Bowen v. Warden, Baldwin State Prison

• Decision Date: 22 June 2016
• Docket Number: No. 15–11109,15–11109
• Citation: 826 F.3d 1312
• Parties: Walker D. Bowen, as administrator of the Estate of Terrance Desmond Bowen, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Warden, Baldwin State Prison, Doug Underwood, Deputy Warden of Security, Baldwin State Prison, Cager Edward Davis, Correction Officer, Baldwin State Prison, Defendants–Appellees, Anthony Brookins, Lieutenant, Baldwin State Prison, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

826 F.3d 1312

Walker D. Bowen, as administrator of the Estate of Terrance Desmond Bowen, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Warden, Baldwin State Prison, Doug Underwood, Deputy Warden of Security, Baldwin State Prison, Cager Edward Davis, Correction Officer, Baldwin State Prison, Defendants–Appellees

Anthony Brookins, Lieutenant, Baldwin State Prison, et al., Defendants.

No. 15–11109

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Filed June 22, 2016

Gary Bunch, Gary Bunch, PC, Carrollton, GA, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Cristina Maria Correia, Samuel Scott Olens, Devon Orland, Attorney General's Office, Atlanta, GA, for Defendants–Appellees.

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, JILL PRYOR and RIPPLE,^* Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE

, Circuit Judge:

On March 9, 2010, Terrance Bowen was beaten to death by his cellmate, Carl Merkerson, at Baldwin State Prison in Milledgeville, Georgia. The administrator of Mr. Bowen's estate brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

, alleging that Mr. Bowen's Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment was violated when he was housed in a cell with Merkerson.¹ In his complaint, the administrator named, among others, several prison officials as defendants in their individual capacities. After twice allowing the administrator to amend his complaint, the district court dismissed the action, holding that it did not state Eighth Amendment claims against the prison officials and that, in any event, the officials were entitled to qualified immunity. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we reverse the judgment of the district court with respect to two of these officials, Deputy Warden Doug Underwood and Corrections Officer Cager Edward Davis, and we remand those claims for further proceedings. In all other respects, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

IBACKGROUND

A.²

After nearly two years of incarceration for murder, Carl Merkerson was transferred to Baldwin State Prison on February 18, 2010. At all relevant times, Carl Humphrey was the warden of that institution; Doug Underwood was the deputy warden of security; and Cager Edward Davis was the supervising corrections officer of Unit K–3, the unit in which Mr. Bowen was murdered. Collectively, we refer to these three individuals as the “defendant officials.”

Merkerson was designated, according to prison guidelines,³ a Level III mental health inmate. This designation meant that he exhibited “a tenuous mental status that is easily overwhelmed by everyday pressures, demands and frustrations resulting in ... impulsive behavior, poor judgment, a deterioration of emotional controls, loosening of associations

, delusional thinking and/or hallucinations.”⁴ Specifically, Merkerson had suffered for several years from severe chronic paranoid schizophrenia. He also experienced auditory hallucinations as well as bizarre and violent delusions involving his cellmates. When his mental condition decompensated, Merkerson became easily agitated and frustrated and was unable to control his impulses or to appreciate the consequences of his actions; he also became violent and dangerous. The defendant officials “were aware of Mr. Merkerson's mental illness”⁵ ; they “knew that [he] was a Mental Health inmate, Level III.”⁶

Merkerson initially was housed in Unit H–2, a unit for Level III mental health inmates. On February 26, 2010, he assaulted his cellmate, John Williams. The resulting disciplinary report characterized Merkerson's conduct as “High–Assault without a weapon.”⁷ Because of this attack, and due to his status as a mental health inmate, the prison's “Placement Guidelines” required that Merkerson be housed alone unless “the demands of a specific situation require[d] a placement contrary to the Placement Guideline[s].”⁸ The defendant officials “knew that Mr. Merkerson, pursuant to the Placement Guideline[s], had to be ‘housed’ alone.”⁹ After the assault, Merkerson was transferred from Unit H–2 to a single occupancy cell in Unit K–3, “the lock-down segregation unit for disciplinary, protected custody and mental health individuals.”¹⁰

On or around March 2, 2010, Merkerson's mother called the prison and spoke with Merkerson's mental health counselor, Pat Tyler. She told Tyler that her son's “mental health condition was decompensating,” that “when [his] mental health decompensates, [he] becomes violent and dangerous,” and that he “needed to be isolated from other inmates, so that he would not hurt anyone.”¹¹ Merkerson's mother was told that Merkerson would be isolated. Deputy Warden Underwood and Officer Davis knew Tyler and knew that he was Merkerson's counselor. However, the complaint does not allege specifically that any of the defendant officials knew about the phone call from Merkerson's mother.

