Alberti v. Klevenhagen
| Decision Date | 04 June 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-2036,85-2036 |
| Parties | Lawrence R. ALBERTI, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Johnny KLEVENHAGEN, Sheriff of Harris County, Texas, et al., Defendants, Johnny Klevenhagen, Sheriff of Harris County, Texas, and Harris County Commissioners Court, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Mike Driscoll, Co. Atty., Houston, Tex., for Klevenhagen.
Roderick O. Lawrence and Lupe Salinas, Asst. Co. Attys., Houston, Tex., for Harris County.
James T. Oitzinger, Bruce V. Griffiths, Attys., Greater Houston Chapter of Am. Civil Liberties Union, Houston, Tex., for plaintiffs-appellees.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Before BROWN, REAVLEY, and HILL, Circuit Judges.
Pursuant to its continuing jurisdiction in a class action complaining of conditions in Harris County jails, the district court found constitutional violations and ordered implementation of a new plan for staffing and inmate supervision. The evidence amply supports the district court's finding that a high level of violence exists in the jails, and the district court properly determined that these conditions violated the Eighth Amendment. The remedy ordered was an adequate and proper corrective measure. Accordingly, we affirm the order of the district court in all respects.
In 1972 Lawrence Alberti and others filed a class action on behalf of past, present, and future inmates of the jails of Harris County, Texas. The suit named as defendants members of the Harris County Commissioners Court and the Harris County Sheriff's Department. The inmates sued pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, alleging numerous violations of their constitutional and statutory rights as the result of defendants' operation and maintenance of Harris County detention facilities.
In February 1975 the parties agreed to and the district court entered a consent judgment. The agreement called for an upgrading of the existing facilities and contemplated construction of a new central jail. The Commissioners Court agreed to provide sufficient guards and other staff to assure security for the jails without the use of inmate assistance. The Sheriff similarly agreed to employ a sufficient and adequately trained staff, including guards and deputies to assure the protection of inmates. The district court retained jurisdiction to issue further interim orders.
The defendants' compliance with the consent judgment soon came into question, and in December 1975 the district court after holding hearings issued a broad remedial order. Alberti v. Sheriff of Harris County, 406 F.Supp. 649 (S.D.Tex.1975). Among other findings, the district court determined that guards and staff in the jails were insufficient in number and inadequately trained, leading to frequent violence and homosexual assault among the inmates. Id. at 658. The court ordered adequate training and pay increases for jail personnel, and ordered that staffing be increased to provide one jailer for every twenty inmates. Id. at 678.
In 1978 the district court reluctantly approved plans for a new central jail prepared by the Commissioners Court. The plans provided for multiple occupancy in the form of four person cells and twenty-four person dormitories, rather than the single inmate cells advocated by plaintiffs. The court found that the jail design did not itself violate minimum constitutional standards, but warned that the new jail might not be safely occupied without providing additional staffing. The court expressly conditioned its approval upon the defendants' satisfaction of their continuing obligations to provide adequate staffing and to comply with other constitutional requisites.
In late 1982 and early 1983 the district court held hearings to determine appropriate staffing for the newly opened central jail and the detention center. The court ordered that staffing plans be prepared by the Sheriff's Department to meet the approval of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS), which at the time required a one to forty-five ratio of corrections officers to inmates. The court approved a staffing plan, at the insistence of the defendants, that incorporated the one to forty-five staffing ratio. The court found that the facilities were not then meeting this level, but accepted the defendants' assurance that compliance would be achieved by the end of June 1983.
In August 1983 plaintiffs filed a motion for contempt, alleging that staffing still did not meet the levels required by the court. However, members of the Commissioners Court and the Sheriff's Department successfully petitioned the TCJS to exempt the Harris County jails from adherence to any numerical ratio of staff to inmates. The Sheriff's Department independently developed its own "post staffing plan" which received approval by the TCJS in October 1983, although the new plan required far fewer guards than the one to forty-five ratio. The defendants later moved to modify the court's previous staffing order.
