Ellie Harris | Protecting Pretrial Detainees from Deliberate Indifference

BACKGROUND

In 2015, the Supreme Court reviewed the case of Michael Kingsley, a pretrial detainee who suffered a brutal assault at the hands of his jailers and sued them for using excessive force in violation of his rights. The Court held in Kingsley v. Hendrickson that claims of excessive force against a pretrial detainee must be evaluated against an objective standard. This means that when a court is determining whether excessive force is used, it must do so from the point of view of the reasonable officer who was present at the time (as opposed to the perspective of the specific officer involved). The Court explained that “the Due Process Clause protects pretrial detainees from excessive force that amounts to punishment,” which can occur when the force at issue is not “reasonably related to the legitimate purpose of holding detainees for trial.” Id.

 While imprisoned in 2017, pretrial detainee Derrick Monroe attempted suicide numerous times in his cell. As a result, jail officials moved Mr. Monroe to an isolated cell with a 30-inch telephone cord inside. One Sunday morning in October, Mr. Monroe wrapped the cord around his neck and hung himself. The lone jailer on duty, Jessie Laws, failed to intervene or call 911 to get assistance for Mr. Monroe, who later died from his injuries. Mr. Monroe’s family sued the jail officials for inadequate care, stating that the officers knew of Mr. Monroe’s history of suicide and still displayed deliberate indifference in protecting him. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas denied the officer's motion for summary judgment. A divided panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity and rendering judgment in the officers’ favor.

ISSUE

Does the objective standard the Supreme Court announced in Kingsley apply to inadequate-care claims brought by pretrial detainees, or does the subjective standard that applies to convicted prisoners also applies to pretrial detainees?

THE SPLIT

After Kingsley, several circuits have encountered cases questioning the extension of the logic to situations of pretrial detainee claims of inadequate care. These circuits have attempted to decide whether the Kingsley decision “eliminated the subjective component of the deliberate indifference standard” for cases that involve pretrial detainees. Strain v. Regalado, 977 F.3d 984, 990 (10th Cir. 2020). The Fifth Circuit recently joined the Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuit, confining the Kingsley standard to excessive force claims only. Meanwhile, the Second, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits have said that since pretrial detainees cannot be punished before conviction, the Kingsley standard is objective when applied to claims of inadequate care in the pretrial context.

The Fifth, Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits

In Strain v. Regalado, the Tenth Circuit held that the Kingsley standard did not apply to a pretrial detainee’s indifference claims because “Kingsley turned on considerations unique to excessive force claims: whether the use of force amounted to punishment, not on the status of the detainee.” Id. at 991. The Court maintained that deliberate indifference claims presuppose a subjective analysis. The Court declined to extend Kingsley to the deliberate indifference claims by pretrial detainees, citing stare decisis.

In Whitney v. City of St. Louis, 887 F.3d 857 (8th Cir. 2018), the Eighth Circuit similarly concluded that Kingsley would not apply in this context because “it was an excessive force case, not a deliberate indifference case.” Id. at 860 n.4. The Court, therefore, relied on its own precedent, which “establishes that [w]hether an official was deliberately indifferent requires both an objective and a subjective analysis.” Id. at 860.

The Eleventh Circuit mirrored this logic in Nam Dang v. Sheriff, Seminole Cnty., 871 F.3d 1272 (11th Cir. 2017), stating that “Kingsley involved an excessive-force claim, not a claim of inadequate medical treatment due to deliberate indifference.” Id. at 1279 n.2. The Court then reasoned that the Kingsley decision was “not ‘squarely on point’ with and does not ‘actually abrogate or directly conflict with’ our prior precedent identifying the standard we apply in this opinion to Dang’s claim.” Id. The Court, therefore, concluded that what happened in Dang’s case was negligence as opposed to deliberate indifference.

