted that he had a weapon in his pocket at the time of the
incident, and the evidence showed that he had been belligerent and
uncooperative, and that the prisoner had created a disturbance in his cell
block, taunted an officer, and that pepper spray and a 15 OC Stinger
grenade used against the prisoner, as well as tear gas, had little effect and
failed to subdue him. The officers then shot a 37MM Ferret OC powder
round, designed to break through a barricade, at the cell wall, but he still
allegedly refused to comply. They then dispensed a 28b Stinger 37 MM 60
Cal. rubber-ball round into the cell, and again failed to subdue the prisoner.
Another Ferret OC powder round fired into the cell then went through a
mattress that the prisoner used to barricade his cell door, and hit him in the
groin area, finally subduing him. Muhammad v. McCarrell, No. 07-2235, 2008 U.S.
App. Lexis 16682 (8th Cir.).
Other prisoners beat up a detainee at a county
jail after word spread throughout the facility that he was charged with child rape.
The appeals court held that one defendant officer was not entitled to qualified
immunity in a lawsuit brought by the detainee for failure to protect him, as
this officer's own statements showed that he was aware of facts which could
have indicated that a substantial risk of harm of such an assault existed and
that he in fact drew the inference that the risk existed. The court also held
that there was a clearly established right to be protected against assault
under these circumstances. A claim against a second officer for excessive use
of force was rejected, because the detainee himself testified that a blow to
his neck did not hurt, and there was no injury that could be objectively
verified. Leary v. Livingston County, No. 06-2603, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 12370
(6th Cir.).
A federal trial court granted a prisoner's motion
for reconsideration and vacation of summary judgment in favor of a city in his
lawsuit claiming that he was beaten and kicked by officers during city prison
intake procedures. The city had produced, in an untimely manner, a corrections'
sergeant's log. This log, which was a "critical document" in the
case, was "inexplicably" not produced by the city during the
discovery process, and was only made available after summary judgment in the
case had been granted in the city's favor. In granting the city summary
judgment, the court relied on the city's representation that the log did not
exist, and the detainee was unable to use information contained in the log to
respond to the motion for summary judgment. Shimoyama v. City of Philadelphia,
Civil Action No. 05-6299, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 44690 (E.D. Pa.).
A prisoner did not state a claim for excessive
use of force based on a sergeant allegedly pressing a Taser against his back
and pressing him against elevator doors while transporting him. There was no
claim that the Taser was activated, and the alleged actions only caused minimum
discomfort, and failed to constitute a "malicious and sadistic"
application of force. Sawyer v. Green, No. 08-3083, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 13119
(Unpub. 10th Cir.).
Correctional officers were not entitled to
qualified immunity in a lawsuit claiming that three of them beat a detainee at
a juvenile detention facility with nightsticks about his head and face after he
refused orders to remove his clothes. A fourth officer allegedly watched and
failed to intervene. The beating was allegedly severe enough that the detainee
required eleven stitches and a doctor at the hospital believed that he might
have bled to death without medical attention. The court found that there was
evidence from which a reasonable fact finder could find that the force employed
was used in a malicious and sadistic manner, rather than in a good faith effort
to maintain or restore discipline. McReynolds v. Ala. Dept. of Youth Services,
No. 2:04-cv-850, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 35070 (M.D. Ala.).
Summary judgment should not have been entered
against a prisoner on his excessive force claims since there were genuine
factual disputes as to whether officers used force against him, including
pepper spray, after he had begun to comply with their orders to him.
Additionally, he allegedly was not warned before the use of the pepper spray,
was not permitted to clean up after its use, and was then handcuffed to a bench
and denied bathroom breaks, food, and water during that restraint. Walker v.
Bowersox, No. 06-3118, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 11507 (8th Cir.).
Removal of a prisoner from his misconduct hearing
by correctional officers and prison nurses did not violate his First Amendment
rights. His statement at the proceeding that the hearing officer was a
"foul and corrupted bitch" was not protected by the First Amendment
and constituted "insolence" in violation of prison regulations,
questioning the hearing officer's authority and the proceeding's integrity. The
court also found that the amount of force used was minimal and reasonable under
the circumstances. The prisoner also failed to show deliberate indifference to
his medical needs for his minor cuts and lacerations. Lockett v. Suardini, No.
06-2392, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 10359 (6th Cir.).
A pretrial detainee failed to show that a
correctional officer used excessive force against him, or that a second officer
failed to intervene to prevent the excessive use of force. A videotape of the
incident showed that the plaintiff punched and hit an officer in the face,
causing her to fall, and that the other officer then struck the plaintiff,
pushed him to the floor, and handcuffed him. The force used was only that
required to regain control of the plaintiff, despite his claim that the
officers had "altered" the videotape. Johnson v. Moeller, No.
07-3184, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 6227 (7th Cir.).
Plaintiff prisoner was entitled to production of
pictures of six correctional officers who were allegedly present when he
claimed officers assaulted him, for the purpose of identifying his assailants
in a federal civil rights lawsuit. Murphy v. West, No. 04-CV-6615, 2008 U.S.
Dist. Lexis 8435 (W.D.N.Y.).
While a prisoner allegedly suffered an
"unfortunate extent" of injuries as a result of a deputy's push or
shove, the deputy was acting in good faith to attempt to maintain or restore
discipline, and not maliciously and sadistically for the purpose of causing
harm. The deputy was therefore entitled to summary judgment on an excessive
force claim. Cockrell v. Sparks, No. 07-10984, (11th Cir.).
In a lawsuit in which a prisoner claimed that he
was beaten on two occasions by correctional officers, the first claim against
the officers was properly dismissed for failure to exhaust available
administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42
U.S.C. Sec. 1997e(a), and a verdict in favor of the officers on the second
beating claim was upheld. The trial court did not act erroneously in failing to
give an "assault and battery" instruction separate from the
"cruel and unusual punishment" instruction given, as the prisoner did
not ask for his own instruction or present an argument as to why the instruction
given was allegedly defective. Finally, a directed verdict in favor of a prison
superintendent was properly decided as there could be no supervisory liability
when there was no finding of a constitutional violation by the officers.
Matthews v. Cordeiro, No. 05-1041, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 28613 (1st Cir.).
Evidence established a genuine issue of fact as
to whether two correction employees used excessive force against a detainee,
allegedly rendering him unconscious from a beating and the breaking of his
dental bridge. While these injuries were not recorded in the detainee's medical
records, there was an indication that he was kicked in the head, and the jury
could decide whether a videotape taken at the time showed those injuries. The
court did, however, uphold summary judgment in favor of a third defendant
because the evidence showed that he was not present during the incident.
Hasemeier v. Shepard, No. 07-10688, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 24719 (11th Cir.).
In a prior decision, Felder v. Howerton, No.
07-10241, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 11154 (11th Cir.), the court ruled that there
was no evidence, other than the prisoner's own "self-serving"
testimony, that prison officers had used any force against him, much less that
they used excessive force or that prison officials failed to take action to
prevent "beatings" by staff members. The record of the case showed,
at most, that after the prisoner started a confrontation, he had a three
millimeter abrasion on his chest, and there was also medical evidence that this
abrasion was actually suffered during a basketball game he had played in five
days before. The court further rejected the prisoner's argument that he had
been "tortured" in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340. In a rehearing,
however, the appeals court vacated the summary judgment in part. It ruled that
the prisoner's sworn statement that the officers beat him, as well as sworn
testimony presented that they told him that "all prisoners" were
subjected to that treatment created material issues of fact barring summary
judgment on the prisoner's federal constitutional claim. The appeals court,
following the rehearing, still upheld summary judgment on the
"torture" claim. The prisoner, the appeals court found, failed to
show that 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340A(a), imposing criminal penalties for persons
committing torture outside of the U.S., gave him any additional rights. Felder
v. Howerton, 07-10241, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 22118 (11th Cir.).
Correctional officer who allegedly used a cattle
prod against an inmate who was merely working at his prison job was not
entitled to summary judgment. If it was true that the prisoner was not causing
any disruption or violating any prison rule, a reasonable jury could find that
there was no need to use any level of force. Payne v. Parnell, No. 05-20687,
2007 U.S. App. Lexis 21227 (5th Cir.).
Prisoner stated a claim for excessive use of
force against correctional officer who allegedly slammed the food slot door of
his cell on his hand three times without justification. Claims against a
supervising officer and a fellow officer who allegedly failed to prevent the
alleged use of force were properly dismissed, however. Espinoza v. McDaniel,
No. 3:06-CV-00542, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 58416 (D. Nev.).
Prisoner failed to provided any evidence of an
official city policy permitting or encouraging the excessive or unnecessary use
of force by sheriff's employees against arrestees, or a widespread custom of
such use of force, so that the city was entitled to summary judgment. Ludaway v.
City of Jacksonville, Florida, No. 07-10859, 2007 U.S. App. 21150 (11th Cir.).
There was no evidence from which a jury could
find that officers used excessive force in entering an inmate's cell and
restraining her after she was observed violently banging her head against her
cell wall. Plaintiff prisoners also failed to show deliberate indifference to
their serious mental health needs, when they received their prescribed
medication, and they could not demonstrate that the care they received caused them
any adverse symptoms. Bellotto v. County of Orange, No. 06-1185, 2007 U.S. App.
Lexis 19848 (2nd Cir.).
Even if a prisoner's claim was true that a
correctional officer slammed him against a wall, squeezed his nipples and
buttocks, and pulled on his testicles hard, causing him pain and discomfort,
this was not sufficient to show an Eighth Amendment violation, when the force
used was minimal. Further, the fact that there was no medical evidence of any
injury resulting from the incident was supportive of a finding that the force
used was not excessive. Rhoten v. Werholtz, No. 07-3064, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis
14964 (10th Cir.).
A Maine state prison, as an agency of the state,
could not be sued for damages under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 for alleged use of excessive
force against a prisoner, because of Eleventh Amendment Immunity, and the fact
that the state is not a "person" subject to such liability. To the
extent that there could arguably be a state law claim against the prison, there
was no showing that the state had waived its 11th Amendment immunity from a
suit in federal court. Additionally, the prison could not be held vicariously
liable under federal law for the actions of a prison officer on the basis that
it was his employer. Warren v. Maine State Prison, No. CV-07-24, 2007 U.S.
Dist. Lexis 42982 (D. Maine).
Prisoner failed to show that a warden had the
knowledge required to have acted with deliberate indifference to a purported
substantial risk that prison guards would use excessive force against him. He
claimed that the guards beat him in a room without cameras where they took him,
and subsequently denied him access to immediate medical care for his injuries.
The employment records of the officers failed to show that they were an obvious
risk to prisoners, and a trial judge's disagreement with the warden's choices
in disciplining one of the officers for allegedly mistreating a prisoner by
suspending him was not sufficient to support a finding of deliberate
indifference. Lenz v. Reed, No. 06-3017, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 14460 (8th Cir.).
Prisoner's claim that correctional employees used
excessive force against him was rejected after he failed to refute the evidence
presented by the defendants that the back pain he experienced was the result of
a medical condition--a degenerative disc disease he suffers from, rather being
caused a defendant's conduct. Appeals court also upholds rejection of claims
for denial of access to the courts and for purported due process violations in
connection with a disciplinary hearing in which the prisoner was found not
guilty of battery. Billups v. Hammon, No. 06-55274, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 12672
(9th Cir.).
Prisoner presented a viable claim for use of
excessive force against correctional officer who allegedly punched him in the
eye, breaking the orbital bone in his face, while he was being carried up some
stairs in shackles following an incident in which the prisoner was restrained.
A videotape of the incident did not suffice to indicate whether the injury was inflicted
by the guard or by the prisoner on himself after he twisted his body away while
being carried. Claims against all other defendants, including supervisory
personnel and a prison nurse, were dismissed. Christle v. Magles, No.
6:05cv334, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 35438 (E.D. Tex.).
The use of a Taser® against a prisoner is not, by
itself, a violation of constitutional rights when it is used to obtain his
obedience, and the plaintiff prisoner did not prove that its use against him
was objectively unreasonable under the circumstances. A correctional officer
was therefore entitled to qualified immunity on the prisoner's claims against
him individually. The prisoner had just suffered minor injuries during an
altercation with officers while receiving his medication. He subsequently
refused to obey orders to sit on his bunk while officers re-entered his cell to
retrieve some dropped keys, and the Taser® was used against him to compel his
compliance, after which the keys were retrieved, and a nurse entered the cell
to provide medical assistance. Claims against the officer in his official
capacity were barred by the Eleventh Amendment, as the state of Kansas had not
waived its immunity against federal civil rights lawsuits for damages under the
general language of a state statute, Kan. Stat. Ann. Sec. 19-811. Hunter v.
Young, No. 06-3371, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 13886 (10th Cir.).
There was no evidence, other than the prisoner's
own "self-serving" testimony, that prison officers had used any force
against him, much less that they used excessive force or that prison officials
failed to take action to prevent "beatings" by staff members. The
record of the case showed, at most, that after the prisoner started a
confrontation, he had a three millimeter abrasion on his chest, and there was
also medical evidence that this abrasion was actually suffered during a
basketball game he had played in five days before. The court further rejected
the prisoner's argument that he had been "tortured" in violation of
18 U.S.C. Sec. 2340. Felder v. Howerton, No. 07-10241, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis
11154 (11th Cir.).
Deputy sheriff was not entitled to qualified
immunity on prisoner's claim that he used excessive force against him by
throwing him to the floor and landing on top of him while he was shackled at
the wrists, waist and ankles, causing his head to hit the concrete floor, and
causing him to require stitches to close a laceration to the right side of his
head and to also suffer a separated right clavicle. If the facts were as the
inmate alleged, the force used violated his Eighth Amendment rights and
constituted a wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain. Long v. Morris, No.
06-3089, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 32959 (D. Kan.).
Federal court declines to dismiss prisoner's
claim that an officer used excessive force and assaulted him when he declined
to state what his middle name was. The prisoner claimed injuries including
possible nerve damages, difficulty urinating, and difficulty breathing, and
these were not injuries considered to be minimal. Brewer v. Paugh, No.
5:06CV98, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 11393 (N.D.W.Va.).
Prisoner stated viable claim for excessive use of
force by alleging that he was placed in hand restraints, and taken to a holding
cell after his attempt to enter the prison library caused a metal detector to
sound, and then that a guard repeatedly tightened the restraints on his hands
for approximately 20 minutes, followed by kicking him to the ground. Viable
claims were also asserted against other defendants who allegedly either
threatened the prisoner for his prior involvement in litigation or else
"stood by and watched" while other persons threatened or assaulted
him. Clark v. Argutto, No. 06-12350, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 6445 (11th Cir.).
