Wilson v. Blankenship, 94-7158
| Decision Date | 31 December 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-7158,94-7158 |
| Citation | 163 F.3d 1284 |
| Parties | 12 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 373 Donald WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BLANKENSHIP, Warden of Montgomery City Jail, Miss Hall, Assistant Warden, Employee of Montgomery City Jail, Mr. Parks, Employee of Montgomery City Jail, Mrs. Hawkens, Employee of Montgomery City Jail, Janice Hopkins, Pam Harding, U.S. Marshal, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Susan G. James, Montgomery, AL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Norman Gunter Guy, Jr., Brannan & Guy, P.C., David L. Allred, Leura J. Garrett, Asst. U.S. Atty., Andy D. Birchfield, Jr., Brannan, Guy & Birchfield, PC, Montgomery, AL, for Defendants-Appellees.
Barbara C. Biddle, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civ. Div., Appellate Staff, Robin M. Richardson, Environmental & Nat. Res. Div., Environmental Defense Section, Washington, DC, for Pam Harding.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
Before ANDERSON and BIRCH, Circuit Judges, and COHILL *, Senior District Judge.
In this appeal from consolidated actions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), we determine whether a federal pretrial detainee was subjected to unconstitutional conditions of imprisonment in a city jail. The district court granted summary judgment to the federal marshal, the wardens, and the correctional officers. We affirm because we conclude that all of the defendants-appellees are entitled to qualified immunity.
On September 12, 1991, plaintiff-appellant, Donald Wilson, was arrested by drug enforcement agents in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a narcotics violation on a warrant issued by the federal district court in the Middle District of Alabama. A magistrate judge in Fort Lauderdale ordered Wilson removed from the Southern District of Florida to the Middle District of Alabama. Because there is no federal detention facility in the Middle District of Alabama, individuals awaiting trial or sentencing on federal charges are housed in municipal and county jails in the district pursuant to intergovernmental agreements, or contracts, with the United States Marshals Service ("Marshals Service"). One such jail used by the Marshals Service to house federal detainees is the Montgomery City Jail ("MCJ") in Montgomery, Alabama.
Defendant-appellee Pam Harding, a criminal investigator for the Marshals Service stationed in Montgomery, transported Wilson from the Northern District of Georgia to MCJ pending his trial and moved him on other occasions for court proceedings. Wilson was housed at MCJ from October 1, 1991, until December 17, 1991, when he was moved to Dothan City Jail to await sentencing. 1 Wilson currently is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Raybrook, New York.
In his consolidated actions under § 1983 and Bivens, Wilson sought compensatory and punitive damages 2 for alleged constitutional violations during his stay at MCJ. He contended that the absence of a law library at MCJ caused him to plead guilty to his then-pending, federal charge and prevented him from litigating pro se a related forfeiture case as well as this civil rights case. He also alleged that he suffered unconstitutional confinement conditions at MCJ, including overcrowding, disciplinary isolation, and lack of exercise, which allegedly caused him stress, weight gain, and high blood pressure. Defendants-appellees are L.M. Blankenship, MCJ warden at the relevant time; Sharon Hall, assistant MCJ warden at the relevant time; Janice Hopkins 3 and Rafael Parks, 4 correctional officers; and Harding. All of these defendants-appellees pled qualified immunity as an affirmative defense. 5 The magistrate judge treated the ordered special reports by Harding, Blankenship, Hall, Hopkins, and Parks as motions for summary judgment. Wilson moved for summary judgment and requested a jury trial.
Following an evidentiary hearing, the magistrate judge recommended that summary judgment be entered for all defendants. The district judge adopted the recommendation of the magistrate judge, denied Wilson's motion for summary judgment and request for a jury trial, and granted summary judgment in favor of all the defendants. On appeal, Wilson pursues his contentions of unconstitutional confinement conditions at MCJ.