The Cope decision by the Fifth Circuit cited the three above circuit decisions and similarly held that “Kingsley discussed a different type of constitutional claim, it did not abrogate our deliberate-indifference precedent.” Cope v. Cogdill, 3 F.4th 198, 208 n.7 (5th Cir. 2021). The Court reasoned that “Kingsley did not address claims regarding medical treatment [and] . . . the Supreme Court held that plaintiffs alleging excessive force must show that the force was objectively excessive.” Id. Therefore, Cope was required to prove subjective intent of harm and did not satisfy this requirement. Id.

The Second, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits

In Darnell v. Pineiro, 849 F.3d 17 (2d Cir. 2017), the Second Circuit interpreted the application of Kingsley to a conditions-of-confinement case. The Court reasoned that “punishment has no place in defining the mens rea element of a pretrial detainee’s claim under the Due Process Clause,” no matter what type of claim was at issue. Id. at 35. The Court then held that “[t]he same objective analysis [as in Kingsley] should apply to an officer’s appreciation of the risks associated with an unlawful condition of confinement in a claim for deliberate indifference under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id. Later Second Circuit cases expanded this approach to claims of inadequate medical care. See Charles v. Orange County, 925 F.3d 73, 86-87 (2d Cir. 2019).

The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, has also held that “Kingsley “expressly rejected * * * the notion that there exists a single ‘deliberate indifference’ standard applicable to all § 1983 claims, whether brought by pretrial detainees or by convicted prisoners.” Castro v. County of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d 1060, 1069 (9th Cir. 2016). Through this and subsequent cases, the Court concluded that the Kingsley decision extended to inadequate medical care cases, so such claims should be evaluated under an objective standard.

In Miranda v. County of Lake, 900 F.3d 335 (7th Cir. 2018), the Seventh Circuit aligned itself with the conclusions of the Second and Ninth Circuits, holding that the Kingsley objective unreasonableness standard applies to pretrial detainee’s medical-care claims brought under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Seventh Court emphasized that the Supreme Court has signaled that “courts must pay careful attention to the different status of pretrial detainees.” Id. at 352.

The Sixth Circuit made similar conclusions in Brawner v. Scott County, 14 F.4th 585 (6th Cir. 2021). Here, the Court reasoned that “Kingsley’s clear delineation between claims brought by convicted prisoners under the Eighth Amendment and claims brought by pretrial detainees under the Fourteenth Amendment” render Sixth Circuit precedent invalid. Id. at 594. The Sixth Circuit then concluded that “Kingsley’s objective standard applies to a pretrial detainee’s medical care claims.” Id. at 593.

LOOKING FORWARD

Courts have been increasingly asked to clarify the doctrine of qualified immunity in the era of reckoning for police brutality. Multiple petitions for certiorari concerning qualified immunity are filed with the Court every year, and at least one of these petitions is likely granted each term. A petition in the Cope case was filed with the Court on November 22, 2021. This cert petition raises two issues on appeal in addition to the above circuit split. Petitioners are also asking the Court to reverse the Fifth Circuit’s holding, granting qualified immunity to jail officers who respond unreasonably to obvious medical or safety risks. This is contrary to the holding of numerous other circuits, which have concluded that “jail officials who are subjectively aware of a substantial risk that a pretrial detainee will attempt suicide and respond to the harm unreasonably may be held liable when their violation was obvious.” Petition for Writ of Certiorari at i (citation omitted).

Lastly, petitioners are asking the Court to consider reforming the judicially created qualified immunity doctrine in general. As of today, this case has been included in seven different justices’ conferences, indicating that the Court does have at least an interest in this case, increasing the likelihood that the petition will be granted. Interestingly, the composition of the Court has changed since the Kingsley decision in 2015. Kingsley was decided by a 5–4 vote, with Justice Kennedy joining the four liberal justices (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan); the dissenting justices included Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas. If Kingsley were decided today, it would have likely led to the opposite result. This reality could lead to significant changes to the jurisprudence if a review of qualified immunity is granted through the Cope petition.