Warden was not entitled to summary judgment on
prisoner's claim that he had been warned by a previous warden about certain
guards with violent tendencies who "might kill" a prisoner, including
the guard who allegedly attacked him and broke his jaw. The warden, instead of
firing the guard in question or taking other corrective action, allegedly
promoted him to captain. Mathews v. Crosby, No. 05-12515, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis
6156 (11th Cir.).
Use of one burst of pepper spray against inmate
who refused orders to move from solitary confinement to general housing was not
objectively unreasonable under clearly-established law, so that defendant
prison lieutenant who did so was entitled to qualified immunity. The plaintiff
inmate had refused to move because he was allegedly fearful of his safety in
the general population. Thomas v. Comstock, No. 04-41696, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis
6159 (5th Cir.).
Deputy used reasonable force against inmate in
light of prisoner's history of violence and his violent response to requests to
step outside, including his scuffle with deputies. McBride v. Hilton, No.
06-30146, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 2505 (5th Cir.). [N/R]
Prisoner's own actions, including the use of
"disparaging" language during argument with officer who allegedly
denied request to use telephone, created a confrontation resulting in the use
of force to remove him from the cell tier. Officer's actions were reasonable
under the circumstances. Any injuries were minor and occurred only after the
prisoner allegedly engaged in the destruction of a chair. Brown v. Terry, No.
05-343, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 3085 (D. Del.). [N/R]
Prisoner who claimed that he was beaten by
unknown prison guards failed to present evidence of inadequate training or
hiring policies which could support a claim for liability on the part of the
county. Aguirre v. Nueces County, Texas, No. 06-40317, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis
3028 (5th Cir.). [N/R]
Prisoner's injuries from correctional officers'
alleged excessive force against him--including minor abrasions on a knee, a small
scratch on his chin, and two minor bumps, were insufficient under 42 U.S.C.
Sec. 1997e(e) to constitute physical injury under a provision of the Prison
Litigation Reform Act barring recovery of damages for mental or emotional
injuries in the absence of physical injuries. The plaintiff was also not
entitled to punitive damages since he did not show that the defendants had the
required state of mind to justify such an award. Since the prisoner had not
even asked for nominal damages, the defendants were entitled to summary
judgment. Glosson v. Morales, No. 05-CV-707, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 1603 (S.D.
Cal.). [N/R]
Former jail detainee failed to show that the use
of force against him during his incarceration had amounted to unnecessary and
wanton infliction of pain and suffering, entitling defendants to summary
judgment on his excessive force claim. Clarke v. Blais, Civil No. 05-177, 2006
U.S. Dist. Lexis 89941 (D. Me.). [N/R]
Alleged use of malicious and sadistic force, if
true, is a violation of clearly established law, so that qualified immunity is
not an available defense. Minor prisoner claimed that he was assaulted by
prison guards after he attempted to make another complaint against a guard who
had been previously suspended based on his first complaint, and that at least
one of the guards involved in the alleged assault continued to hit him after he
had already suffered injuries. The court also noted that the injuries suffered
required eleven stitches to the plaintiff's head. McReynolds v. Alabama Dept.
of Youth Services, No. 06-12542, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 26945 (11th Cir.). [N/R]
Prisoner's injuries from officer's alleged
physical attack on prisoner were not minor, as he suffered some abrasions, and
had prior conditions aggravated by the incident. Further, statements from some
witnesses that the prisoner, at the time of the incident, was acting in a
cooperative manner supported a possible conclusion that the officer was acting
in bad faith during the dispute, so that the officer was not entitled to
qualified immunity. Brown v. Lippard, No. 05-41277, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 30522
(5th Cir.). [N/R]
Despite the fact that a prisoner had been
convicted of assault on a prison staff member, he was entitled to pursue his
claim that an officer used excessive force against him when he placed his arms
out of an opening on his cell door to have his handcuffs taken off, resulting
in his wrist being cut to the bone. A finding that the officer used excessive
force did not necessarily require the overturning of the disciplinary
conviction, so that the officer was not entitled to summary judgment. Woods v.
Lozer, No. 3:05-1080, 2006 U.S. Dist. Lexis 83785 (M.D. Tenn.), adopted by, and
summary judgment denied, Woods v. Lozer, 2006 U.S. Dist. Lexis 83766 (M.D.
Tenn.). [N/R]
Officer was properly granted judgment in
prisoner's lawsuit claiming that he used excessive force against him in trying
to separate him from another prisoner during an inmate fight. Even if it were
assumed that the plaintiff prisoner did stop fighting just before the officer
intervened, the officer could not have known which of the inmates involved in
the altercation would lunge at the other one again, so that his method of
intervention was a reasonable method of stopping the fight. Ensman v. Ohio
Dept. of Rehabilitation and Correction, No. 06AP-592, 2006 Ohio App. Lexis 6691
(10th Dist.). [N/R]
Prison shift commander was not shown to have used
excessive force in removing a prisoner's necklace, when wearing it was a
violation of institutional rules, and the force applied was shown to have been
applied in a "good faith" attempt to maintain discipline, rather than
sadistically or maliciously to cause harm. The prisoner also failed to show
that he suffered any injuries from the officer's actions. Mullis v. Cobb County
Board of Commissioners, No. 06-11930, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 26371 (11th Cir.).
[N/R]
Alabama prisoner who sued correctional officer
who allegedly injured his finger by kicking metal tray door failed to show that
he suffered a serious injury or that the officer acted maliciously or
sadistically, barring a federal civil rights claim. Johnson v. Moody, No.
06-12422, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 26988 (11th Cir.). [2006 JB Dec]
Despite prisoner's statement that he and another
inmate he was being housed with had had "problems," prison officials
were not liable for cellmate's subsequent assault on prisoner, when the
plaintiff had failed to identify a specific prior incident from which it could
be inferred that there was a substantial risk of harm in housing the two
prisoners together. Prisoner also failed to show that correctional officers
used excessive force against him while restraining him following a fight with
another prisoner. McBride v. Rivers, No. 05-13328, 170 Fed. Appx. 648 (11th
Cir. 2006). [N/R]
Prisoner failed to show that correctional
officers used excessive force in placing him in and later extracting him from a
holding cell. Young v. Ogle, No. 05-35581, 171 Fed. Appx. 651 (9th Cir. 2006).
[N/R]
In a criminal prosecution of correctional
officers for alleged conspiracy and deprivation of prisoner's constitutional
rights, the prosecution was not required to show that any individual prisoner
suffered a certain level of, or type of, injury to show excessive use of force
in violation of the Eighth Amendment and 18 U.S.C. Sec. 242. Convictions of
officers upheld. U.S. v. Lavallee, No. 03-1515, 439 F.3d 670 (10th Cir. 2006)
[N/R]
Director of Colorado prisons, in authorizing use
of special operations team to remove a prisoner from his cell to search for a
loaded gun, was not liable for the officers' alleged excessive use of force,
causing injuries to his jaw and testicles. No evidence showed that he either
authorized or knew of any excessive force, or had any duty to personally
supervise the team. Serna v. Colorado Dep't of Corr., No. 04-1241, 2006 U.S.
App. Lexis 18687 (10th Cir.). [2006 JB Sep]
Prison superintendent was not entitled to
dismissal of prisoner's claim that he was aware of, but deliberately ignored a
correctional officer's repeated "malicious acts" against him, which
resulted in the officer striking him. Locicero v. O'Connell, No. 04 Civ. 07708,
419 F. Supp. 2d 521 (S.D.N.Y. 2006). [N/R]
Two correctional officers were not entitled to
summary judgment when there were factual issues about whether they used
excessive force and pepper spray against female inmate at a time when she was
allegedly not actively resisting them. Johnson v. Blaukat, No. 05-3866, 2006
U.S. App. Lexis 16091 (8th Cir.). [2006 JB Aug]
An alleged one-month delay in x-raying a
prisoner's hand after a nurse tentatively diagnosed him as having a fractured
finger was not shown to be anything more than negligence, which was
insufficient for a federal constitutional claim. Additionally, federal appeals
court finds, no reasonably jury could find that correctional employees used
excessive force against the inmate during the incident that led to his
injuries, when he continued to assault the officers even after he was restrained,
and was subsequently criminally convicted for his actions. Johnson v. Hamilton,
No. 05-1453, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 16767 (8th Cir.). [2006 JB Aug]
Former warden was not entitled to qualified
immunity in lawsuit over death of death-row prisoner allegedly beaten to death
by prison guards. Evidence presented was sufficient to create a factual issue
as to whether there was a widespread history of abuse by guards, whether the
warden knew of the violent propensities of certain guards involved in the beating,
and whether he acted with deliberate indifference to a known risk of harm.
Valdes v. Crosby, No. 05-13065, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 13401 (11th Cir.). [2006
JB Jul]
Correctional officer was not entitled to summary
judgment in prisoner's state law assault and battery lawsuit when there was a
genuine issue of fact as to whether he continued to strike the prisoner after
he was handcuffed. The prisoner initially became belligerent when he refused an
order to submit to a haircut. Quinlan v. Jones, No. 2030621, 922 So. 2d 899
(Ala. Civ. App. 2004). [N/R]
Sheriff and officers were not entitled to summary
judgment in prisoner's lawsuit challenging their use of pepper spray against
him at county jail. Factual issues existed as to how long he was sprayed, and
whether he was "adequately irrigated" afterwards or allowed to suffer
unnecessarily. Court also holds that the plaintiff was not required to exhaust
available administrative remedies prior to pursuing his excessive force
lawsuit, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1997e, since he was now a former prisoner.
The requirement to exhaust such remedies only applies to current prisoners.
Norton v. City of Marrietta, Ok, No. 04-7133, 432 F.3d 1145 (10th Cir. 2005).
[N/R]
Detainee's claim that sheriff and two officers
used excessive force against him in entering his cell, physically restraining
him, and using pepper spray against him reinstated by federal appeals court.
Trial judge improperly decided credibility of witnesses in granting summary
judgment for defendants, when there were disputed factual issues about whether
the detainee was combatively resisting orders at the time of the incident.
Norton v. City of Marietta, No. 04-7133, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 28093 (10th
Cir.). [2006 JB Feb]
A prisoner's participation in an internal affairs
investigation concerning his alleged beating by correctional officers did not
substitute for the requirement that the prisoner exhaust available
administrative remedies before pursuing a lawsuit for damages. Panaro v. City
of N. Las Vegas, No. 04-15750, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 28080 (9th Cir.). [2006 JB
Feb]
Correctional officers were not entitled to
qualified immunity on claim that they continued to use force against detainee
after they had subdued him, resulting in his death from positional asphyxia.
They were also not entitled to qualified immunity on the claim that they waited
fourteen minutes after he became unconscious and stopped breathing, to summon
medical assistance. Bozeman v. Orum, No. 04-11073, 422 F.3d 1265 (11th Cir.
2005). [2006 JB Feb]
Delaware prisoner's claim that correctional
officers assaulted him on two occasions while he was handcuffed him, and hit
him in order to "provoke a response," if true, established violations
of his Eighth Amendment rights. Davis v. Carroll, No. CIV.A. 03-131, 390 F.
Supp. 2d 415 (D. Del. 2005). [N/R]
Genuine issues existed as to whether warden was
deliberately indifferent to alleged widespread abuse of prisoners by officers,
making him liable for a prisoner's death after an alleged beating of officers.
Warden was not entitled to qualified immunity against supervisory liability
claim by prisoner's estate. Valdes v. Crosby, No. 301CV799, 390 F. Supp. 2d
1084 (M.D. Fla. 2005). [N/R]
Trial court properly reduced jury's award of
$75,000 in "nominal" damages to $1 in pre-trial detainee's lawsuit,
when jury specifically found that jailer used excessive force against the
detainee but did not cause any substantial injury. Corpus v. Bennett, No.
04-2603, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 26650 (8th Cir.). [2006 JB Jan]
Federal trial judge overturns jury's award of $1 in
nominal damages and $45,000 in punitive damages to prisoner who claimed that
correctional officers used excessive force against him while escorting him to a
location in the prison when he resisted going where he was told to go. The
trial judge found that there was absolutely no evidence introduced at the trial
indicating physical injury of any kind, not even a bruise or swelling, and that
the prisoner did not even file a medical complaint arising from the incident.
Under these circumstances, the court concluded, no reasonable jury could have
concluded that the prisoner suffered any injuries in the incident that were
more than "de minimus" (minimal). Willis v. Youngblood, No. CIV.
RDB-02-2853, 384 F. Supp. 2d 883 (D. Md. 2005). [N/R]
Detainee suffering from paranoid schizophrenia,
acute psychosis, impulse-control disorder, and "polysubstance abuse"
could not assert disability discrimination claims since his impairments,
because they could be corrected "or mitigated" by medication, did not
constitute disabilities. Jail personnel did not use excessive force in using
pepper spray to subdue him when he actively resisted his transfer to a hospital
for treatment, and did not violate his right to receive adequate medical
attention. Atwell v. Hart County, Kentucky, No. 03-6421, 122 Fed. Appx. 215
(6th Cir. 2005). [2005 JB Dec]
North Carolina county only waived sovereign
immunity to the extent of liability insurance purchased. Inmate who was awarded
$49,500 by jury on his claim that a deputy sheriff assaulted him, therefore,
could recover nothing, as the county's liability insurance only provided
coverage for claims in excess of $250,000. Cunningham v. Riley, 611 S.E.2d 423
(N.C. App. 2005). [2005 JB Dec]
Prisoner's conviction on charges of assaulting a
correctional officer did not bar him from pursuing his claim that officers used
excessive force against him in connection with the same fight, since his claims
of alleged excessive force by the officers was not raised in the criminal
proceeding and was not relevant to it. Jeanty v. County of Orange, No. 03 CIV.
8043, 379 F. Supp. 2d 533 (S.D.N.Y. 2005). [N/R]
Officer accused of using excessive force against
prisoner who assaulted him was not entitled to dismissal of the lawsuit based
on the prisoner's alleged failure to exhaust available administrative remedies.
The prisoner filed a grievance concerning the officer's action, and allegedly
failed to appeal further since there was never any response to his grievance.
Brengettcy v. Horton, No. 03-3813, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 19362 (7th Cir.). [2005
JB Oct]
Claim that prison guards "verbally
abused" prisoner by cursing at him was insufficient to support a federal
civil rights claim. Perry v. Kramer, No. 03-15833, 121 Fed. Appx. 191 (9th Cir.