Merkerson remained alone in his cell in Unit K–3 until March 7, 2010, when Terrance Bowen, also a mental health inmate, was placed in the cell with him. “There was no specific situation justifying” the housing of Mr. Bowen with Merkerson.¹² Mr. Bowen apparently could have been housed in Unit H–2, the unit for mental health inmates.¹³ Nevertheless, Merkerson and Mr. Bowen were housed together in the same cell because Warden Humphrey had “instituted a policy of double-celling inmates.”¹⁴

Merkerson was six inches taller than Mr. Bowen and outweighed him by nearly one hundred pounds. The defendant officials knew of this size disparity. The cell in which the two men were housed was small, measuring twelve feet by eight feet, with solid cinder-block walls and a concrete floor. The cell's door was solid with a small window. The inside of the cell was not visible from the outside unless the flap that covered the window, which was kept closed, was lifted. The cell also was not equipped with an alarm. Both Deputy Warden Underwood and Officer Davis were familiar with the layout of the cell.

On March 8, 2010, the night before he was murdered, Mr. Bowen asked to be removed from the cell “because of Mr. Merkerson,” but the request was denied “because of [Warden] Humphrey's double-celling policy.”¹⁵ The administrator does not allege specifically that Mr. Bowen asked to be moved because Merkerson had threatened him or that Mr. Bowen feared for his safety if he remained in the cell, nor does the administrator allege that any of the defendant officials knew about Mr. Bowen's request.

A large population chart in the unit office identified the inmates in each cell, stated the crime for which each inmate was incarcerated, stated why each inmate was in the unit, and stated whether the inmate was a mental health inmate. Attached to the outside of each cell door was a “segregation/isolation checklist,” which indicated each inmate's mental health status, the unit from which they had been transferred, and the reason they had been transferred.¹⁶ At 10:47 a.m. on March 9, 2010, the morning of Mr. Bowen's murder, Deputy Warden Underwood inspected the cell and saw the two men together inside. Deputy Warden Underwood knew from the cell's checklist that Merkerson was a mental health inmate, that he had been convicted of murder and that he was in the cell for assaulting another inmate. He had also seen the population chart in the unit office. That same morning, Officer Davis, who had also observed Mr. Bowen in the cell with Merkerson, signed the checklist outside the cell door. From the checklist, Officer Davis knew that Merkerson was a mental health inmate who had been transferred to Unit K–3 from Unit H–2 and that he had recently assaulted another inmate. Officer Davis also read the population chart in the unit office on the morning of Mr. Bowen's murder.

Prison officials later discovered Mr. Bowen with his head stuffed in the cell's toilet and his body limp, brutally beaten, and unmoving. Merkerson had his hands around Mr. Bowen's neck and was pressing his knee against Mr. Bowen's back. Mr. Bowen was transported to the Medical Center of Central Georgia, where he died a few hours later from injuries caused by the beating.

B.

On July 19, 2013, the administrator of Mr. Bowen's estate brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. The administrator alleged that Mr. Bowen's Eighth Amendment right was violated when he was housed in the cell with Merkerson, and he named as individual defendants Warden Humphrey, Deputy Warden Underwood, Officer Davis, and Rex Schoolcraft, a psychiatrist contracted by the prison.¹⁷ On September 13, 2013, Dr. Schoolcraft moved to dismiss the claim against him, and the district court denied the motion.¹⁸ In a separate motion to dismiss, the defendant officials—Warden Humphrey, Deputy Warden Underwood, and Officer Davis—contended that the administrator had failed to state any claims under the Eighth Amendment and that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The district court then allowed the administrator to conduct limited discovery and amend his complaint. The defendant officials again moved to dismiss.

After a second discovery period, and with leave of the court, the administrator filed his second amended complaint, and the defendant officials moved to dismiss for a third time, raising the same arguments they had raised in their two previous motions. With respect to the Eighth Amendment claims against Deputy Warden Underwood and Officer Davis, the defendant officials argued that the administrator had not made the necessary showing that either official subjectively knew of a serious risk of harm to Mr. Bowen. They also asserted that the administrator had failed to state a supervisory claim against Warden Humphrey. Finally, the three defendant officials maintained that they were entitled to qualified immunity because they were acting within their discretionary authority and their conduct was not in violation of clearly established law.

The district court granted the motion and dismissed all of the administrator's claims. In the court's view, the claims against Deputy Warden Underwood and Officer...