Clark v. Evans, s. 86-8685

• Decision Date: 25 March 1988
• Docket Number: Nos. 86-8685,86-8878,s. 86-8685
• Citation: 840 F.2d 876
• Parties: Mary B. CLARK, individually and as survivor-at-law of Ray Sharp, a/k/a Willie Clark and Shirley Clark, Administratrix of the Estate of Ray Sharp, Plaintiffs- Appellees, v. David C. EVANS, et al., Defendants, Lanson Newsome and Robert Coleman, Defendants-Appellants. Mary B. CLARK, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. David C. EVANS, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 876

840 F.2d 876

Mary B. CLARK, individually and as survivor-at-law of Ray

Sharp, a/k/a Willie Clark and Shirley Clark,

Administratrix of the Estate of Ray

Sharp, Plaintiffs- Appellees, v. David C. EVANS, et al., Defendants, Lanson Newsome and Robert Coleman, Defendants-Appellants.

Mary B. CLARK, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. David C. EVANS, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 86-8685, 86-8878.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 25, 1988.

William F. Amideo, Staff Asst. Atty. Gen. Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellants.

Kenneth L. Shigley, Van Gerpen & Rice, Atlanta, Ga., John P. Batson, Augusta, Ga., plaintiffs-appellees.

John P. Batson, Augusta, Ga., Martha A. Miller, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Kenneth L. Shigley, Atlanta, Ga., for defendant-appellee Cowart.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

Before RONEY, Chief Judge, ANDERSON and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:

This civil rights action arose when plaintiffs' decedent, Ray Sharp, was shot and killed while attempting to escape from Georgia State Prison at Reidsville. Plaintiffs Mary Clark and Shirley Clark (hereinafter "Clark") sued several defendants, as follows: Evans, the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections; Newsome, the Warden of the Georgia State Prison; Coleman, the guard in the tower who fatally shot Sharp; and Cowart, Oliver, Berry, Spell, Lewis, Lane and Todd, all guards who were on the yard or in the building complex when Sharp made his escape attempt. Plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, claiming that the several defendants had violated Sharp's constitutional rights.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of a first set of defendants--namely, Evans, Cowart, Oliver, Berry, Spell, Lewis, Lane, and Todd--and dismissed them from the case. However, the district court rejected the qualified immunity defense asserted by Newsome and Coleman in their individual capacities, ¹ and ordered the case against these two defendants to proceed to trial. Newsome and Coleman brought an immediate appeal on the qualified immunity question. The plaintiffs also appealed the dismissal of the first set of defendants. ²

We affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment as to the first set of defendants. With respect to all of plaintiffs' theories against both Coleman and Newsome, we conclude that their qualified immunity defense was valid, and thus we reverse with respect to Coleman and Newsome.

I. FACTS

Sharp was a life sentence inmate in Georgia State Prison. Sharp suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had delusions that the prison staff was trying to kill him. About two weeks prior to the incident which led to his death, Sharp received a committal order which obliged the prison to transfer him to a mental institution. The committal order was still being processed at the time of the incident.

Sharp's mental illness had previously led to problems at the prison. Once he seriously injured a guard with a mop wringer this episode led to his involuntary commitment order. Twice he attempted to hang himself. One week prior to the fatal incident, Sharp made an escape attempt in which he tried to climb the interior fence, ³ but was caught and subdued by prison officials.

The incident which formed the basis for the instant lawsuit involved another escape attempt by Sharp. While he was in the exercise yard, Sharp began to behave strangely. Sharp ran to the interior fence and began climbing over it into the area known as "no man's land." Guards on the yard ran after him until Sharp climbed over the interior fence; they continued yelling at him to stop, but Sharp kept running. A guard in the closest tower, Officer Coleman, saw him attempting to climb over the perimeter fence, which was forty feet away from the tower. Two warning shots with shotguns were fired, and when Sharp got over the perimeter fence and began to run, Coleman shot him. Sharp died from his injuries and his relatives sued, claiming various theories of liability.

