No Constitutional Violation by Sheriff in Charge of Jail Where Inmate Was Murdered

Keith v. Brown, No. 13-11250, appeal from NDGa

Circuit Judge Tjoflat joined by Circuit Judge Wilson and Senior Circuit Judge Ripple (7^th Cir.)

Summary:  The plaintiff estate sued after a pretrial detainee was murdered in Dekalb County Jail.  The named defendants included Dekalb County, the district attorney’s office, the former District Attorney, the Dekalb County sheriff, and several correctional officers.  The district court dismissed all federal claims except those against the sheriff.  The appeal concerned the district court’s denial of the Sheriff’s motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity.

In essence, the plaintiff claimed that the Sheriff violated the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to segregate mental health inmates with violent histories from those with violent histories.  Since a classification decision for inmates was made based on whether mental health staff at the prison determined that an inmate posed a risk of harm, however, the panel found that the Sheriff was not required to disregard that determination.  The panel found that the Sheriff did not violate any constitutional right, much less a clearly established constitutional right by failing to disregard the medical expertise of the contractors he hired to assess the mental health of inmates.

The panel further granted summary judgment on any claim that the Sheriff failed to properly train his subordinates. In a footnote, the panel refused to extend dicta from City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378 (1989), regarding whether a single incident could create liability for a failure to train, noting that the failure to train in this case did not amount to deliberate indifference.

Accordingly, the panel reversed the district court’s denial of the Sheriff’s summary judgment motion.

Note: This opinion is a good example of Judge Tjoflat’s fondness for footnotes.  They provide a wealth of detail—too much some traditionalists would say. Footnote 39 also points out that the complaint is a shotgun pleading and Judge Tjoflat does not mince words “shotgun pleadings unnecessarily tax the time and resources of the District Court as well as the Court of Appeals.  Note 50 is a rare insight into perhaps the judge’s true feeling about a given case.