Ort v. White

• Decision Date: 27 March 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85-7059,85-7059
• Citation: 813 F.2d 318
• Parties: Anthony ORT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Warden J.D. WHITE, Ron Sutton, Tony Holliday, Officer Truman Mitman, Captain Shoemaker and J.W. Taunton, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 318

813 F.2d 318

Anthony ORT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Warden J.D. WHITE, Ron Sutton, Tony Holliday, Officer Truman Mitman, Captain Shoemaker and J.W. Taunton Defendants-Appellees.

No. 85-7059.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

March 27, 1987.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied May 5, 1987.

Deborah A. Ellis, American Civil Liberties Union, Women's Rights Project New York City, for plaintiff-appellant.

Thomas R. Allison, Asst. Atty. Gen., Montgomery, Ala., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Before HILL and HATCHETT, Circuit Judges and THOMAS ^*, Senior District Judge.

HILL, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Anthony Ort, an inmate in the Alabama prison system, appeals from the district court's dismissal of his civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against the warden and various officers of the Stanton Correctional Facility in Elmore, Alabama. Appellant's complaint is based upon two series of incidents during which he alleges that prison officials violated his constitutional rights. First, he asserts that on several occasions a prison officer unconstitutionally denied him water, in violation of both the eighth and fourteenth amendments, when he refused to work on the prison farm squad. Second, appellant claims that his confinement in the prison sallyport in order to implement a disciplinary withdrawal of television privileges also constituted an eighth amendment violation. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the decision of the district court.

I. FACTS

The incidents at issue here occurred in August, September and October of 1980, when appellant Ort was confined at the Stanton Correctional Facility. Inmates at Stanton during this period were assigned to farm squads, which performed duties outside the prison's gates such as cleaning ditches and working in the fields and orchards. The magistrate's report discussed the procedures involving these farm squads. On each duty morning, inmates were required to report to the back gate, where farm officers would arrive to escort the prisoners to their determined work sites. Each inmate assigned to farm duties was given a squad number. When the gate officer called a squad number, those inmates would enter the sallyport, line up in columns of two, and proceed out with the farm squad officer. At noon, the farm squad officers would return their squads to the sallyport, and the inmates would eat lunch at the prison. The officers and inmates would repeat this same procedure for the afternoon work session.

In addition to the regular farm squads, Stanton also had a late farm squad for inmates who failed to report to the back gate in time to depart with their regular squads. The late squad did not return to the prison for lunch, but was provided a sack lunch at the work site. The magistrate found that the late squad ordinarily contained a number of "problem inmates," normally those who refused to work with their regular squads. For this reason, the late squad generally worked some distance away from the regular farm squads.

The evidence before the magistrate showed that inmates in each farm squad were required to carry a five-gallon water keg with them to the field each day. The keg required two men to carry it, and inmates in each squad took turns carrying the keg from the prison until they reached their particular work site.

The evidence with respect to appellant Ort showed that in August of 1980 he was on the late squad virtually every day. The magistrate found that he "refused to do any work and that he was basically insubordinate against all authority." The magistrate also found that Ort generally refused to assist the other inmates on the squad in carrying the water keg, and that this refusal irritated the other members of his squad, who frequently displayed an attitude of open hostility toward Ort.

Officer Tony Holladay, Ort's supervisor on the late farm squad during this period, testified before the magistrate that there were times when Ort would be the only inmate on the late squad. On an undetermined number of such occasions, Ort refused to carry to the work site a half-keg of water provided for him alone. Holladay also testified that several times Ort refused to carry his own work tools, and that other inmates had to carry his tools to the field in addition to their own.

The magistrate further found that appellant Ort received a "substantial number" of disciplinaries, or violation reports, for refusing to work while in the field with his squad. On several occasions when he refused to carry the water keg and refused to work, Holladay responded by not allowing him to drink any water until he began to perform his assigned tasks like the rest of his squad. Holladay testified at the evidentiary hearing that he considered such action to be the minimal amount of force necessary to protect Ort and himself from possible retaliation by the other inmates. He testified that Ort's refusal to carry the water keg and to work caused problems among the other inmates on his squad, some of whom told Holladay that if Ort could refuse to work and still drink the water then they would do the same. In addition, on at least one occasion in the field an inmate threatened to knock Ort in the head with a shovel if the guard allowed Ort to drink from the water keg, which he had not helped to carry.

According to Holladay's testimony, he did not deny Ort water for an entire day as a matter of course; he denied Ort water only during those times when Ort refused to work. Holladay testifed that if on a particular day Ort worked until two hours before quitting time, then he would be denied water only for the two hours during which he actually did not work. The magistrate found that such exchanges occurred not more than four or five times over a period of several months.

Ort received so many official disciplinaries for refusing to work that he lost approximately five years of "good time." In addition, as a result of these disciplinaries appellant twice lost his television privileges, once for twenty-eight days and another time for thirty days. At times while Ort was prohibited from watching television, prison officials placed him in the sallyport to keep him under direct supervision. The sallyport is an outdoor area connected to the prison gate, approximately thirty to forty feet in length, which has a gravel surface and is enclosed by a fence. The magistrate found that on those occasions when Ort was confined in the sallyport he was fed, allowed to use the bathroom, and given adequate clothing.

II. DENIAL OF WATER

A. Eighth Amendment Claim

The primary basis of appellant Ort's first claim is that Officer Holladay's denial of water to him on four or five occasions violated his eighth amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Thus, the key issue becomes whether it is "cruel and unusual punishment" for a prison guard to deny water to a single inmate who, at that time, is refusing to perform his share of the work required of his squad. In deciding this question, we first address the general parameters of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

1.

The language of the eighth amendment, that "cruel and unusual punishments [shall not be] inflicted," manifests the general intention to limit the power of those entrusted with the criminal-law function of government. Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 106 S.Ct. 1078, 1084, 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986). The amendment today is recognized as proscribing more than simply physically barbarous punishments. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 102, 97 S.Ct. 285, 290, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976). It prohibits the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain, or the infliction of pain totally without penological justification. See Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 346, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 2398, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981). The amendment has also been found to proscribe the infliction of punishment grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offense. See id.; Soto v. Dickey, 744 F.2d 1260, 1269 (7th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1085, 105 S.Ct. 1846, 85 L.Ed.2d 144 (1985).

Eighth amendment principles apply not only to judicially imposed punishments, but also when conditions of confinement constitute the punishment at issue. See Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 347, 101 S.Ct. at 2399. The limitations imposed by the amendment thus provide the proper framework for evaluating challenges to various schemes of prison discipline. Clearly, "[w]hatever rights one may lose at the prison gates, ... the full protections of the eighth amendment most certainly remain in force." Spain v. Procunier, 600 F.2d 189, 193-94 (9th Cir.1979).

The application of the cruel and unusual punishment clause in the context of prison discipline, however, causes the court to balance important concerns on both sides. To be sure, an inmate must be protected from the "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain" by prison officials. Equally compelling though, is the deference normally extended to prison officials in acting to insure the proper administration, safety and security of a penal institution. The Supreme Court has noted that "a prison's internal security is peculiarly a matter normally left to the discretion of prison administrators." Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 349 n. 14, 101 S.Ct. at 2400 n. 14. The Court's decisions in this area counsel that prison officials "should be accorded wide-ranging deference in the adoption and execution of policies and practices that in their judgment are needed to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain institutional security." Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 547, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1878, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979).

Thus, in evaluating the challenged conduct of prison officials, a court must keep in mind the paramount concerns of maintaining order and discipline in an often dangerous and unruly environment. Although this deference "does not...