2005). [N/R]
Trial court did not abuse its discretion in
refusing to provide plaintiff inmate with an appointed lawyer in his lawsuit
claiming excessive use of force against him, since the prisoner was able to
articulate the issues in his case on his own and the case did not require the
use of expert testimony. Shabazz v. Felsnik, No. 04-2367, 129 Fed. Appx. 726
(3rd Cir. 2005). [N/R]
Jury instructions by trial court properly
excluded prisoner's requested instructions that "malicious" use of
force, regardless of amount of force, is always "per se" a violation
of the Eighth Amendment. Trial judge also properly dismissed prisoner's racial
and religious discrimination claims. Baskerville v. Mulvaney, No. 03-0348, 2005
U.S. App. Lexis 10190 (2nd Cir.). [2005 JB Jul]
Officer did not use excessive force in the course
of attempting to restrain prisoner who refused to submit to handcuffing, forced
his way out of his cell, and kept resisting even after he was tackled in the
hallway. Batons were only used to strike the prisoner after he had attempted to
hit an officer. Davis v. Agosto, No. 02-6141, 89 Fed. Appx. 523 (6th Cir.
2004). [N/R]
Officer did not use excessive force in striking a
prisoner in a "reflex action" with a heavy trap-door key after the
prisoner grabbed him by his shirt through the trap door and tried to pull him
down. Proctor v. Engstrom, #03-2547, 95 Fed. App. 192 (8th Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Inmate's claim that "some or all" of
the defendant correctional officers "may" have participated in his
alleged beating was insufficient to provide the officers fair notice of the
prisoner's claims against them, as required to support his excessive force
lawsuit. Bright v. Gillis, No. 03-1118, 89 Fed. Appx. 802 (3rd Cir. 2004).
[N/R]
Federal appeals court upholds dismissal of eight
defendants from prisoners' excessive force lawsuit when the evidence showed
that they did not come into physical contact with the plaintiffs during their
extraction from their cells following disturbance and their subsequent
transport to segregation unit. Jury's finding that excessive force was not used
by remaining defendants also precluded a claim against the dismissed defendants
for failure to intervene. Harper v. Albert, No. 00-2758, 400 F.3d 1052 (7th
Cir. 2005). [2005 JB May]
When a prisoner admitted that he refused to
comply with an officer's requests, the officer's pushing against the prisoner's
face with his hand for the purpose of forcing him into his cell was not an
excessive use of force. Cain v. Ambriz, No. 04-40632, 114 Fed. Appx. 600 (5th
Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Prisoner's federal civil rights lawsuit against
prison guards, claiming that they used excessive force against him, was barred
by his prior disciplinary conviction of assault and resisting the guards
arising out of the same incident. An award of damages in the prisoner's
lawsuit, which was based on the assertion that he had not physically resisted
the guards, would necessarily call into question his disciplinary conviction,
which had not been set aside, so his lawsuit was barred under the rule stated
in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). Wooten v. Law, No. 04-1159, 118 Fed.
Appx. 66 (7th Cir. 2004).[N/R]
Correctional officer did not use excessive force
in using restraints to keep prisoner seated in wheelchair while escorting him
to optometrist when prisoner was repeatedly moving himself between the
wheelchair and another seat in the doctor's waiting room. Munera v. Metro West
Detention Center, No. 02-23612-CIV, 351 F. Supp. 2d 1353 (S.D. Fla. 2004).[N/R]
Nurse and officer did not use excessive force in
restraining prisoner at nursing station after he became "upset and
agitated" when nurse took, and indicated that she would not return, his
non-prescription and non-authorized glasses. The nurse and officer acted for
the purposes of maintaining order and any resulting bruising and swelling was
not serious enough to require medical attention. Mason v. Peters, No.
01-CV-62481, 346 F. Supp. 2d 396 (W.D.N.Y. 2004). [N/R]
Federal appeals court upholds jury's award of $29
million in compensatory and $27.5 million in punitive damages against two
deputy sheriffs for causing pre-trial detainee's death through use of excessive
force. Failure to show that the death was caused by any official policy or
custom, or by deliberate indifference to a widespread pattern of violation of
jail policies, required summary judgment on claims against county sheriff. Mere
number of uses of pepper spray did not show that it was being misused. Estate
of Moreland v. Dieter, No. 03-3734, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 743 (7th Cir.). [2005
JB Mar]
Complexities of the legal issues in a lawsuit
brought by an immigration detainee claiming that he was attacked by
correctional officers while in a facility operated by a private corporation
required the vacating of a jury award for the defendants when the trial court
failed to appoint a lawyer to represent the detainee. Agyeman v. Corrections
Corporation of America, No. 03-16068, 390 F.3d 1101 (9th Cir. 2004). [2005 JB
Mar]
Correctional officer accused of kicking a
handcuffed prisoner's genitals was not entitled to qualified immunity on
prisoner's claim that this constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Watts v.
McKinney, No. 03-16665 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 337 (9th Cir. 2005). [2005 JB Feb]
Officer did not violate prisoner's right to be
free of cruel and unusual punishment in spraying him with a chemical agent when
the facts showed the officer acted in a good faith effort to maintain or
restore discipline and not malicious or sadistically to cause him harm. Davis
v. Cannon, #02-41596, 91 Fed. Appx. 327 (5th Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Prisoner ruled to have adequately exhausted
available administrative remedies even when he had not "technically
exhausted" procedures prescribed by state law for inmate grievances
because he had pursued both formal and informal avenues to present his
grievances and did not receive any formal response to his grievance until five
months after it was filed. Defendant correctional officers were therefore not
entitled to summary judgment in the prisoner's lawsuit claiming that they had
assaulted him. Jenkins v. Raub, No. 01-CV-64221, 310 F. Supp. 2d 502 (W.D.N.Y.
2004). [N/R]
Evidence in prisoner's excessive force lawsuit
against a correctional officer supported the officer's contention that he only
used a reasonable amount of force to restrain him after the prisoner banged his
own head against the wall of a prison infirmary. Under these circumstances, no
excessive use of force was shown. Jones v. Cornutt, No. 03-10302, 100 Fed.
Appx. 251 (5th Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Federal appeals court orders further proceedings
concerning whether prisoner was justified in failing to file a grievance
concerning correctional officers' alleged assault on him by their threats of
retaliation if he did so. Hemphill v. State of New York, #02-0164, 380 F.3d 680
(2d Cir. 2004). [2005 JB Jan]
Illinois prisoner awarded $28,000 in compensatory
damages and $22,000 in punitive damages on his claim that he was beaten by
correctional officers who allegedly were angry that he was taking too much time
to pack his property prior to a transfer to another facility. Mickey v. Dargis,
#99C-7281, U.S. Dist. Ct., N.D. Illinois, reported in Chicago Daily Law
Bulletin, p. 25 (October 1, 2004). [N/R]
Prison employees did not use excessive force by
spraying prisoner with pepper spray after he refused to exit a shower. The
evidence showed that they applied the force used in a good-faith effort to
maintain or restore discipline, and not maliciously to cause injury or pain. A
videotape of the incident showed that the prisoner refused to obey several
direct orders to leave the shower before the use of the pepper spray.
Additionally, the use of the spray only caused discomfort, rather than any
physical injury. Jennings v. Mitchell, No. 03-1922, 93 Fed. Appx. 723 (6th Cir.
2004). [N/R]
Prisoner's claim that several correctional
officers physically assaulted him was not relevant to whether he was guilty of
disobeying a direct order from an officer concerning keeping his hands in his
pockets while being escorted from his cell. Prisoner therefore had no right to
present such a "defense" at the disciplinary hearing. Claudio v.
Selsky, 772 N.Y.S. 2d 424 (A.D. 3d Dept. 2004). [N/R]]
Officers were not entitled to qualified immunity
in prisoner's lawsuit claiming that he was beaten and kicked "into
submission" by them when they found him lying on his bunk, and he allegedly
did not obey orders to get on the floor. The prisoner, who had allegedly caused
two disturbances that day, claimed he was being quiet at the time, and that the
officers bashed his head inside of or into a toilet. Simms v. Bruce, No.
03-2181, 104 Fed. Appx. 853 (4th Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Detainee failed to establish that detention
center guards used excessive force against him. Evidence showed that he
verbally confronted them and physically pulled back from a booking counter when
they tried to frisk him to determine if he possessed any concealed weapons.
This determination was supported by a videotape of the incident in question.
Tapia v. City of Albuquerque, No. 03-2133, 101 Fed. Appx. 795 (10th Cir. 2004).
[N/R]
Prisoner's civil rights lawsuit claiming that
correctional officers assaulted him was barred on the basis of his failure to
exhaust available administrative remedies as required by 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1997e.
While he did write letters of complaint to prison officials, he did not report
the alleged assault to the officers' immediate supervisor, and did not appeal
adverse determinations concerning his complaint. Stephenson v. Dunford, 320 F.
Supp. 2d 44 (W.D.N.Y. 2004). [N/R]
Prisoner was properly awarded $1,500 in
compensatory damages for allegedly being left in restraint chair for long
periods of time, and $500 for alleged excessive use of force against him, but
trial court properly did not award punitive damages in light of fact that the
prisoner admitted disobeying orders, and that the facility had not developed
policies governing the use of the restraint chair. Guerra v. Drake, #03-3137,
371 F.3d 404 (8th Cir. 2004). [2004 JB Sep]
Federal appeals court upholds enhanced 46-month
sentence imposed on correctional officer who pled guilty to conspiracy to
violate the civil rights of jail detainees he was supervising, based on unusual
vulnerability of prisoner with Tourette's syndrome to assault. The officer
failed to show reversible error in the trial court's finding that he had knowledge
of the prisoner's unusual vulnerability of Tourette's syndrome, and the trial
court noted that, prior to the alleged beating of the prisoner, either the
defendant or another officer was heard yelling, "we'll beat the Tourette's
out of you." United States v. Donnelly, #03-2022, 370 F.3d 87 (1st Cir.
2004). [N/R]
Inmate in New York correctional facility could
not pursue federal civil rights lawsuit against county, county prosecutor, or
county sheriff claiming that they violated his constitutional rights because
they failed to prosecute correctional officers for allegedly threatening him on
three occasions, in the absence of any allegation that the failure to prosecute
was the result of any official policy or custom. Additionally, neither
prosecutor nor sheriff were in a supervisory position within the prison
hierarchy, and therefore did not have a duty to protect him from these alleged
threats. Lewis v. Gallivan, 315 F. Supp. 2d 313 (W.D.N.Y. 2004). [N/R]
California prisoner's lawsuit claiming that
corrections officers assaulted him dismissed for failure to totally exhaust
available administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform
Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1997e(a). Entire complaint dismissed when it contained a
mixture of both exhausted and unexhausted claims, although prisoner could, if
he wanted, file a new complaint concerning only claims on which he had
exhausted administrative remedies. Mubarak v. California Department of
Corrections, 315 F. Supp. 2d 1057 (S.D. Cal. 2004). [N/R]
Prisoner was excused from having to exhaust
administrative remedies before filing federal civil rights lawsuit against jail
employees' alleged use of excessive force against him both in reliance of then
applicable case law later rejected by U.S. Supreme Court, and also because his
transfer to another facility made administrative remedies at the county jail no
longer "available" to him. Rodriguez v. Westchester County Jail Corr.
Dept., No. 02-0325, 2004 U.S. App. Lexis 12488 (2nd Cir. 2004). [2004
JB Aug]
Prison official was entitled to qualified
immunity against prisoner's claim that he used excessive force against him when
handcuffing him, resulting in a lacerated wrist and injured thumb. The prisoner
admitted that he violated facility cuffing procedures by withdrawing his
uncuffed hand and disobeying the officer's orders, and defendant reasonably
believed that the plaintiff prisoner was trying to pull the cuffs into his cell
in order to possibly use them as a weapon. Avery v. Anderson, No. 03-4213, 94
Fed. Appx. 735 (10th Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Correctional officers were not entitled to
qualified immunity from excessive force claim by previously brain-damaged
pre-trial detainee who they allegedly caused severe facial and head injuries in
the course of a struggle to apply restraints to his wrists after he refused to
get on the water-covered floor of his cell. Detainee's behavior of banging on
cell walls and doors and tossing toilet water around his cell to
"protest" not being allowed out of his cell, however, was not
"protected speech," so that detainee's First Amendment retaliation
claim was dismissed. Simms v. Hardesty, 303 F. Supp. 2d 656 (D.Md. 2003). [N/R]
Prisoner Assault: By Officer
Prisoner awarded $1,000 against one of two
defendant correctional officers on his claim for excessive use of force against
him was also entitled to $1,500 in attorneys' fees as a prevailing party under
42 U.S.C. Sec. 1997e(d) (2) limiting awards against defendants for attorneys'
fees to 150% of award for damages. Farella v. Hockaday, 304 F. Supp. 2d 1076
(C.D. Ill. 2004). [N/R]
Federal appeals court upholds dismissal of claims
against warden, videographer and corrections officer who did not have physical
contact with prisoner but who witnessed his transfer to segregation unit in the
absence of any evidence that they ordered or condoned the excessive use of
force by others. Court orders further proceedings, however, as to whether
prisoner was unnecessarily beaten once he arrived in cell. Fillmore v. Page, No.
02-3208, 358 F.3d 496 (7th Cir. 2004). [2004 JB May]
Genuine factual issues as to whether correctional
officers suffocated detainee after he stated his desire to surrender during
altercation barred summary judgment on excessive force claim brought by
detainee's estate. Bozeman v. Orum, 302 F. Supp. 2d 1310 (M.D. Ala. 2004).
[N/R]
Correctional officers who allegedly knew that
detainee was diabetic and who failed to provide him with food or insulin
despite his complaints could be liable for deliberate indifference to his
serious medical needs. Federal appeals court orders further proceedings on
medical care issue and claim that officers used excessive force in response to
prisoner's request for food or medicine. Lolli v. County of Orange, #02-56309,
351 F.3d 410 (9th Cir. 2003). [2004 JB Apr]
Prisoner's notice of his intent to file a claim
against the state concerning injuries inflicted on him during his removal from
his cell by correctional officers was inadequate when it failed to specify the nature
of his medical negligence claim. Motion to dismiss claim upheld. Cendales v.
State, 770 N.Y.S.2d 174 (A.D. Dept. 3 2003). [N/R]
Prison officials granted summary judgment on
prisoner's claim that he was beaten by correctional officers after defendants
presented evidence supporting their contention that he had failed to exhaust
available administrative remedies as required by 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1997e(a).