We review de novo a district judge's grant of summary judgment. See Hale v. Tallapoosa County, 50 F.3d 1579, 1581 (11th Cir.1995). When "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law," summary judgment is appropriate. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). Because of the similarity in the causes of action, a Bivens case challenges the constitutionality of federal officials' conduct, while § 1983 challenges the constitutionality of state officials' conduct, we "generally apply § 1983 law to Bivens cases." Abella v. Rubino, 63 F.3d 1063, 1065 (11th Cir.1995) (per curiam).
Qualified immunity protects government officials from civil trials and liability when their conduct in performing discretionary functions "violates no 'clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.' " Lassiter v. Alabama A & M Univ., Bd. of Trustees, 28 F.3d 1146, 1149 (11th Cir.1994) (en banc) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). The district judge did not grant summary judgment to the government defendants based on qualified immunity; the magistrate judge did not mention this entitlement in his recommendation. Nevertheless, qualified immunity, pled by all of the government defendants as an affirmative defense, should have been the analysis used to grant them summary judgment on the facts in this case.
Our circuit applies a two-part test to determine if the qualified immunity defense protects a defendant government official. See Evans v. Hightower, 117 F.3d 1318, 1320 (11th Cir.1997). First, the "defendant government official must prove that he was acting within the scope of his discretionary authority when the alleged wrongful act occurred." Id. Second, if the defendant official meets his burden, then the plaintiff must "demonstrate that the defendant violated clearly established law based upon objective standards." Id. General propositions and abstractions do not qualify for bright line, clearly established law. See Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1150. "For qualified immunity to be surrendered, pre-existing law must dictate, that is, truly compel (not just suggest or allow or raise a question about), the conclusion for every like-situated, reasonable government agent that what defendant is doing violates federal law in the circumstances." Id. By applying these principles, we determine the entitlement of the marshal, the wardens, and the correctional officers to qualified immunity.
The only evidence in the record that connects Harding to Wilson is her transportation of him to MCJ and to court proceedings when he was a federal pretrial detainee. 6 Our court has determined that marshals' transporting federal pretrial detainees is within the scope of their discretionary authority. See Jordan v. Doe, 38 F.3d 1559, 1566 (11th Cir.1994). At the time that Harding transported Wilson, however, no clearly established law would have informed a reasonable government official that transporting a federal pretrial detainee to a local jail with which the Marshals Service had an intergovernmental agreement was unconstitutional. See id. at 1566-67. Accordingly, Harding was entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity.
Blankenship and Hall respectively were warden and assistant warden at MCJ while Wilson was there. Although the scope of their responsibilities encompassed the daily administration of MCJ, Wilson does not complain about the order, cleanliness, or food at MCJ, aspects of the daily functioning of a jail. Instead, his contentions involve space: the lack of a law library and space for exercise. There is no evidence in the record that Blankenship and Hall had control over these aspects of MCJ.
Federal pretrial detainees were housed at MCJ pursuant to an intergovernmental agreement between the City of Montgomery and the Marshals Service, which paid a daily fee for federal detainees housed there. A contracting officer for the Marshals Service and the local police chief executed the intergovernmental agreement effective at the time that Wilson was housed at MCJ. That agreement provided that MCJ would house thirty-two federal detainees a day at the request of the Marshals Service. 7 No mention is made of space or square footage per federal inmate or of outdoor or indoor exercise. Neither Blankenship nor Hall was a party to this intergovernmental agreement; they implemented its terms for the local government. Furthermore, the special report filed at the request of the magistrate judge on behalf of the wardens and correctional officers at MCJ states: R1-14-2.
Providing a law library and stocking it as well as building a larger space to house federal detainees necessarily would involve the appropriation of funds. There is no evidence in the record that Blankenship or Hall had any responsibility for or ability to cause such appropriation. 8 See Hill v. Dekalb Reg'l Youth Detention Ctr., 40 F.3d 1176, 1194 (11th Cir.1994) (...
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