Surprenant v. Rivas
| Decision Date | 09 September 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 04-2285.,04-2285. |
| Citation | 424 F.3d 5 |
| Parties | Jason SURPRENANT, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. Cesar RIVAS et al., Defendants, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Elizabeth Hurley, with whom John A. Curran and Getman, Stacey, Schulthess & Steere, PA were on brief, for appellants.
Michael J. Sheehan, for appellee.
Before SELYA, DYK,* and HOWARD, Circuit Judges.
In this prisoner civil rights action, two correctional officers and the superintendent of a county jail appeal from a jury verdict in favor of a pretrial detainee. The defendants variously complain that the plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence to underpin his claims, that the trial court erred in instructing the jury, and that the court botched several evidentiary rulings. Many of these claims are forfeit and the rest are without merit. Consequently, we affirm the judgment below.
The Hillsborough County jail houses both pretrial detainees and convicted misdemeanants. On the evening of July 14, 2002, defendant-appellant Cesar Rivas, a correctional officer, was the sole guard on duty in Unit 2D, a medium security wing of the jail. At some point during the inmates' out-of-cell time, Rivas radioed an emergency request for assistance by other officers (known in prison parlance as a "10-33") and activated his body alarm. Responding officers locked down the unit and removed nine inmates identified by Rivas, including plaintiff-appellee Jason Surprenant, to a segregation wing, Unit 2B, familiarly known as "the hole."
While the parties agree to these raw facts, they offer starkly different accounts of what transpired before and after the enumerated events occurred. Rivas claims that immediately prior to the 10-33 "officer in danger" alert, twenty to twenty-five belligerent inmates, including the plaintiff, mobbed and threatened him. He sounded the 10-33 because he feared for his safety. The other defendants, though not present that evening, support Rivas's account.
The plaintiff and his witnesses tell a vastly different tale. They say that the incident never happened; that Rivas called in the 10-33 without any provocation (at most, two or three inmates were conversing with him in normal tones); and that, at the critical time, the plaintiff was lifting weights with fellow inmates at a different location. The plaintiff attributes Rivas's trumped-up call to his (Rivas's) antipathy for a clique of inmates who resided in one corner of Unit 2D. He theorizes that Rivas concocted the apocryphal story in order to have these inmates "lugged to the hole." The plaintiff admits, however, that he was not a member of the clique and could only speculate as to why Rivas named him as one of the perpetrators.
The verdict indicates that the jurors largely believed the plaintiff's version of events. Therefore, from this point forward we rehearse the facts in the light most favorable to the verdict. See Correa v. Hosp. San Francisco, 69 F.3d 1184, 1188 (1st Cir.1995).
After the lockdown was in effect, the response team removed the plaintiff from Unit 2D and segregated him in Unit 2B. Inmates in segregation cells were allowed only a mattress, sheet, pillow, and prison uniform. All other items were forbidden, even legal papers, writing instruments, and articles essential to personal hygiene (like soap and toilet paper). Although each cell contained a sink and toilet, the jailers restricted inmates' water usage in order to prevent deliberate flooding. Thus, each cell's water supply was turned off regardless of whether the occupant had ever been involved in a flooding incident. If an inmate needed to flush his toilet, get a drink, or wash his hands, he had to ask a correctional officer to turn on the water momentarily. Frequently, no correctional officer was nearby and, even if one was in the vicinity, the inmate ran the risk that the officer would choose either to ignore his request or to dawdle in fulfilling it.
Those consigned to segregation were placed in one of three classifications: (i) punitive segregation, (ii) administrative segregation, or (iii) awaiting hearing segregation (AH). The plaintiff was a pretrial detainee, awaiting hearing on Rivas's newly lodged accusation, so prison hierarchs classified him as AH. Because of that classification, the plaintiff was subject to all the above-described conditions.
The plaintiff also was made subject to a "three-day rotation." Inmates on three-day rotation were allowed out of their cells only once every three days, in shackles, for a quick shower. They could not make telephone calls, receive mail, or have visitors (although attorneys, on their own initiative, could see their clients). The plaintiff remained in an AH classification and on a three-day rotation for upwards of three weeks.