Arnold v. Goetz, 245 F. Supp. 2d 527 (S.D.N.Y. 2003). [N/R]
Plaintiff prisoner was not entitled to an
evidentiary hearing concerning claims that correctional officials stripped and
beat him, when claims were properly dismissed on the basis of sovereign
immunity and the statute of limitations. Cesspooch v. Federal Bureau of
Prisons, No. 02-1538, 84 Fed. Appx. 30 (10th Cir. 2003). [N/R]
Correctional officers could not be held liable
for deliberate indifference to assault on prisoner by fellow officer, when
there was no prior indication that the attack would take place and when they
immediately intervened to remove the alleged attacker from the prisoner. Carico
v. Benton, Ireland, and Stovall, #02-1340, 68 Fed. Appx. 632 (6th Cir. 2003).
[N/R]
Correctional officer did not use excessive force
in handcuffing a prisoner who allegedly threatened him and then escorting him
to the shift commander's office. The prisoner initially said nothing to the
shift commander about the handcuffs, and when he later complained that one of
the handcuffs was too tight, it was loosened. Further, the officer used the
handcuffs to maintain or restore discipline, rather than "maliciously and
sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm." Stanton v. Furlong,
#02-11336, 73 Fed. Appx. 332 (10th Cir. 2003). [N/R]
Federal appeals court finds that a prisoner can
exhaust his administrative remedies by presenting his complaints to prison
officials, even if they refuse to address the grievance because it was untimely
under prison rules. To pursue a claim in his subsequent lawsuit, however, the
grievance must have provided prison officials notice of the nature of the
complaint. Plaintiff prisoner did not, in his grievance, provide notice that he
was asserting a failure to protect claim against correctional officers who
allegedly saw a fellow officer beat him but failed to intervene, but $70,000 in
damages awarded against officer who allegedly beat him. Thomas v. Woolum,
#01-3227, 337 F.3d 720 (6th Cir. 2003). [2003 JB Dec]
Lawsuit by New York prisoners against over fifty
correctional employees concerning more than forty separate and unrelated
incidents at fourteen different prisons over a period of almost ten years was
properly dismissed, federal appeals court rules. Complaint failed to establish
the existence of a policy or practice existing throughout the state correctional
system or even within one prison which caused a violation of Eighth Amendment
rights. Claims included alleged assaults by correctional officers, failure to
protect inmates from assaults by other prisoners, and failure to provide
medical care for injuries. Additionally, none of the plaintiffs stated that
they had exhausted available administrative remedies prior to filing suit. Webb
v. Goord, #02-0097(L), 340 F.3d 105 (2nd Cir. 2003). [2003 JB Nov]
Prisoner could not pursue a federal civil rights
lawsuit alleging that correctional officers assaulted him without provocation
and used excessive force against him when success in his claim for damages
would imply the invalidity of his disciplinary conviction for assault and
battery and "insolence" arising from the same incident. The
prisoner's claims were barred by the principles established in Heck v.
Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), since his disciplinary conviction had not been
set aside. Denham v. Shroad, No. 02-1821, 56 Fed. Appx. 692 (6th Cir. 2003).
[N/R]
State-established jail authority which held
immigration detainees in custody under a contract with the federal government
acted under "color of state law" for purposes of one such detainee's
excessive force claim arising out of actions of correctional officers. Federal
contract did not specify how the authority was to supervise its guards and the
detainee's claim alleged failure to adequately train officers and
"condonation" of their use of excessive force. Jarno v. Lewis, 256 F.
Supp. 2d 499 (E.D. Va. 2003). [N/R]
Federal appeals court rules that correctional
officers' use of force in restraining detainee, which resulted in his death
from a compression injury to his neck, was not excessive. The detainee was an
"exceptionally large and strong" man and evidence showed that he
became violent in his cell and after he was let out of his cell. Further, there
was no evidence that the officers intentionally attempted to choke the
prisoner. Walters v. County of Charleston, No. 02-1297, 63 Fed. Appx. 116 (4th
Cir. 2003). [N/R]
Prison officials were entitled to amend their
response to inmate's lawsuit claiming that correctional employees assaulted him
to assert a defense of failure to exhaust available dministrative remedies.
While they were aware of the defense earlier, the law was not clear that it
applied to the circumstances of this lawsuit prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's
decision in Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516 (2002), ruling that 42 U.S.C. Sec.
1997e(a)'s requirement of exhaustion of remedies applies to all prisoners
"seeking redress for prison circumstances or occurrences." Livingston
v. Piskor, 215 F.R.D. 84 (W.D.N.Y. 2003). [N/R]
Mere claim that a supervisory prison official was
the "maximum authority" at a prison did not serve as a basis for
liability for an alleged assault on an inmate by correctional officers, in the
absence of any allegation of personal involvement or other proper basis for
responsibility. Durran v. Selsky, 251 F. Supp. 2d 1208 (W.D.N.Y. 2003). [2003
JB Aug]
Because the plaintiff was a prisoner when he
brought his lawsuit concerning an alleged assault by prison personnel and
forced medication, his failure to exhaust available administrative remedies
required dismissal of his lawsuit, despite the fact that he had subsequently
been released from custody while his lawsuit was pending, federal appeals court
rules. Cox v. Mayer, No. 02-5102, 2003 U.S. App. Lexis 11554 (6th Cir.). [2003
JB Jul]
Prison superintendent could not be held liable
for correctional officer's alleged unprovoked assault on prisoner when he had
no reason to know of any particular risk to the inmate prior to the incident,
and no personal participation in the incident. Prisoner also had no due process
right to have his grievance about the alleged assault thoroughly investigated.
Torres v. Mazzuca, 246 F. Supp. 2d 334 (S.D.N.Y. 2003). [2003 JB Jul]
Using a plastic medication box to beat back a
prisoner's hand after he reached his arm through the trap in the door of his
cell in violation of prison rules was not an excessive use of force. Officer's
action only led to minor injuries and the force used was proportionate to the
threat the prisoner's actions presented. White v. Matti, #02-2761, 58 Fed.
Appx. 636 (7th Cir. 2002). [N/R]
Correctional officers assessed $15,000 in
compensatory and $30,000 in punitive damages for allegedly using excessive
force to restrain 60-year-old prisoner after refusing to look at his written
medical restriction offered in explanation for why he was sitting rather than
standing in medical clinic's waiting area. Jackson v. Austin, 241 F. Supp. 2d
1313 (D. Kan. 2003). [2003 JB Jun]
Jury's verdict in favor of defendant correctional
officers in prisoner's lawsuit claiming that they used excessive force against
him upheld. Based on the evidence, the jury could reasonably have believed that
the officers' testimony was more credible than the inmate's, and that they used
only the force necessary to respond to the prisoner's "physical
provocations" during the four incidents at issue. Pickett v. Lindsay,
#01-3755, 56 Fed. Appx. 718 (7th Cir. 2002). [N/R]
Prison "mailbox" rule applied to
prisoner's federal civil rights complaint concerning his alleged assault in a
county jail, so that it was considered filed in a timely manner when it was
placed in the prison mail system on the last day of the statute of limitations,
despite the fact that it was not received by the federal trial court until five
days after the statute of limitations expired. Sulik v. Taney County, Missouri,
No. 02-1397 316 F.3d 813 (8th Cir. 2003). [N/R]
Prisoner complied adequately with the exhaustion
of administrative remedies requirement when he submitted a grievance concerning
his alleged physical mistreatment by correctional officers which was not
responded to in any way. Abney v. County of Nassau, 237 F. Supp. 2d 278
(E.D.N.Y. 2002). [N/R]
Prisoner convicted by military general court
martial was not subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of his
Eighth Amendment rights during his confinement after trial when a military
guard allegedly hit or squeezed his left testicle during a frisk for weapons.
While the guard's action was rough enough to cause a painful and permanent
injury to his testicle, satisfying the "objective" component of the
legal test for excessive use of force, there was an absence of evidence that
the guard intentionally inflicted the injury. "This was a onetime,
accidental injury," the appeals court concluded, for which the prisoner "received
timely and appropriate medical treatment." United States v. Roth, Army
9600441, 57 Military Justice Reporter 740 (Army Ct. Crim. App. 2002).
[N/R]
Correctional officer's use of mace in the course of
quelling disturbance among death row inmates was not malicious or sadistic.
Genuine issues remained as to whether commander of special response team failed
to adequately control and instruct subordinates in suppressing confrontational
prisoners or allowed the excessive use of "lethal levels" of gas and
other chemical agents before ordering entry into death row unit. Death row
prisoners could not pursue claims against unidentified officers concerning the
use of excessive force. Combs v. Wilkinson, #00-4270, 315 F.3d 548 (6th Cir.
2002). [2003 JB Apr]
Even if officer's actions in punching a handcuffed
prisoner could be considered "inappropriate," federal appeals court
states, his alleged single punch to the prisoner's shoulder to avoid being spit
on was a minimal use of physical force which did not violate the prisoner's
Eighth Amendment rights. Reyes v. Chinnici, #01-2142, 54 Fed. Appx. 44 (3rd
Cir. 2002). [2003 JB Apr]
Prison officials were not liable for prisoner's
injuries from being struck in the head by a tear gas canister fired during an
inmate disturbance, when there was no showing that the canister was fired
maliciously or sadistically. Torres-Viera v. Laboy-Alvarado, #01-2712, 311 F.3d
105 (1st Cir. 2002). [2003 JB Mar.]
Jury awards $15,555 to prisoner allegedly grabbed
and thrown against a wall by a deputy who was escorting him to testify in a
court proceeding. The prisoner claimed that the deputy did this to punish him
for comments he made in the courtroom and that he was shackled and handcuffed
at the time of the incident. Jones v. Seddon, No. 01CV3890 (E.D. Pa. July 15,
2002), reported in The National Law Journal, p. B3 (Sept. 30 2002). [N/R]
A prison warden could not be held vicariously
liable for the alleged beating of a prisoner by unknown guards during a prison
riot, when there was no claim that he was directly involved in the incident or
encouraged the guards' alleged actions. Prisoner's claims against four guards
allegedly involved were barred by a one-year statute of limitations when he
failed to commence the action against them within a year. Coleman v. Dept. of
Rehab. & Corrections, #01-3169, 46 Fed. Appx. 765 (6th Cir. 2002).[N/R]
Federal appeals court orders new trial on damages
following jury's award of $750,000 in compensatory and $750,000 in punitive
damages to prisoner who claimed prison guards beat him in his cell and later,
resulting in months of wheelchair confinement. Trial judge improperly told jury
that they could award damages for mental or emotional distress when the
plaintiff prisoner had said he was not seeking any. Poullard v. Turner,
#01-30587, 298 F.3d 421 (5th Cir. 2002). [2003 JB Jan]
Prisoner could not pursue lawsuit for damages
against correctional officers he claimed attacked him without provocation when
he had not previously overturned disciplinary violations for assault and
battery against the officers arising from the same incident. Hinton v. Hansen,
#9201447, 47 Fed. Appx. 325 (6th Cir. 2002). [2003 JB Jan]
Georgia prisoner was appropriately awarded
$25,000 in compensatory damages on claim that correctional officers used
excessive force against him, but punitive damage awards were limited by the
provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, and further proceedings were
required to determine whether they were appropriately necessary to deter future
misconduct. Reduction of attorneys' fees also required to reflect only hours
expended on successful claims. Johnson v. Breeden, #00-14090, 280 F.3d 1308
(11th Cir. 2002). [2002 JB Oct]
Inmate was a "prevailing party" after
he was awarded only $1 in nominal damages in his lawsuit accusing correctional
officers of using excessive force against him, but an award of attorneys' fees
was not warranted in view of his limited success, since a jury found in favor
of one of the two officers, he had sought $790,000 in damages, the case did not
involve "significant legal issues," and there was no injunctive
relief granted. Ciaprazi v. County of Nassau, 195 F. Supp. 22d 398 (E.D.N.Y.
2002). [N/R]
City correctional officer did not use excessive
force against prisoner who was uncooperative and acted "erratically"
during the booking process and intake search, regardless of whether the
Fourteenth Amendment or the Eighth Amendment standards were applied, federal
appeals court rules. Williams v. City of Las Vegas, #00-17487, 34 Fed. Appx.
297 (9th Cir. 2002). [2002 JB Aug]
Prisoner who claimed that correctional officer
assaulted him in retaliation for his prior lawsuits against correctional
officers did not present an adequate claim that other prison officials or
employees knew of the risk of this happening and were deliberately indifferent
to it. Ribot-Carino v. Laboy, 196 F. Supp. 2d 131 (D. Puerto Rico 2002). [2002
JB Aug]
Prison guard's alleged actions of shoving
prisoner against a wall, poking him in the chest, and yelling at him in a
threatening manner, all in reaction to the prisoner writing him a threatening
letter, did not violate the Eighth Amendment, since it involved "minimal
force" intended to maintain or restore discipline. Rendelman v. U.S., #99-56858,
32 Fed. Appx. 804 (9th Cir. 2002). [N/R]
While there was insufficient evidence to hold
county liable for alleged beating death of detainee at the hands of prison
guards, individual officers were not entitled to qualified immunity from
liability. A claim that "low-level" county officials falsified
reports after prisoner's death did not show a "well-settled" county
custom of excessive force, but there was a genuine issue of whether guards
participating in beating acted maliciously and sadistically. Gailor v.
Armstrong, 187 F. Supp. 2d 729 (W.D. Ken. 2001). [2002 JB Jun]
Federal appeals court upholds criminal conviction
under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 242 of three corrections officers for depriving a prisoner
of his civil rights in an incident in which two of the officers allegedly beat
him and then the prisoner was prevented for a time from receiving medical care
for his resulting injuries. Trial court did not abuse its discretion in
refusing to grant separate trials for individual defendants. United States v.
Daniels, #00-30624, 281 F.3d 168 (5th Cir. 2002). [N/R]
Jury verdict in favor of officers upheld in
prisoner's lawsuit claiming that they beat him while he was being moved during
a transfer made necessary by a prison riot that occurred five days before;
trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding from evidence in the case
the officers' suspension following the riots. Okal v. Verfuth, #99-3277, 275
F.3d 606 (7th Cir. 2001). [2002 JB May]
Prisoner who claimed correctional officers
severely beat him was required to exhaust available administrative remedies
before filing suit despite the fact that they could not lead to monetary
awards. Actions including the disciplining of the officers or the transfer of
the prisoner to another facility where he would not be under their supervision
were possible responses to an administrative complaint, and the administrative
exhaustion requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. Sec.
