Benjamin Luttrell arrived at the Dodge Correctional Institution and was placed in a double cell with an inmate who was taking "heavy doses" of medication for a psychiatric condition. Luttrell observed his cellmate's unusual behavior, including the cellmate's claim that a voice in his head was telling him to kill someone. Luttrell complained to a sergeant, Julie Nickel, about his cellmate's "mental behavior" and requested a transfer to another cell. Nickel laughed at Luttrell and told him that the cellmate would be fine as long as he took his medication. She also explained that she did not have the authority to transfer prisoners, and that Luttrell would have to take the matter up with a lieutenant. He did not.
Nine days later, Luttrell awoke to find his cellmate naked and standing over him, masturbating while rubbing cocoa butter onto Luttrell's upper thigh and buttocks. Luttrell brandished a weapon—a sock with a padlock inside—to repel the cellmate's attack. Luttrell was subsequently disciplined by the prison for possession of the weapon.
Luttrell brought a pro se action under 18 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that Nickel violated his Eighth Amendment right by failing to protect him from his cellmate's attack. To sustain such an action, a plaintiff must show that the prison official acted with deliberate indifference. The trial court found that Luttrell did not provide evidence to support a finding of deliberate indifference and, accordingly, granted Nickel's motion for summary judgment. Luttrell appealed.
Holding: Luttrell did not establish that Nickel acted with deliberate indifference. The trial court's judgment was affirmed. The court held that Nickel's laughter at Luttrell's request and her failure to follow tip on his complaint did not rise to the level of deliberate indifference. Nickel did not have actual knowledge of a substantial risk of harm to Luttrell, and she had no reason to believe that the cellmate would be dangerous to Luttrell if the cellmate was taking his medication. The court also noted that Nickel informed Luttrell how to further pursue his request for reassignment, but Luttrell did not follow up on her suggestion.
| Ira P. Robbins, Esq. Professor American University College of Law |
Professor Robbins comments: Prisoners are often wronged, but rarely have a legal remedy. They live in an institutional environment in which they are at the mercy of prison staff as well as other inmates. They also live in a judicial environment that has historically shied away from litigation by inmates. The Virginia Supreme Court, for example, in a seminal 1871 case, declared that a prisoner was "a slave of the State," subject to however the state wished to regulate his confinement. Ruffin v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. (21 Gratt.) 790 (1871).
While [djr1]courts in the 1960s and 1970s withdrew from such a restrictive philosophy—recognizing prisoners' rights under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution—the Supreme Court in the last fifteen years has retrenched markedly. Even in those areas in which it is possible to succeed on the right set of facts—such as systemic abuse and seriously deficient medical treatment—the Court has erected barriers that are virtually insurmountable. See generally Ira P. Robbins, 1 Prisoners and the Law Chs. 1, 2 (West Group, 1997); Robbins, The History of Inmate Rights, 144 Federal Rules Decisions 127 (1993); Robbins, The Future of Federal Judicial Intervention in Prison Administration, 71 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 211 (1980).
The effect of harmful conditions is less important than the intent of the prison staff
One of these barriers is the "deliberate-indifference standard." Formulated in 1991 in a prisoner's case claiming that conditions of confinement constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled that the inmate had to show that prison officials had a culpable state of mind—deliberate indifference—as a prerequisite to obtaining relief. In so holding, the Court rejected the argument that the objective conditions endured by prisoners, rather than the state of mind of prison officials, should determine the outcome of Eighth Amendment challenges. In other words, the effect of harmful conditions on prisoners is less important than the intent of prison staff in creating those conditions or allowing them to exist. Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294 (1991). Three years later, the Supreme Court further curtailed Eighth Amendment protections. In Farmer v. Brennan [511 U.S. 825 (1994)], a case involving the rape and brutal beating of a transsexual prisoner by another inmate, the Court held that the deliberate-indifference standard requires that some prison official have actual knowledge of a substantial risk to one or more inmates. This subjective requirement would sound the death knell for litigation like Benjamin Luttrell's.
A deliberate-indifference test that requires actual knowledge of risk or sordid conditions leaves prison officials with no affirmative duty to acquire such knowledge. Consider the situation in which the guard or staff member fails to follow up on a prisoner's complaint because:
(a) he (or she) doesn't believe the prisoner; or (b) he's too busy to investigate; or (c) he's too lazy to investigate; or (d) it would be an administrative burden—in terms of time and/or other resources—to investigate; or (e) he simply doesn't like the prisoner. After Wilson and Farmer, all of these reasons become valid defense excuses, for in none of these situations would the official possess the requisite degree of knowledge.
The vast majority of prison guards in this country perform their functions in good faith. But the law today does little to protect inmates from the small minority who act otherwise. While a prison staffer's cavalier attitude may be counterproductive to sound prison management, it is not necessarily against the law. Further, most federal judges see themselves as so inundated by ever-expanding jurisdiction that they feel a need to keep their cases moving. Unfortunately for Benjamin Luttrell and other prisoners, high standards of proof like the deliberate-indifference test keep cases like his moving right off the federal docket.
Mel Brooks, playing King Louis XIV of France in the classic comedy movie, The History of the World, Part I, uttered the timeless line, "It's good to be the King!" By contrast, in the history of prisoners rights it was never good to be the prisoner. Current case law and judicial attitude underscore this conclusion. Actual knowledge is one of the hardest elements to prove in litigation—especially for an indigent prisoner without access to expert witnesses, in a judicial system that has little time for or interest in his or her claim.