In July and September 1984 the district court heard evidence on the plaintiffs' motion for contempt and the defendants' motion to modify. The court heard testimony from numerous inmates, expert witnesses guards, and other staff. In rendering its decision in December, the court determined that the high level of violence in the jails violated Eighth Amendment standards. Alberti v. Heard, 600 F.Supp. 443, 457 (S.D.Tex.1984). The court abandoned the ratio concept of staffing and instead ordered the implementation of a staffing plan similar to one proposed by plaintiffs' experts. The court's plan called for approximately the same total number of guards as the 1983 one to forty-five order, but it specified a different scheme for the number of guards posted on each floor of the jail at each shift. 1 Id. at 460-61. The court further ordered that deputies visit inmate cells at least once an hour. Id. at 462.
Members of the Sheriff's Department and the Commissioners Court now appeal the December 1984 order. They argue first that the evidence presented at the hearings was insufficient to permit the district court to find that the conditions in the jails violated constitutional standards. Second, they contend that the new staffing plan ordered by the court exceeded what is required to remedy any such constitutional violations.
We note initially the cautionary principle that a federal court should not, under the guise of enforcing constitutional standards, assume the superintendence of jail administration. Jones v. Diamond, 636 F.2d 1364, 1368 (5th Cir.1981) (en banc) (citing Miller v. Carson, 563 F.2d 741 (5th Cir.1977), Williams v. Edwards, 547 F.2d 1206 (5th Cir.1977), cert. dismissed sub nom. Ledbetter v. Jones, 453 U.S. 950, 102 S.Ct. 27, 69 L.Ed.2d 1033 (1981). The relevant inquiries "spring from constitutional requirements ... rather than a court's idea of how best to operate a detention facility." Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 539, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1874, 60 L.Ed.2d 447, 469 (1979). The district court expressly recognized its limited role in this litigation. 600 F.Supp. at 456-57.
These limitations do not mean, however, that federal courts must adopt a " 'hands-off' approach to problems of jail administration." Bell, 441 U.S. at 562, 99 S.Ct. at 1886, 60 L.Ed.2d at 483. "There is no iron curtain drawn between the Constitution and the prisons of this country." Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 555-56, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2974, 41 L.Ed.2d 935, 950 (1974). "A prisoner, whether already convicted of a crime or merely awaiting trial, does not shed all his constitutional rights when he puts on jail clothing." Jones, 636 F.2d at 1368. We therefore next set out the standard used to draw the line between permissible correction of unconstitutional conditions and impermissible jail administration.
The Eighth Amendment imposes the constitutional limitation upon punishments: they cannot be "cruel and unusual." This is a flexible standard: "[n]o static 'test' can exist by which courts determine whether conditions of confinement are cruel and unusual, for the Eighth Amendment 'must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.' " Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 346, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 2399, 69 L.Ed.2d 59, 68 (1984) (quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101, 78 S.Ct. 590, 598, 2 L.Ed.2d 630, 642 (1958) (plurality opinion)). While an Eighth Amendment determination must not be merely a judge's subjective views, the Constitution contemplates that ultimately a court's own judgment will be brought to bear on the question. Id. 452 U.S. at 346, 101 S.Ct. at 2399, 69 L.Ed.2d at 68-69.
Jail conditions must not fall below a minimum standard of decency required by the Eighth Amendment. Conditions which "alone or in combination, may deprive inmates of the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities ... could be cruel and unusual under the contemporary standard of decency ...." Id. 452 U.S. at 347, 101 S.Ct. at 2399, 69 L.Ed.2d at 69 (citing Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103-04, 97 S.Ct. 285, 290-91, 50 L.Ed.2d 251, 259-60 (1976)). In determining the constitutional question, we need not separately weigh each of the challenged institutional practices and conditions, for we instead look to "the totality of conditions." Ruiz v. Estelle, 679 F.2d 1115, 1139 (5th Cir.) [Ruiz VII ], modified on other grounds, 688 F.2d 266 (5th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1042, 103 S.Ct. 1438, 75 L.Ed.2d 795 (1983). "The totality of conditions of confinement does not offend the Constitution unless prison conditions are cruel and unusual, not merely harsh and restrictive." Id. at 1140.
Violence and sexual assault among inmates may rise to a level rendering conditions cruel and unusual. In Jones, we found confinement in a prison "where terror reigns" to be violative...
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