1997e(a) requires a prisoner to exhaust any procedure that has authority to
take "some action" in response to his complaint. Larkin v. Galloway,
#00-1414, 266 F.3d 718 (7th Cir. 2001). [N/R]
In federal civil rights lawsuit claiming that
correctional officers assaulted inmates and family members during a visit to
the jail, any claim for psychiatric conditions requiring medical treatment was
waived by an attorney's letter indicating that such claims would be withdrawn
with prejudice, but the letter did not waive any claims, on behalf of the
family members, for injuries to reputation, humiliation, or embarrassment
arising out of the incident. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C.
Sec. 1997e(e, h), a county jail prisoner who was in custody at the time of the
alleged incident could not recover damages for emotional distress after his
attorney waived any claim he had for physical injuries. Jessamy v. Ehren, 153
F. Supp. 2d 398 (S.D.N.Y. 2001). [N/R]
A deputy was not entitled to qualified immunity
against liability for the alleged excessive use of force against a prisoner who
was allegedly not resisting at the time, but the sheriff's purported condoning
of the use of the force by failing to immediately terminate the deputy,
occurred after the incident and therefore did not cause the deputy's conduct,
so the sheriff could not, on that basis, be held individually liable for
damages. Morris v. Crawford County, Arkansas, 173 F. Supp. 2d 870 (W.D. Ark.
2001). [N/R]
A verdict for defendant correctional officers in
a prisoner's civil rights lawsuit claiming that the officers used excessive
force against him was not against the great weight of the evidence or a
miscarriage of justice requiring a new trial. The jury could properly reject,
if it decided to do so, expert witness testimony by a forensic pathologist that
the prisoner's wounds were consistent with a beating but not with a
"routine takedown." A jury can reject an expert's opinion even in the
absence of another expert testifying to rebut it. Giles v. Rhodes, 171 F. Supp.
2d 220 (S.D.N.Y. 2001). [N/R]
Federal trial court rules that prison officers
did not necessarily violate the Eighth Amendment by beating a prisoner while he
was handcuffed and that defendant officers were entitled to qualified immunity
in prisoner's federal civil rights lawsuit. Piedra v. True, 169 F. Supp. 2d
1239 (D. Kan. 2001). [2002 JB Mar]
Prisoner who claimed she was assaulted by jail
personnel during her incarceration could not amend her lawsuit to seek damages
against individual officers when her initial complaint appeared to name them as
defendants only in their official capacity, officer asserted in his answer that
he was being sued in his official capacity, and discovery in the case had
closed. Lopez-Buric v. Notch, 168 F. Supp. 2d 1046 (D. Minn. 2001). [N/R]
Prisoner's claim that a corrections officer
intentionally slammed a cell door on a prisoner's hand and then waited an hour
before allowing him to get medical attention for serious injuries to his hand,
(including two cuts, swollen fingers, and loss of power and feeling in fingers
and hand), stated a claim for violation of the Eighth Amendment. Ducally v.
Rhode Island Department of Corrections, 160 F. Supp. 2d 220 (D.R.I. 2001).
[N/R]
Prisoner's claim that officers beat him while
extracting him from his cell after he was incapacitated by an electronic shock
stated a claim for violation of his Eighth Amendment rights; officers were not
entitled to qualified immunity, as prisoner's version of the incident, if true,
would violate clearly established law. Skrtich v. Thornton, #00-15959, 267 F.3d
1251 (11th Cir. 2001). [2002 JB Feb]
Force used to restrain inmate at county jail did
not violate his Eighth Amendment rights when prisoner refused to go to his cell
after multiple orders and struck at one official with a pencil hitting him in
the neck and shoulder area between 6-10 times. Pittman v. Kurtz, No. Civ. A.
99-3181, 165 F. Supp. 2d 1243 (D. Kan. 2001). [N/R]
Officer's alleged slamming of cell port door on
prisoner's hand after prisoner placed it there holding some garbage was a
minimal use of force and did not cause a significant injury. Federal appeals
court rules that it was a response to a legitimate security interest and was
not an excessive use of force. Outlaw v. Newkirk, #98-4252, 259 F. 3d 833 (7th
Cir. 2001). [2002 JB Jan]
Prisoner waived any right to nominal damages in
lawsuit against officer he claimed assaulted him by failing to ask for them;
jury did not act improperly in finding that officer's use of force was excessive
but that prisoner suffered no compensable damage. Oliver v. Falla, #00-10520,
258 F.3d 1277 (11th Cir. 2001). [2002 JB Jan]
Prisoner's claim that he was assaulted by
officers in retaliation for his participation in a prison disturbance was
subject to the exhaustion of remedies provisions of the Prison Litigation
Reform Act, and was properly dismissed when he failed to pursue administrative
grievance. The purpose of this requirement was not only to block frivolous
lawsuits, but also to permit prison officials to attempt to first address
complaints internally. Smith v. Zachary, #99-4084, 255 F.3d 446 (7th Cir.
2001). [N/R]
299: 171 Alleged beating and use of a stun device
by officers on a prisoner in full restraints who was not offering physical resistance
stated a claim for excessive use of force. Shelton v. Angelone, 148 F. Supp. 2d
670 (W.D. Va. 2001).
299:172 Federal appeals court overturns dismissal
of prisoner's claim that three officers physically attacked him while he was
handcuffed and that two of them made threats of physical harm against him in
retaliation for his having filed lawsuits. Proctor v. Harmon, No. 00-3583EA,
257 F.3d 867 (8th Cir. 2001).
298:154 Correctional officer was liable for
$1,000 in compensatory damages and $500 in punitive damages for striking
prisoner in the face three times following a verbal argument about proper
sign-in procedures. Romaine v. Rawson, 140 F. Supp. 2d 204 (N.D.N.Y. 2001).
297:138 Trial court did not abuse its discretion
in ordering new trial in case where jury found that some prison guards used
excessive force against prisoner but awarded only $1 in nominal damages despite
evidence of actual injuries; appeals court rules, however, that issues of
liability and damages were "so intertwined" that a new trial should
consider all issues, not just damages, setting aside $300,000 damage award from
second trial. Pryer v. Slavic, #00-3297, 251 F.3d 448 (3rd Cir. 2001).
297:137 Federal court overturns $500,000 jury
award against county in prisoner's claim of excessive force by jail detention
officers; failure to specifically train officers that they were prohibited from
standing on an detainee's back in an effort to restrain him did not constitute
a "glaring" omission showing that county was deliberately
indifferent; size of verdict also found excessive. Lewis v. Board of Sedgwick
County Commissioners, 140 F. Supp. 2d 1125 (D. Kan. 2001).
296:121 Deputy's alleged action of choking a pre-
trial detainee without justification was sufficient to state a claim for
excessive use of force even if no "significant injury" was suffered.
Watford v. Bruce, 126 F. Supp. 2d 425 (E.D.Va. 2001).
296:115 Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act,
prisoners must exhaust available administrative remedies before filing a
lawsuit, even when they are seeking only money damages and money damages may
not be obtained through the administrative grievance process. Booth v. Churner,
#99-1964, 121 S. Ct. 1819 (2001).
295:104 New York prisoner awarded $10,000 on claim
that correctional officer struck him twice in the face without provocation;
further proceedings to follow on prisoner's claim that there was a city policy
of toleration of officer abuse of prisoners. Hemric v. City of New York, 2001
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1196 (S.D.N.Y.).
296:121 Prisoner adequately exhausted
administrative remedies on his excessive force claim against officers when he
attempted to file his grievance, but it was not processed; the merits of his
claim were later examined and rejected by the highest official in the state
corrections department. Camp v. Brennan, No. 99-3887, 219 F.3d 279 (3rd Cir.
2000).
294:87 Prisoner awarded a total of $83,250 in
lawsuit asserting excessive use of force by correctional officer was not
entitled to $30,550.90 in attorneys' fees; such fees must be recalculated,
based on cap on hourly fees in Prison Litigation Reform Act after federal
appeals court rejects trial court's ruling that the cap violated prisoner's
right to equal protection. Wolff v. Moore, No. 00-3959, 00- 3995, 2000 U.S.
App. LEXIS 28054 (6th Cir.).
292:59 UPDATE: U.S. Supreme Court to decide
whether prisoner who claimed that correctional officers used excessive force
against him was required to exhaust available administrative remedies before
filing a federal civil rights lawsuit for damages, even if money damages could
not be awarded in the administrative proceeding. Booth v. Churner, Co.,
#97-7487 & 97-7488, 206 F.3d 289 (3rd Cir.), reported in Jail &
Prisoner Law Bulletin, No. 287, p. 168 (Nov. 2000), cert. granted, No. 00-289,
121 S. Ct. 377 (2000).
291:41 After jury returned a verdict in favor of
correctional officers sued by a prisoner who claimed they beat him, trial judge
grants prisoner a new trial based on repeated "prejudicial" remarks
during trial referring to him as an "inmate" and pointing to his
confinement in "maximum security," which implied that he was
dangerous. Hillard v. Hargraves, 197 F.R.D. 358 (N.D. Ill. 2000).
291:41 Prisoners must face "actual, imminent
danger of serious injury" in order to claim self-defense in resisting the
use of force by a correctional officer in the state of Washington; assertion of
"apparent" imminent danger is insufficient, court rules. State v.
Bradley, #68320-4, 10 P.3d 358 (Wash. 2000).
292:60 N.Y. prisoners could not pursue federal
civil rights claim over alleged "conspiracy" of failure to protect
them from assault by officers or inmates in 13
different prisons over a ten year period when the
incidents were unrelated and no "conspiracy" was shown. Webb v.
Goord, 197 F.R.D. 98 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).
294:90 Federal trial court grants a new trial in
prisoner's lawsuit alleging that officer kicked him several times in the mouth,
breaking his teeth, as he lay in restraints on the floor; court rules that no
reasonable jury could conclude that prisoner's rights were not violated. Ruffin
v. Fuller, 125 F. Supp. 2d 105 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).
289:10 Federal appeals court rules that provision
of the Prison Litigation Reform Act requiring the exhaustion of administrative
remedies before pursuing a federal civil rights lawsuit does not apply to a
prisoner's claim that correctional officers physically assaulted him without
any lawful justification. Nussle v. Willette, No. 99-0387, 224 F.3d 95 (2nd
Cir. 2000).
284:115 Correctional officer did not impose cruel
and unusual punishment when he sprayed an inmate in the face with pepper spray
after the prisoner refused a direct order from his work supervisor and
"questioned" an order from the officer. Jones v. Shields, #99-1869,
207 F.3d 491 (8th Cir. 2000).
285:138 Trial court improperly granted summary
judgment in favor of three correctional officers on prisoner's claim that they
beat him as he was ending a telephone call and continued to assault him after
he was restrained; no particular level of injury was necessarily required to
show the excessive use of force, and trial court's conclusion that the force
used was not excessive because the prisoner's injuries were minimal is reversed
on appeal. Brooks v. Kyler, No. 98-7626, 204 F.3d 102 (3rd Cir. 2000).
286:156 Police officer acted reasonably in
opening cell door to quiet yelling arrestee and make sure that intoxicated
arrestee was not harming himself; no liability for injuries to arrestee who was
knocked unconscious by cell door opening; officer was unable to see that
arrestee was standing behind cell door and would be hit by it. Wilson v. Spain,
No. 99-2224, 209 F.3d 713 (8th Cir. 2000).
287:168 Prisoner who claimed that correctional
officers used excessive force against him was required to exhaust available
administrative remedies before filing a federal civil rights lawsuit for
damages, even if money damages could not be awarded in the administrative
proceeding. Booth v. Churner, Co., #97-7487 & 97-7488, 206 F.3d 289 (3rd
Cir. 2000).
[N/R] Factual dispute over what took place after
detainee was handcuffed and whether prison guards maliciously used force
against him precluded summary judgment for officers on excessive force claim.
Griffin v. Crippen, No. 98-3704, 193 F.3d 89 (2nd Cir. 1999).
285:131 Former correctional officer, now on
active military duty, was entitled to a stay in prisoner's federal civil rights
lawsuit against him for alleged assault; federal statute allows a stay of any
civil lawsuit during a plaintiff or defendant's military service and for up to
sixty days thereafter. White v. Black, #98-21058, 190 F.3d 366 (5th Cir. 1999).
285:136 Federal appeals court upholds jury award
totaling $83,250 against a correctional officer who broke a prisoner's nose
while beating him in his cell and against fellow officer who was
"deliberately indifferent" to prisoner's safety. Wolff v. Moore, No.
96-4080, 199 F.3d 324 (6th Cir. 1999).
281:72 N.Y. prisoner could not pursue his federal
civil rights lawsuit claiming that officers
assaulted him and that his medical records were altered as part of a coverup of
the use of excessive force against him when a state court previously ruled, in
his state law claim over the same incident that no excessive force was used and
no "coverup" existed. D'Andrea v. Hulton, 81 F. Supp. 2d 440
(W.D.N.Y. 1999).
281:72 Failure to prevent attack on prisoner by
another inmate who scaled two nine-foot fences to get to him and cut him with a
razor blade could not be the basis for city liability when testimony showed
that this had never happened before and that placing rival groups of prisoners
in two exercise cages was contrary to ordinary prison practice. Echevarria v.
Dept. of Correctional Services of NYC, 48 F. Supp. 2d 388 (S.D.N.Y. 1999).
EDITOR'S NOTE: See also Snell v. DeMello, 44 F.
Supp. 2d 386 (D. Mass. 1999), holding that supervisory liability for prison
employees' failure to prevent an assault on one inmate by another can only be
based on "deliberate indifference" to a substantial risk of harm that
the supervisor knew of or should have known of. Mere negligence by a supervisor
in failure to prevent such an attack is not enough for federal civil rights
liability.
283:107 Prisoner's lawsuit alleging that he was
assaulted by a corrections officer constituted a claim concerning "prison
conditions," requiring him to exhaust available administrative remedies
before filing; since he did not do so, the suit was properly dismissed. Freeman
v. Francis, #98-4288, 196 F.3d 641 (6th Cir. 1999).
274:152 Federal appeals court rules that prisoner
could not successfully appeal jury award in favor of officer who allegedly beat
him based on statements by defendant's attorney implying that he should not be
awarded damages because he was a "cop killer," based on failure of
prisoner's attorney to object at trial. Wilson v. Williams, #97-2637, 182 F.3d
562 (7th Cir. en banc. 1999).