II. BACKGROUND

Prior to the episode which led to the filing of this action, Georgia State Prison at Reidsville had been the subject of a class action lawsuit based on conditions in the prison. That case, Guthrie v. Evans, No. 3068 (S.D.Ga.1972), led to the filing of a remedial consent decree which ordered changes in many aspects of the prison. In relevant part, the Guthrie order dealt with such issues as use of force, security, training of officers, and medical and mental health treatment. Georgia State Prison thus operated under this consent decree and everyone who worked at the prison was familiar with and bound by its provisions.

III. DEFENDANTS COLEMAN AND NEWSOME

A. Qualified Immunity

Defendants Coleman and Newsome appeal the refusal of the district court to dismiss them from the case on the basis of their qualified immunity defense. This issue is immediately appealable, based on the authority of Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2817, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985).

Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity if the law with respect to their actions was unclear at the time the cause of action arose. Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 530, 105 S.Ct. at 2818; Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1983). As the Supreme Court said in Harlow,

[G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.... If the law was clearly established, the immunity defense ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct.

Id. at 818-19, 102 S.Ct. at 2738. The Supreme Court, by adopting this test, has balanced the public interest in deterring unlawful conduct and compensating victims against the fairness of imposing liability only where officials had notice that their conduct was unlawful. On summary judgment, then, the judge must determine not only the currently applicable law but also whether that law was clearly established at the time the action arose. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738.

Thus, our task with regard to each of plaintiffs' theories of liability is to determine the clarity of the law at the time Sharp was shot. Defendant Coleman, the officer who fatally shot Sharp, was sued on theories that he violated Sharp's Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights in three ways: (1) by using deadly force; (2) by failing to use disabling force prior to using deadly force; and (3) by using deadly force against someone who was mentally ill. Defendant Newsome, the warden of the prison, was sued: (1) on a respondeat superior theory with respect to the deadly force issue; (2) on the theory that the training his staff received was inadequate because they were not trained to shoot to disable; and (3) on the theory that security at the prison was inadequate and allowed incidents like this to happen. Thus, we must inquire about the law regarding the use of deadly force and the law regarding prison security measures.

B. Law Regarding Use of Deadly Force

Plaintiffs argue that Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 105 S.Ct. 1694, 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985), clearly establishes the law that the use of deadly force has constitutional limits. Although plaintiffs acknowledge that the Garner opinion was published after the incident here, they argue that the Guthrie order placed these defendants on notice of and clearly established the applicable constitutional principle. The portion of the Guthrie order relied upon by plaintiffs reads as follows:

An officer may discharge a firearm or taser under the following circumstances: ... at an escaping inmate, if the escape is actually in progress and cannot be reasonably prevented in a less violent manner.

Georgia State Prison Use of Force Policy Statement 515.1, activated October 8, 1982, p. 4; adopted as order in Guthrie on June 16, 1983.

For purposes of this opinion, we assume arguendo, without deciding, that the Guthrie order above quoted properly articulates the applicable constitutional principle and that it was clearly established at the time of the incident. ⁴ However, plaintiffs' argument nevertheless fails because "a reasonable officer could have believed ... [Coleman's actions] to be lawful, in light of clearly established law and the information ... [Coleman] possessed." Anderson v. Creighton, --- U.S. ----, ----, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3040, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987).

We examine the information available to the reasonable officer in Coleman's shoes. Coleman knew that Sharp was housed in Building M which was a maximum security area designed to house the most violent and dangerous inmates. Coleman recognized Sharp at the time of the incident. He knew about the previous incident involving a serious assault by Sharp on a correctional officer with a mop wringer. He knew about the previous escape attempt by Sharp.

With respect to the escape attempt itself, Coleman saw Sharp climb over the interior fence, run across the approximately 20 feet of "no man's land," climb up the perimeter fence and jump down into the open land which separates the prison from the wooded area approximately 60 yards from the perimeter fence. While Sharp was climbing over the fences, numerous guards and inmates inside the fence were calling to Sharp to stop, as was Coleman himself. Also, two warning shots were fired. After Sharp cleared the perimeter fence, jumped down to the ground outside the prison, and started to escape, Coleman fired the fatal shot.

The only other relevantly placed guard was Prescott. At the time the attempted escape commenced, Prescott was sitting in a white van outside the perimeter fence, some distance away from the point where Sharp scaled the fence. When Prescott saw Sharp...