To make matters worse, inmates on three-day rotation were subjected to as many as five in-cell strip searches each day. The process required the inmate to manipulate several unclean areas of his body in order to show officers that those areas did not conceal contraband. The inmate then had to place his fingers in his mouth for the same purpose. The evidence indicated that the strip searchers often orchestrated these steps so that an inmate would have to manipulate his armpits, groin, and buttocks before manipulating his cheeks and tongue. Because of the in-cell water restrictions, an inmate ordinarily could not wash his hands prior to such a search. Not infrequently, a strip-searched inmate would have to eat his meals with the same unclean hands.
After reviewing Rivas's incident report, defendant-appellant Teresa Pendleton, a disciplinary officer, charged the plaintiff with participating in an attempt to take Rivas hostage. She scheduled a disciplinary hearing for July 22, 2002. The plaintiff was not given advance written notice of the charges;1 until the hearing commenced, he assumed that he had been relegated to the hole for cursing at a correctional officer from his cell during the July 14 lockdown.
When the plaintiff belatedly learned the nature of the charges, he told Pendleton of his alibi (that he was lifting weights elsewhere in the prison) and identified two potential witnesses to his whereabouts. Pendleton chose not to interview the named individuals. In at least one instance, she admitted that she did not do so because she had made up her mind in advance that the putative witness would not tell the truth. She also refused to credit statements of other accused inmates that tended to exonerate the plaintiff. And, finally, when prison officials who were conducting an internal investigation of the incident asked Pendleton to withhold the imposition of any sanctions until they had completed their probe, she nonetheless plunged ahead, found the plaintiff guilty, and imposed sanctions prior to the completion of the internal investigation (and without making the slightest effort to ascertain the status of that investigation).
Pendleton handed down her ukase on August 8, 2002. She based her finding that the plaintiff was guilty of attempting to take Rivas hostage solely on Rivas's report and the testimony of a jailhouse informant who professed to have witnessed the incident. She credited the latter's testimony even though it was established that his cell had no line of sight to the spot where Rivas claimed that the incident occurred.
As a sanction, Pendleton directed that the plaintiff do a thirty-day stint in punitive segregation. The plaintiff served this term in Unit 2B, albeit reclassified to punitive segregation status.2 He was not given any credit for time spent in Unit 2B while awaiting the hearing.
In August of 2002, the plaintiff commenced the instant action in the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. His handwritten pro se complaint named several defendants including Rivas, Pendleton, and the jail's superintendent, James O'Mara, Jr. (sued in his official capacity). In due course, the plaintiff obtained counsel.
After some procedural skirmishing, not relevant here, the case went to trial on an amended complaint containing six statements of claim. The jury found the defendants liable on three claims brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment, namely, count 1 (which alleged that Rivas punished the plaintiff by making false allegations that led to his immediate segregation), count 4 (which alleged that Pendleton failed to afford the plaintiff procedural due process at his disciplinary hearing), and count 6 (which alleged that O'Mara, in his official capacity, was responsible for the unconstitutional conditions of confinement that the plaintiff experienced while on AH status). The jury awarded nominal damages on all three counts and punitive damages against Rivas ($5,500) and Pendleton ($15,000). The jury resolved the other three counts adversely to the plaintiff and those counts are not before us.
The defendants never moved for a new trial. They all moved, however, for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The district court denied that motion and this timely appeal followed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
The defendants raise a gallimaufry of challenges to the rulings made below. Each defendant mounts a particularized attack on the count on which he or she was found liable. They then join forces to impugn certain evidentiary rulings. For ease in articulation, we address the individual challenges first and then move to the collective challenge.
Rivas offers four reasons why he should have been granted judgment as a matter of law or, in the alternative, a new trial. Three of these go to the heart of the claim asserted against him. The fourth goes to the correctness of the district court's jury...
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