274:153 Texas prisoner stated claim for Eighth
Amendment excessive use of force by correctional officers; civil rights claim
for excessive force must involve more than extremely minor physical injury, but
need not involve "significant" or serious injury. Gomez v. Chandler,
#97- 41455, 163 F.3d 921 (5th Cir. 1999). 268:56 Jury awards over $2 million to
convicted child rapist/murderer who allegedly was beaten and kicked by
correctional officers while handcuffed after they subdued him following violent
escape attempt in which he stabbed and beat female correctional officer,
leaving her bleeding and stripped of her uniform in his cell. King v.
Connecticut Dept. of Corrections, U.S. Dist. Ct. Connecticut, February 4, 1999,
reported in The Connecticut Law Tribune, Feb. 15, 1999 and March 1, 1999.
268:57 $500,000 settlement reached in lawsuit
alleging that mentally retarded jail prisoner was beaten by correctional
officer with a metal frying pan or pot. Donovan v. Nassau Co., U.S. Dist. Ct.
(S.D.N.Y. March 1, 1999), reported in The New York Times, National Edition,
page A19 (March 2, 1999) and page A21 (March 3, 1999).
265:9 Prisoner awarded $37,500 in lawsuit
claiming that he was harassed and beaten by correctional officer; prisoner's
prior shooting of officer was the reason he was serving his sentence; jury
finds that prison officials were deliberately indifferent to prisoner's safety
after he complained of officer's actions. DePina v. Monteiro, U.S. Dist. Ct.,
Boston, Mass., October 15, 1998, reported in Chicago Tribune, p. 9 (October 16,
1998).
266:23 Correctional officer's action of throwing
water at prisoner in restraints after he had previously thrown a cup of urine
at her was not cruel and unusual punishment. Samuels v. Hawkins, #96-3539, 157
F.3d 557 (8th Cir. 1998).
268:58 Verbal threat by correctional officer to
have prisoner killed could be sufficient, under certain circumstances, to state
a claim for excessive use of force. Chandler v. D.C. Dept. of Corrections,
#96-5166, 145 F.3d 1355 (D.C. Cir. 1998).
269:74 Introduction of evidence that plaintiff
prisoner had been convicted of murdering a police officer was not improper in
federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that correctional officer attacked him;
plaintiff, in fact, waived objection by himself introducing precisely the
evidence he sought to exclude and by his attorney repeatedly referring to him
as a "cop killer." Wilson v. Williams, #97-2637, 161 F.3d 1078 (7th
Cir. 1998).
272:121 Prisoner's claim that guard threw a bar
of soap at him, even if true, did not state a claim for an Eighth Amendment
violation when prisoner did not state that he suffered any harm or was even hit
by the soap; guard's alleged verbal abuse was likewise insufficient to state a
constitutional claim. Green v. Thoryk, 30 F.Supp.2d 862 (E.D. Pa. 1998).
[N/R] No evidence existed that correctional
officer's actions in removing the plaintiff prisoner from a cell resulted in
his complained of injuries which required medical treatment. Harksen v.
Garratt, 29 F.Supp.2d 272 (E.D. Va. 1998).
259:107 Co. agrees to pay $750,000 in damages
plus $40,000 in medical expenses to intoxicated arrestee who fell on his face
after correctional officer administered forceful "hip check" and
allegedly dragged prisoner over the floor by pulling on his handcuffed hands.
Deising v. Board of Comm'rs, Mich., St. Clair Co. Cir. Ct., No. 97-001727-NO,
July 1, 1997, reported in 41 ATLA Law Rptr. 9 (Feb. 1998).
260:120 Officers not liable for force used to
subdue prisoner who had just attacked, choked, sexually assaulted, and injured
female prison psychologist; jury instructions requiring a showing of malicious
and sadistic application of force before imposing liability were correct.
Parkus v. Delo, 135 F.3d 1232 (8th Cir. 1998).
260:121 Officers did not use excessive force in
subduing prisoner who was allegedly a "ringleader" in ongoing prison
disturbance during which prisoners set fires and overflowed toilets; prisoner
threatened to stab officer and was continuing to urge others to set fires;
minimal injuries suffered by prisoner did not give rise to liability when they
were inflicted in the course of quelling disturbance rather than maliciously.
Stanley v. Hejirika, 134 F.3d 629 (4th Cir. 1998).
261:136 Lawsuit alleging that correctional
officers themselves assaulted prisoner was not a lawsuit over "prison
conditions" requiring the exhaustion of available administrative remedies
under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, as lawsuit alleging officers failed to
protect prisoner from assault by other inmates would have been. Rodriguez v.
Berbary, 992 F.Supp. 592 (W.D.N.Y. 1998).
253:10 Sore and bruised ear inmate had after
incident with correctional officer was too minor an injury to be the basis for
an excessive force claim; prisoner's claim also failed requirement, under
Prison Litigation Reform Act, that he show a "physical injury" to
support any claim for emotional or mental suffering. Siglar v. Hightower, 112
F.3d 191 (5th Cir. 1997).
254:24 Inmate assaulted by officer while four
other officers held him awarded $10,000 in compensatory damages and $10,000 in
punitive damages; officers' failure to intervene violated clearly established
law; prison superintendent liable based on knowledge of officer's violent
propensities and prior failure to order investigations. Davis, Estate of, by
Ostenfeld v. Delo, 115 F.3d 1388 (8th Cir. 1997).
257:74 Correctional officer's alleged actions of
slapping a prisoner twice in the face and calling him a "nigger"
could not form the basis of a federal civil rights lawsuit when the prisoner
suffered no physical injury and the officer's actions came after the prisoner
interfered with and harassed the officer. Brown v. Croce, 967 F.Supp. 101
(S.D.N.Y. 1997).
258:90 Information concerning correctional
official's prior arrest for assault was discoverable in former prisoner's
excessive force lawsuit against him, despite dismissal of criminal charge. Cox
v. McClellan, 174 F.R.D. 32 (W.D.N.Y. 1997).
261:139 Officers used only necessary force in
restraining prisoner who lit a fire in his cell and charged at them when they
attempted to enter cell. Colon v. Mack, 983 F.Supp. 494 (S.D.N.Y. 1997). »
Editor's Note: The trial judge in the above case entered judgment as a matter
of law after the jury also returned a verdict for the defendant officers. The
court believed that this was necessary because it erroneously gave instructions
to the jury that might have given them the impression that the prisoner had to
show, in order to recover damages, that he was a citizen of the U.S. The
federal civil rights statute in question actually allows recovery by "any
citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction
thereof." Colon v. Mack, 983 F.Supp. 496 (S.D.N.Y. 1997).
246:88 Jury could conclude that, while officer
used excessive force, this use of force did not cause prisoner's injuries;
award of $1 in nominal damages against officer who used excessive force upheld.
Haywood v. Koehler, 78 F.3d 101 (2nd Cir. 1996).
248:121 Injuries to officers and testimony of
witnesses showed that, rather than beating prisoner for no reason, officers
were themselves attacked by him and force used to restrain him was reasonable;
inmate's claim that officers were retaliating against him because of his plans
to file a lawsuit were not credible when he himself admitted that he had not
told any of them his plans. Duamutef v. Fial, 922 F.Supp. 807 (W.D.N.Y. 1996).
249:138 Prisoner was entitled to a new trial in
lawsuit alleging that officers assaulted him when case was tried to the same
jury that minutes before had returned a verdict against him on unrelated
lawsuit concerning officers at another facility who allegedly stood by while
inmates attacked him. Johnson v. Schmidt, 83 F.3d 37 (2nd Cir. 1996).
250:154 Federal appeals court reinstates $500
punitive damage award against officer who allegedly hit restrained prisoner in
the face and taunted him with racial slurs while he and other officers forced
him to comply with prison's haircut rule; haircut rule did not violate religious
freedom rights of Rastafarian prisoner. Harris v. Chapman, 97 F.3d 499 (11th
Cir. 1996).
[N/R] Material issue of fact existed as to
whether guards used excessive force when transferring pretrial detainee from
one cell to another. Dorsey v. St. Joseph Co. Jail Officials, 98 F.3d 1527 (7th
Cir. 1996.)
232:53 Prisoner allegedly injured by stray bird
shot when correctional officer intentionally fired shotgun at another inmate
can sue firing officer and two other officers who were present, despite
officer's lack of specific intent to injure him; correctional officers not
entitled to qualified immunity. Robins v. Meecham, 60 F.3d 1436 (9th Cir.
1995).
233:72 Jury award of a total of $115,000 against
correctional officers who allegedly assaulted prisoner and placed him naked in
feces smeared cell upheld by federal appeals court; jury's erroneous award of
punitive damages against three officers it found not liable did not invalidate
the remainder of the jury's verdict. Blissett v. Coughlin, 66 F.3d 531 (2nd
Cir. 1995).
233:73 Officer was not liable for use of
excessive force against prisoner when he "maliciously" attempted to
kick prisoner in the head after prisoner spit on him, since his kick missed
prisoner's head, resulting in no injury. Warren v. Humphrey, 875 F.Supp. 378
(E.D. Tex. 1995).
235:103 Jury awards prisoner $1,250 against two
correctional officers he alleged used excessive force against him, but awards
him nothing in second altercation involving five other officers; officer kicked
in the testicles by prisoner in second incident awarded $1,500 in damages
against him. Hynes v. LaBoy, 887 F.Supp. 618 (S.D.N.Y. 1995).
236:122 Jury awards $1.18 million to intoxicated
arrestee who was allegedly kicked by correctional officers at county jail,
shackled to bench, and denied use of a toilet while in custody. Sosa v.
Jefferson Co., C-95-229 (W.D.Ky., March 1, 1996), reported in The National Law
Journal p. A13 (April 1, 1996).
[N/R] Trial court's instructions on good faith
use of force on prisoner were adequate. Douglas v. Owens, 50 F.3d 1226 (3rd
Cir. 1995).
[N/R] Jury instructions given by trial court on
inmate's claim of excessive use of force by officers were proper. Palmer v.
Lares, 42 F.3d 975 (5th Cir. 1995).
217:9 Ohio department of corrections vicariously
liable for $2,000 for officer's alleged striking of inmate in the face without
provocation or justification. Elliott v. Ohio Dept. of Rehab. & Corr., 92
Ohio App. 3d 772, 637 N.E.2d 106 (1994).
217:9 Evidence that inmate spat in officer's face
before officer struck him as he raised his hands above his head as though to
strike the officer was properly admitted as evidence to support the claim that
the officer felt threatened; three of inmate's prior six convictions were
properly admitted into evidence to impeach his testimony. Wilson v. Groaning,
25 F.3d 581 (7th Cir. 1994).
220:54 Officer's striking of a prisoner solely to
harm him rather than for any legitimate penological reason violated the prisoner's
Eighth Amendment rights; prisoner was entitled to judgment in federal civil
rights suit despite suffering only pain and not permanent injury. McLaurin v.
Prater, 30 F.3d 982 (8th Cir. 1994).
220:55 Jury verdict for defendant correctional
officers in suit by prisoner overturned; trial judge's revealing plaintiff
prisoner's prior sexual offense convictions to prospective jurors was an abuse
of discretion. Scott v. Lawrence, 36 F.3d 871 (9th Cir. 1994).
221:71 Federal appeals court rules that jury
instructions in prisoner's excessive force claim against correctional officer
should have required finding that the officer acted both maliciously and
sadistically before awarding damages for an Eighth Amendment violation; failure
to include the words "and sadistically" in jury instructions required
reversal of award to plaintiff prisoner and the holding of a new trial. Howard
v. Barnett, 21 F.3d 868 (8th Cir. 1994).
225:136 Unprovoked spontaneous alleged assault on
prisoner by officers constituted punishment for purposes of stating an Eighth
Amendment claim. Pelfrey v. Chambers, 43 F.3d 1034 (6th Cir. 1995).
227:169 Correctional officers were not entitled
to qualified immunity on claim that they kept prisoner in cell deprived of
clothing for twenty-two hours, before and after they allegedly used excessive
force against him; deprivation of clothing was part of "continuous course
of conduct," and jury issue was whether officers' acted for reasonable
security reasons or "maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of
causing harm." Wilkins v. Moore, 40 F.3d 954 (8th Cir. 1994).
227:170 Jury instructions on excessive force
which did not include the word "sadistically" did not constitute
plain error requiring reversal of jury award against five correctional
officers. Baker v. Delo, 38 F.3d 1024 (8th Cir. 1994).
[N/R] Appeals court orders award of nominal
damages in case where jury found that officer used excessive force against
inmate but did not award any damages. Gibeau v. Nellis, 18 F.3d 107 (2nd Cir.
1994).
If deputy swung keys on brass ring at inmate's
face only in response to his smoking, and subsequently hit inmate's hand, he
used excessive force; appeals court orders further proceedings to decide
genuine issue of material fact as to whether inmate was causing a disturbance
at the time of the incident in question. Norman v. Taylor, 9 F.3d 1078 (4th
Cir. 1993).
Prisoner who claimed two guards assaulted him in
an office while two other prison officials watched did not provide any evidence
to refute affidavits showing that force used was necessary to restrain him
while he was being unruly; trial court grants summary judgment to defendants in
prisoner's civil rights lawsuit. Harrison v. Johnson, 830 F.Supp. 866 (E.D.N.C.
1993).
Jury award to inmate for alleged excessive force
by two officers overturned by appeals court because jury instructions failed to
require before liability that jury find that officers acted "maliciously
and sadistically for the very purpose of inflicting harm." Cummings v.
Malone, 995 F.2d 817 (8th Cir. 1993).
Prisoner's complaint that excessive force to
subdue him after disturbance was neither irrational nor wholly incredible and
therefore should not have been dismissed as frivolous. Johnson v. Bi-State
Justice Center, 12 F.3d 133 (8th Cir. 1993).
Factual issues as to whether correctional officer
used force in good faith effort to maintain order or sadistically to cause harm
precluded summary judgment for defendant officer on basis of qualified
immunity. Hill v. Shelander, 992 F.2d 714 (7th Cir. 1993).
Summary judgment should not have been granted in
suit alleging assault of prisoner by officers when there were unresolved
factual issues as to whether prison disturbance was still in progress at time
of the alleged assault. Moore v. Holbrook, 2 F.3d 697 (6th Cir. 1993).
Inmate allegedly beaten by two state troopers
after he yelled racial epithet at one of them during a drug raid on a prison
receives $66,300 in settlement of excessive force suit. Starling v. Co. of
Lehigh, U.S. Dist. Ct., E.D. Pa., No. CV-92-1229, Apr. 5, 1994, 37 ATLA L. Rep.
218 (Aug. 1994).
Detainee who claimed he was beaten by deputy
sheriffs at jail to coerce his confession to killing off-duty deputy was barred
from bringing excessive force civil rights claim; issue of whether detainee was
beaten was previously decided by trial court in criminal proceeding which
declined to suppress confession on grounds of coercion and could not be
relitigated. Gray v. Farley, 13 F.3d 142 (4th Cir. 1993). Correctional employee
was not entitled to qualified immunity in prisoner's suit against him for
failing to intervene in alleged attack on prisoner by officer who transported
inmate from jail to correctional institution; appeals court rules that
"deliberate indifference" was the proper standard for judging
liability, rather than requiring that plaintiff show that employee acted
"maliciously and sadistically." Buckner v. Hollins, 983 F.2d 119 (8th
Cir. 1993).
Appeals court upholds order for new trial on both
liability and damages in case where prisoner claimed guard hit him in the mouth
while he was being held down, requiring extraction of four of his teeth, where
injury found liability, but awarded no damages. Thomas v. Stalter, 20 F.3d 298
(7th Cir. 1994).
Correctional officer who threw handcuffed
prisoner down fire escape stairs while participating in evacuating prisoners
from dorm following riot liable for $10,000 in compensatory and $25,000 in
punitive damages for excessive use of force. Davis v. Moss, 841 F.Supp. 1193
(M.D. Ga. 1994).
Trial court abused its discretion in dismissing
prisoner's lawsuit as frivolous without considering the issue of whether the
Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment covers purely
psychological injury; appeals court reinstates for further proceedings inmate's
suit over officer's alleged threat to cut him with a knife. Smith v. Aldingers,
999 F.2d 109 (5th Cir. 1993).
Sheriff could not be held liable for officer's
alleged use of excessive force against a prisoner when he did not personally
participate in the incident, and there was not evidence showing that he
approved or encouraged the officers' actions, failed to provide adequate
training, or failed to conduct an investigation of what occurred. O'Banion v.
Bowman, 824 F.Supp. 743 (S.D. Ohio 1993).
Even if prisoner's claim that officers
"shoved him around" and verbally taunted him after a forced shower
were true, it did not constitute excessive use of force in violation of the
Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Risdal v.
Martin, 810 F.Supp. 1049 (S.D. Iowa 1993).
Prisoner beaten by several officers in his cell
awarded $15,000 in damages; his provocation of the officers, including throwing
human waste at them, mitigated against an award of punitive damages. Green v.
Johnson, 977 F.2d 1383 (10th cir. 1992).
Prisoner allegedly beaten without provocation
awarded damages against three officers who hit him and $20,000 in damages
against officer who forced him to walk a long distance from prison infirmary to
his cell despite his heart condition and severe chest pains. Giroux v. Sherman,
807 F.Supp. 1182 (E.D. Pa. 1992).
Correctional officer who choked prisoner until he
was unconscious and then struck him while he was handcuffed and on his knees
liable for $2,500 in damages and $27,600 in attorneys' fees; U.S. Court of
Appeals for Fifth Circuit abandons "shocks the conscience" standard
for pretrial detainee excessive force cases. Valencia v. Wiggins, 981 F.2d 1440
(5th Cir. 1993).
Correctional officers were properly granted in
summary judgment in prisoner's suit alleging that they beat him and made racial
remarks; officers' uncontested affidavits indicated that they entered his cell
to compel him to comply with orders to change clothes for his upcoming transfer
and medical records showed no "cognizable injuries." Williams v.
Browman, 981 F.2d 901 (6th Cir. 1992). Prisoner could not recover damages from
jail guard who allegedly struck him while trying to prevent him from cutting
his wrist in a suicide attempt. Martin v. Harrison Co. Jail, 975 F.2d 192 (5th
Cir. 1992).
Prisoner who claimed that deputy sheriffs
assaulted him could not sue county prosecutors for ignoring his requests to
bring criminal charges against the deputies. Rial v. Burmila, 782 F.Supp. 1291
(N.D. Ill. 1992).
Update: Federal judge vacates jury award of
$758,000 for alleged beatings and solitary confinement for seven year period of
Illinois prisoner; new trial ordered. Ortiz v. Fairman, No. 88-C-7509 (N.D.
Ill. Dec. 29, 1993), reported in the Chicago Tribune Section 2, p. 2 (Dec. 30,
1993).
Inmate awarded $28,000 in damages and $2,406 in
attorneys' fees for beating by three correctional officers intended to deter
him from filing administrative complaints in the future. Flowers v. Phelps, 956
F.2d 488 (5th Cir. 1992).
Officer used necessary, non-excessive force to
restrain inmate refusing to release items he seized from table in violation of
officer's orders; use of force upheld even if inmate's claim that officer
grabbed his scrotum were true. Garzee v. Barkley, 828 P.2d 334 (Idaho App.
1992).
Three officers liable for a total of $7,000 for
use of excessive force against prisoner who stabbed one of them with a homemade
knife and was subsequently convicted of attempted murder of the officer;
prisoner alleged he was repeatedly stabbed, beaten and kicked after he had been
disarmed and subdued. Bogan v. Stroud, 958 F.2d 180 (7th Cir. 1992).
Illinois prisoner awarded $758,800 for alleged
beatings and solitary confinement for seven year period. Ortiz v. Meyer, No.
88-C-7509 (N.D. Ill. 1992), reported in Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, p. 1 (April
8, 1992).
Prisoner struck in the groin area by correctional
officer awarded $500 for pain and suffering and $250 for
"humiliation". Neal v. Miller, 778 F.Supp. 378 (W.D. Mich. 1991).
Officers were not entitled to qualified immunity
for alleged unprovoked use of force against prisoner in 1985. Felix v.
McCarthy, 939 F.2d 699 (9th Cir. 1991).
Jail inmate awarded $2,500 for his beating by
officers in the presence of the sheriff; inmate's "loud" talking was
no justification for beating him. McNeal v. Owens, 769 F.Supp. 270 (W.D. Tenn.
1991).
U.S. Supreme Court rules that "significant
injury" is not a requirement for proving use of excessive physical force
against a prisoner in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Hudson v. McMillian,
503 U.S. 1 (1992).
Federal appeals court, requiring
"significant injury" for liability for alleged excessive force by
officers, finds that evidence that inmate suffered "extensive
bruising" and small lacerations met that requirement. Luciano v. Galindo,
944 F.2d 261 (5th Cir. 1991).
Former jail inmate awarded $42,000 by jury on his
claim that deputy sheriff attacked him for no reason after his incarceration
for public drunkenness; sheriff found not liable. Rhoads v. Pope, U.S. Dist.
Ct., Norfolk, Va., reported in The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, Va., p. D2 (July 10,
1991).
Prison officers were not entitled to qualified
immunity for dropping inmate, head first, from the back of pickup truck while
his hands were shackled behind his back; evidence was sufficient to justify
award of punitive damages of $3,500 and attorneys' fees of $62,643.20. Davis v.
Locke, 936 F.2d 1208 (11th Cir. 1991).
Detainee who suffered a cut wrist and bruises
when he resisted officers efforts to put him in a cell with another prisoner
did not have a claim for excessive use of force; inmate did, however, state
claim for officers' alleged deliberate indifference to his personal safety by
attempting to put him in a cell with a prisoner with violent propensities.
White v. Roper, 901 F.2d 1501 (9th Cir. 1990).
Daughter of detainee who died in jail after
deputies used choke hold on him to receive at least $1.9 million in settlement
of suit. Varela v. Co. of San Diego, reported in San Diego Union, p. B-1 (July
11, 1991).
Prisoner awarded $172,500 in damages against
officer videotaped forcing him to the ground. Casse v. Cross, U.S. Dist. Ct.
Santa Ana, Cal., reported in the Orange Co. Register, May 22, 1991.
Inmate awarded $1,250 in damages and $8,896 in
attorneys' fees in suit against correctional officers who pushed him against
shower wall with a plexiglass riot shield following his refusal to give them
his coat; federal appeals court upholds award. Burgin v. Iowa Dept. of
Corrections, 923 F.2d 637 (8th Cir. 1991).
Prisoner's verbal provocation alone would not
have justified officer's response of striking inmate with baton; summary
judgment for defendant officer was improper. Miller v. Leathers, 913 F.2d 1085
(4th Cir. 1990).
Correctional officers' use of force to remove
inmate from regular cell to isolation cell was justified when inmate refused
three times to uncover his head while sleeping. Stenzel v. Ellis, 916 F.2d 423
(8th Cir. 1990).
Inmates beaten by officers after they passively
resisted transfer awarded $29,000 compensatory and $743,000 punitive damages.
Covington v. District of Columbia, U.S. District Ct., D.C., No. 87-2658, Sept.
10, 1990, reported in 34 ATLA L. Rep. 10 (Feb. 1991).
Prison employee liable for $1,000 to inmate after
sticking the barrel of his revolver in the inmate's mouth and cocking the
trigger because inmate had spread rumors he was having a sexual affair with the
employee's wife. Oses v. Fair, 739 F.Supp. 707 (D. Mass. 1990).
Allegation that prison guard smashed prisoner's
fingers in small opening on cell door, requiring stitches in two fingers,
stated claim for use of excessive force. Adams v. Hansen, 906 F.2d 192 (5th
cir. 1990).
Jury awards $3.3 million to pre-trial female
detainee chained to wall who suffered aggravation of asthma condition;
settlement for unstated amount. Murphy v. City of Hamstramck, Mich., Wayne
county Circuit Court, No. 85-503217CZ, Feb. 8, 1990, 33 ATLA L. Rep. 289 (Sept.
1990).
Prisoner's assertion that officer deliberately
kicked the door to the food slot of his cell, cutting off the tip of his
finger, could not be countered by hearsay witnesses and unauthenticated
records. Gilbert v. Collins, 905 F.2d 61 (5th Cir. 1990).
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals adopts new
standard on Eighth Amendment excessive force claims; significant injury,
unreasonableness and excessiveness of force insufficient to show violation in
absence of wanton infliction of pain. Huguet v. Barnett, 900 F.2d 838 (5th Cir.
1990).
Prisoner who suffered only bruises could not
bring claim for unconstitutional use of excessive force by guards. Wise v.
Carlson, 902 F.2d 417 (5th Cir. 1990).
Federal appeals court upholds damage award to
prisoner assaulted by correctional officers; severe injury not required for
violation of civil rights. McHenry v. Chadwick, 896 F.2d 184 (6th Cir. 1990).
Officer's striking of inmate three times with his
baton did not violate eighth amendment. Miller v. Leathers, 885 F.2d 151 (4th
Cir. 1989).
Appeals court upholds $241,000 damage award to
prisoners beaten by guards after prison riot; evidence sufficient to impose
liability on prison supervisors. Bolin v. Black, 875 F.2d 1343 (8th Cir. 1989).
Warden could not be held liable for alleged
beating of inmate by officers, absent any claim that he was personally
involved. Engles v. Hopkins, 709 F.Supp. 495 (S.D.N.Y. 1989).
City settles lawsuit over alleged rape of female
inmate by officer for $7,500; plaintiff had asked $1 million. Lemon v. City of
Caruthersville, Federal district court, Missouri, reported in Missouri Herald,
Hayti, Missouri, June 16, 1989.
Officers did not use excessive force in pushing
inmate against bars to handcuff him for purposes of transport within prison.
Anderson v. Sullivan, 702 F.Supp. 424 (S.D.N.Y. 1988).
Officer entitled to qualified immunity for using
deadly force in attempt to prevent escape of prisoner who was murderer. Henry
v. Perry, 866 F.2d 657 (3rd Cir. 1989).
Prisoner in Maryland must exhaust administrative
grievance procedures before bringing state law action for alleged assault by
officer. McCullough v. Wittner, 552 A.2d 881 (Md. 1989).
Federal appeals court tells inmate: "no
pain, no gain"; no recovery for "cruel and unusual punishment"
absent suffering of pain, misery, anguish. Cowans v. Wyrick, 862 F.2d 697 (8th
Cir. 1988).
Single act of beating by officer was insufficient
to impose liability on city; officer held liable. Lowe v. City of St. Louis,
843 F.2d 1158 (8th Cir. 1988).
Inmate's failure to prove "severe
injury" in assault by guards sufficient to uphold jury verdict for
defendants when inmate himself proposed instruction including "severe
injury" as required. Williams v. Boles, 841 F.2d 181 (7th Cir. 1988).
U.S. Supreme Court denies certiorari in case
where government and official were liable; failure to intervene and investigate
deputies' assault on inmate sufficient for section 1983 liability. Co. of Wayne
v. Marchese, 107 S.Ct. 1369 (1987).
Excessive force complaint was frivolous in case
in which no severe injuries were shown. James v. Alfred, 832 F.2d 339 (5th Cir.
1987).
Plaintiff's civil rights lawsuit will be
dismissed if he continues to fail to respond to defendant's interrogatories; he
will be given one more chance to comply because of pro se status. Riviera v.
Simmons, 116 F.R.D. 593 (S.D. N.Y. 1987).
Co. must provide legal representation to guards
accused of assaulting prisoner. Giordano v. O'Neill, 517 N.Y.S.2d 41 (A.D.
1987).
Court dismisses inmate's complaint that he was
beaten by sheriff and prosecutor. Barnes v. Smith, 654 F.Supp. 1244 (E.D. Mo.
1987).
Force used to return inmate to cell was
appropriate. Brown v. Smith, 813 F.2d 1187 (11th Cir. 1987).
Case ordered to proceed against guards for
shooting inmate; federal and state claims must be instructed to the jury
separately. Davis v. Lane, 814 F.2d 397 (7th Cir. 1987).
Court allows suit to continue for injuries to
inmate bystanders when fellow inmates were sprayed with tear gas; suit alleges
canisters instead of "pepper fogger" would have localized the spray.
Holloway v. Lockhart, 813 F.2d 874 (8th Cir. 1987).
Making threats to inmates if they exercise
constitutional rights no basis for federal suit; inmate's suit dismissed. Gaut
v. Sunn, 810 F.2d 923 (9th Cir. 1987).
Exposing inmates to tear gas in subduing violent
inmate not cruel and unusual punishment; no eighth amendment violation. Collins
v. Ward, 652 F.Supp. 500 (S.D.N.Y. 1987).
Court properly admits photograph of fatally
stabbed guard in inmates' civil rights suit; error in closing argument not
grounds for reversal when substantial evidence existed. Tyler v. white, 811
F.2d 1204 (8th Cir. 1987).
Intentional assault goes beyond negligent
concepts set forth in Davidson-Daniels cases; section 1983 liability found.
Burris v. Kirkpatrick, 649 F.Supp. 740 (N.D. Ind. 1986).
Step-father and siblings have no constitutionally
protected liberty interest in companionship of inmate allegedly beaten to death
by guards; section 1983 suit dismissed. Ortiz v. Burgos, 807 F.2d 6 (1st Cir.
1986).
Corrections officer who wrapped inmate's face in
bandages, causing death, indicted in federal court for civil rights violation.
United States v. Dale, (W.D.N.C. 1986).
Prison guard sued for brutality during strip
search. Information obtained from the Philadelphia, Pa., Inquirer, 11/19/86.
Prison guards liable for $195,000 for beating
inmate who died following testicle injuries; jury verdict of $150,000 against
director doesn't stand. Rascon v. Hardiman, 803 F.2d 269 (7th Cir. 1986).
Service of process by prisoners valid; guards
liable by default for refusing to answer complaint. Benny v. Pipes, 799 F.2d
489 (9th Cir. 1986).
Guard liable for shooting inmate in trying to end
disturbance. McCullough v. Cady, 640 F.Supp. 1012 (E.D. Mich. 1986).
Verdict upheld against guards for beating
detainee thought to have mental problems; administrators not liable.
Information obtained from the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, 9/29/86; Rascon v.
Hardiman, No. 85-1589.
Guard liable for harassing paraplegic prisoners.
Parrish v. Johnson, 800 F.2d 600 (6th Cir. 1986).
Stun guns outlawed. Schindler v. Beard, U.S.
District Court, Baltimore, Md. The information was obtained from the Annapolis
Capital Newspaper, Md., 7/21/86.
Threats of bodily harm constitute civil action.
Gaut v. Sunn, 792 F.2d 874 (9th Cir. 1986).
Damages awarded against guards for beating inmate
after he complained of homosexual advances. Wilson v. Lambert, 789 F.2d 656
(8th Cir. 1986).
Mock execution and brutality results in liability
verdict. Leach v. Ross, U.S. District Court, D.D.C., No. 84-2416, 11/18/85.
Also see 29 ATLA L. Rep. 225, June 1986.
Striking inmate with lead glove states federal
claim, despite no permanent injuries. Velleff v. Cantwell, 630 F.Supp. 346
(N.D. Ill. 1986).
Case against prison officials for prisoner
assault reversed in light of U.S. Supreme Court cases. Johnston v. Lucas, 786
F.2d 1254 (5th Cir. 1986).
Verbal threats constitute section 1983 claim.
Burton v. Livingston, 791 F.2d 97 (8th Cir. 1986).
Prisoner says sergeants beat him with flashlights
and nightsticks. Hawkins v. Poole, 779 F.2d 1267 (7th Cir. 1985).
Prison official's "jabbing" inmate with
object not actionable. Hudson v. Johnson, 619 F.Supp. 1539 (D.C. Mich. 1985).
Settlement for chokehold death; police department
upholds use of taser gun. Guevara v. City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times,
4/3/86.
Court upholds "stretch hold" position.
Owens v. city of Atlanta, 780 F.2d 1564 (11th Cir. 1986).
Guard's threat to kill warden did not influence
warden's testimony against inmate. West v. Love, 776 F.2d 170 (7th Cir. 1985).
Sua Sponte dismissals before service of process
not favored. Bonfiglio v. Hodden, 770 F.2d 301 (2nd Cir. 1985).
Prisoner asks that "sadistic"
correctional officer be removed. Hall v. Key, 476 So.2d 787 (Fla. App. 1985).
Guard liable for watching beating without
interfering. Thompson v. Jones, 619 F.Supp. 745 (D.C. Ill. 1985).
Single fist blow to inmate was justified. Peebles
v. Frey, 617 F.Supp. 1072 (D.C. Mo. 1985).
Two guards ordered to pay $40,000 for beating
inmate, who was a "troublemaker," according to a judge. Thomson v.
Jones and Baskin, U.S. District Court, Ill., Chicago Tribune, 10/9/85. Using
mace is acceptable alternative to physical force. Norris v. District of
Columbia, 614 F.Supp. 294 (D.C.D.C. 1985).
Settlement reached for alleged negligent hiring
and retention of violent guard, who bear 72-year-old arrestee. Zellmer v.
Turley, U.S. Dist. Ct. E.D. Wis., No. 83-C-405, July 10th 1984; obtained from
28 ATLA L. Rep. 124, April, 1985.
Court believes officials version that force was
necessary. Morgan v. Wilkinson, 606 F.Supp. 564 (M.D. Pa. 1985).
No error in refusing to call witness too far
away. Jones v. Collier, 762 F.2d 71 (8th Cir. 1985).
Striking an inmate not a federal action. Hurd v.
Nolan, 610 F.Supp. 591 (D.C. Mo. 1985).
Repeated stomping is grounds for federal
jurisdiction. Harrison v. Byrd, 765 F.2d 501 (5th Cir. 1985).
Court improperly relied upon prison investigation
report on inmate beating; there may be liability for excessive force, but not
for being denied x-rays. El'amin v. Pearce, 750 F.2d 829 (10th Cir. 1984).
Co. and sheriff jointly liable for sheriff's
failure to train and investigate deputies, who beat prisoner. Marchese v.
Lucas, 758 F.2d 181 (6th Cir. 1985).
Warden and others liable for beating inmate
within minutes of his arrival. Parton v. Wyrick, (W.D. Mo.) No. 81-4023-CV-C-W
5/84; 28 ATLA L. Rep. 76 3/85.
Reporter must reveal confidential witness's name
to plaintiff. Miller v. Mecklenburg Co., 602 F.Supp. 675 (W.D.N.C. 1985).
O.K. to object to inconsistency of special
verdicts on appeal. Bates v. Jean, 745 F.2d 1146 (7th Cir. 1984).
Suit for beating by guards to proceed. Kine v.
Meekins, 593 F.Supp. 59 (D.D.C. 1984).
Shooting inmate assisting guard in riot may
constitute excessive force. Albers v. Whitley, 743 F.2d 1372 (9th Cir. 1984).
Inmates' counsel, but not inmates, entitled to
view guards' personnel files in assault suit. Inmates of Unit 14 v. Rebideau,
102 F.R.D. 122 (S.D.N.Y. 1984).
Inmate entitled to reopen discovery for assault
suit against guards; warden accused of negligent supervision entitled to jury
trial. Thomson v. Jones, 102 F.R.D. 619 (N.D. Ill. 1984).
No showing of inadequate firearms training for
guard who improperly fired warning shot. Buckner v. State of Nev., 599 F.Supp.
788 (D. Nev. 1984).
Officer's failing to intervene while fellow
officers beat arrestee makes him liable, not them. Webb v. Arresting Officers,
749 F.2d 500 (8th Cir. 1984); on remand from 713 F.2d 405 (1983).
Jury's decision awarding $250.00 against jailer
and $5,000 against city reversed. Exparte City of Huntsville, 456 So.2d 72
(Ala. 1984).
Deputies liable for not intervening in prisoner
abuse incident. Smith v. Dooley, 591 F.Supp. 1157 (W.D. La. 1984).
Permanent injuries not required to maintain
Section 1983 action over mace incident. Norris v. District of Columbia, 737
F.2d 1148 (D.D.C. 1984).
Two correctional guards jointly liable for
excessive force on resisting inmate. Bush v. Ware, 589 F.Supp. 1454 (E.D. Wis.
1984).
Complaint for guard abuse fails to state a cause
of action; prosecutor immune from refusing to prosecute guard. Townsend v.
Frame, 587 F.Supp. 369 (E.D. Pa. 1984).
Guards may mace unruly and
"recalcitrant" inmates. Bailey v. Turner, 736 F.2d 963 (4th Cir.
1984).
Inmate claims guard shot him in knee while
helping elderly inmates. Albers v. Oregon State Prison, (9th Cir. 1984). San
Francisco Recorder, 10/2/84.
Use of water hoses, tear gas, and billy clubs
constituted guard brutality resulting in $32,500 to inmate. Slakan v. Porter,
737 F.2d 368 (4th Cir. 1984).
U.S. Magistrate to hear claim that guard twice
assaulted inmate for fighting. Perry v. Walker, 576 F.Supp. 1264 (E.D. Va.
1984).
Police lieutenant suspended, not terminated, for
throwing water on prisoner. Brideau v. Wheeler, 476 N.Y.S.2d 189 (App. 1984).
No Section 1983 liability despite evidence
showing inmate was beaten. Baker v. St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners,
No. 83-2536 (8th Cir. 1984).
Officers accused of beating inmate after prison
disturbance; no absolute immunity for hearing officers. Juan v. Rafferty, 577
F.Supp. 774 (D.N.J. 1984).
Guard liable for $3,500 for using excessive force
on inmate who refused to obey order. Williams v. Mussomelli, 722 F.2d 1130 (3rd
Cir. 1983).
Inmate's allegation that guard assaulted him not
actionable in federal court since it is a tort requiring state action. Ricketts
v. Derello, 574 F.Supp. 645 (E.D. Pa. 1983).
Deputy and jailer may be liable for excessive
force on mentally ill inmate resulting in death; no liability to sheriff
regarding supervision and training. Lazano v. Smith, 718 F.2d 756 (5th Cir.
1983).
Use of tear gas against inmates in their cells
was improper; injunction issued. Soto v. Cady, 566 F.Supp. 773 (E.D. Wis.
1983).
Guard could be liable for assaulting inmate.
Sampley v. Ruettgers, 704 F.2d 491 (10th Cir. 1983).
Sheriff's actions reasonable in capturing
escapees. Putman v. Gerloff, 701 F.2d 63 (8th Cir. 1983); 632 F.2d 415 (8th
Cir. 1981).
Court finds inmate was not beaten after escape
attempt. Czajka v. Hickman, 703 F.2d 317 (8th Cir. 1983).
Guard not liable for handcuffing inmate. Pearl v.
Thodes, 711 F.2d 868 (8th Cir. 1983).
Possible liability to deputy sheriff for
assaulting inmate; no liability for inadequate dental treatment after injury.
Miller v. Schnacht, 567 F.Supp. 510 (N.D. Ind. 1983).
No liability for Deputy U.S. Marshals who shot
and killed inmate during struggle in courtroom. Hoston v. U.S., 566 F.Supp.
1125 (D.D.C. 1983).
Sheriff not liable for death of inmate caused by
deputies using excessive force. Lozanc v. Smith, 718 F.2d 756 (5th Cir. 1983).
Jailers use of mace on pretrial detainee
reasonable. Smith v. Iron Co., 692 F.2d 685 (10th Cir. 1982).
Prison not liable for using tear gas to quell a
late night disturbance in a dormitory. Injuries consisted of skin rashes and
eye irritations. Petersen v. Davis, 551 F.Supp. 137, 1982 U.S. Dist. Lexis
15912 (D.Md.).
Use of tear gas by Indiana state prison officials
against pretrial detainees locked in cells scrutinized by court of appeals.
Lock v. Jenkins, 641 F.2d 488 (7th Cir. 1981).
$500 awarded to Texas jail inmate in beating;
good faith defense denied; $2,500 in attorney's fees awarded against jail
guard. Williams v. Thomas, 511 F.Supp. 535 (N.D. Tex. 1981).
Fifth Circuit rules that isolated assault by a
prison guard on an inmate is not cruel and unusual punishment. George v. Evans,
633 F.2d 413 (5th Cir. 1980).
Circuit court finds inmate's allegations that he
was brutalized by correctional officers and unjustly charged and confined, to
be without merit. La Plante v. Southworth, 484 F.Supp. 115 (2nd Cir. 1980).
Federal court denies trial to pretrial detainee
on his claim that he was abused by jail officers. Santiago v. Yarde, 487
F.Supp. 52 (1980).
Individual prison guards entitled to defense of
good faith although their intentional conduct amounted to constitutional
violation. Picariello v. Fenton, 491 F.Supp. 1020 (M.D. Pa. 1980).
West Virginia court rules guard's physical abuse
of prisoners, after a riot, violated constitutional protections. Harrah v.
Leverette, 271 S.E.2d 322 (W. Va. 1980).
Use of mace to quell Louisiana prison disturbance
did not violate inmate's rights, federal court rules. LeBlane v. Foti, 487
F.Supp. 272 (E.D. La. 1980).
New York District Court dismisses inmate suit
claiming unwarranted force and mental torture in violation of his civil rights.
Sims v. Zolango, 481 F.Supp. 388 (1979).
Federal court finds that the constitutional
rights of two prisoners was infringed when tear gas was sprayed into their cell
without justification. The two prisoners were locked "securely behind bars
and could not create a serious disturbance." McCargo v. Mister, 462 F.
Supp. 813/ at 819 (D.Md. 1978).
Use of tear gas when reasonably necessary to
prevent prison escapes or riots held not to constitute cruel and unusual
punishment. Clemmons v. Greggs, 509 F.2d 1338 (5th Cir. 1975).
Complaint alleging that plaintiff was caused to
come into contact with tear gas used by jail officers in quelling disturbance
in prison held insufficient to state cause of action under federal Civil Rights
Act. Davis v. United States, 439 F.2d 1118 (8th Cir. 1971). » For earlier case
discussions see: Sheffey v. Greer, 391 F.Supp. 1044 (E.D. Ill. 1975); Myles v.
Falkenstein, 317 So.2d 292 (La. App. 1975); Bracey v. Grenoble, 494 F.2d 566
(3rd Cir. 1974); Davidson v. Dixon, 386 F.Supp. 482 (D. Del. 1974); Butler v.
Bensinger, 377 F.Supp. 870 (D.C. Ill. 1974); Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028
(2d Cir. 1973); Holt v. Hutto, 363 F.Supp. 194 (E.D. Ark. 1973); Morales v.
Turman, 364 F.Supp. 166 (E.D. Tex. 1973); Taylor v. Strickland, 411 F.Supp.
1390 (D. S.C. 1976); Tate v. Kassulke, 409 F.Supp. 651 (W.D. Ky. 1976); Rodgers
v. Westbrook, 362 F.Supp. 353 (E.D. Mo. 1973); Allen v. Oregon State
Penitentiary, 581 P.2d 83 (Ore. App. 1978); Taylor v. Strickland, 411 F.Supp.
443 (D. S.C. 1976); Poindexter v. Woodson, 357 F.Supp. 443 (D. Kan. 1973).