Jackson v. Hollowell, 82-4138

• Decision Date: 22 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. 82-4138,82-4138
• Citation: 714 F.2d 1372
• Parties: 14 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 15 Arthur JACKSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. W.I. HOLLOWELL, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1372

714 F.2d 1372

14 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 15

Arthur JACKSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. W.I. HOLLOWELL, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 82-4138.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Sept. 22, 1983.

Robert L. Gibbs, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., P. Roger Googe, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, Miss., for defendants-appellants.

James L. Robertson, Oxford, Miss., for New Hampshire Ins. Co., Granite Ins. Co., and USF&G.

Jerome C. Hafter, Greenville, Miss., Whitman B. Johnson, III, Jackson, Miss., for Western Sur. Co.

Robert E. Buck, Greenville, Miss., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.

Before REAVLEY and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, and WYZANSKI^*, District Judge.

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge:

On February 6, 1973, Arthur Jackson, an eighteen-year old inmate in the Mississippi State Prison (Parchman), ¹ lost his left eye as a result of a ricochet bullet fired from a sawed-off shotgun by Lepoleon Reed, an armed trusty shooter. ² Jackson instituted this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ³ alleging that various Parchman officials and employees violated his clearly established constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment in the form of trusty shooters who were inadequately screened for mental, emotional, or other problems. Initially, the district court granted a summary judgment favorable to all defendants on the basis of qualified immunity, but this court, in a prior panel opinion, Jackson v. State of Mississippi, 644 F.2d 1142 (5th Cir.1981) (hereinafter Jackson I ), held that the defendants were not entitled to summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, since Jackson's constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment in the form of inadequately screened trusty shooters had been clearly established in Gates v. Collier, 349 F.Supp. 881 (N.D.Miss.1972), aff'd, 501 F.2d 1291 (5th Cir.1974) (hereinafter Gates ), a case that revealed numerous egregious unconstitutional conditions at Parchman. Upon remand, the case was tried to a jury and Jackson was awarded $50,000 in compensatory damages for the loss of his eye. The district court rendered a judgment on the jury's verdict against all eight defendants, jointly and severally, and this Court affirms.

I. Background

In order to fully appreciate the facts of this case, one must briefly retrace the lengthy history of litigation concerning the conditions at Parchman.

A. Gates v. Collier: Clearly Established Law Unfolds

In Gates, a class action brought by and on behalf of Parchman inmates, it was demonstrated that various officials in the Mississippi State Prison System had maintained a system of prison facilities violative of prisoner rights secured by the first, eighth, thirteenth, and fourteenth amendments. ⁴ The district court ordered broad sweeping immediate, intermediate, and long range relief. ⁵

With regard to the use of trusty shooters, the district court found that the trusty shooters were selected by prison officials without the use of objective criteria or uniform standards and that payoffs, favoritism, extortion, and participation in illegal activities had infected the selection process. Disturbingly, the district court noted:

Penitentiary records indicate that many of the armed trusties have been convicted of violent crimes, and that of the armed trusties serving as of April 1, 1971, 35% had not been psychologically tested, 40% of those tested were found to be retarded, and 71% of those tested were found to have personality disorders. There is no formal program at Parchman for training trusties and they are instructed to maintain discipline by shooting at inmates who get out of the gun line; in many cases, trusties have received little training in the handling of firearms. Inmates have, on many occasions, suffered injuries and abuses as a result of the failure to select, train, supervise and maintain an adequate custodial staff. Trusties have abused their position to engage in loan-sharking, extortion and other illegal conduct in dealing with inmates subject to their authority and control. The evidence indicates that the use of trusties who exercise authority over fellow inmates has established intolerable patterns of physical mistreatment. For example, during the Cook administration, 30 inmates received gunshot wounds, an additional 29 inmates were shot at, and 52 inmates physically beaten.

Gates, 349 F.Supp. at 889.

Understandably, the district court, on October 20, 1972, ordered Parchman officials, including the then active members of the Mississippi Penitentiary Board and the Superintendent, to replace all trusty shooters with civilian guards by June 20, 1973. In the interim period, the district court ordered the defendants to "ensure, by a careful review of inmate personnel records and psychological tests, that inmates placed in a position of supervision or custody of other inmates are mentally and emotionally fit to perform their assigned tasks." Gates, 349 F.Supp. at 903.

On direct appeal, this Court affirmed the district court's order and stated:

We have no difficulty in reaching the conclusion that this trusty system, which utilizes unscreened inmates violates state law, and which allows inmates to exercise unchecked authority over other inmates, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment, warranting the district court's prohibition of certain portions of the trusty system....

Gates, 501 F.2d at 1308. Finally, in the prior appeal of the case sub judice, this Court resolved any doubt as to the constitutional infirmity of Parchman's utilization of inadequately screened trusty shooters and held: "We hold that the Gates order clearly established Jackson's constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment in the form of trusty shooters who were inadequately screened for mental, emotional, or other problems." Jackson I, 644 F.2d at 1146.

B. Facts

The facts leading up to Jackson's loss of his left eye were ably presented in Jackson I and we quote therefrom.

In October 1972, Arthur Jackson began serving at Parchman a five-year prison term for armed robbery. On February 6, 1973, Jackson and other prisoners were boarding a bus to be transported to a vocational school at the penitentiary. As was the practice at that time, another prisoner designated as a "trusty shooter" was guarding these inmates with a shotgun. Noticing that some inmates were pushing to the front of the line to get a seat on the bus, the trusty shooter fired a warning shot. One of the pellets from this 00 buckshot load penetrated Jackson's left eyeball. ⁶ Jackson was taken to the prison's medical facilities where the doctor on duty cleaned and dressed the wound. The doctor called the University Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, for advice and was told to have Jackson transported to that hospital. He did so. The drive took approximately three hours. At the University Hospital, Jackson's eye was surgically removed.

Jackson I, 644 F.2d at 1143, 1144.

II. Merits

All defendants-appellants claim that the district court erred by refusing to accord them the protection of the doctrine of qualified immunity. Appellants also maintain that Jackson failed to demonstrate that each of the defendants' conduct violated Jackson's clearly established constitutional right and that the district court erred by allowing Jackson's counsel to read to the jury findings of facts made by the district court in Gates. We address each issue seriatim.

A. Qualified Immunity

Longstanding precedent establishes the appellants' entitlement to the benefit of the qualified immunity defense previously recognized in Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974) and specifically made applicable to prison officials in Procunier v. Navarete, 434 U.S. 555 98 S.Ct. 855, 55 L.Ed.2d 24 (1978). Recent precedent demonstrates, however, that the qualified immunity defense no longer requires an objective and subjective inquiry. In Harlow v. Fitzgerald, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), the Supreme Court held that "government 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." Id. 102 S.Ct. at 2738. Noting that the costs attending litigation of subjective good faith are "peculiarly disruptive of effective government," the Supreme Court eliminated the second prong of the immunity defense and held that the good faith of government officials is now to be tested only by objective criteria. Id. 102 S.Ct. at 2738; see also Trejo v. Perez, 693 F.2d 482, 484-85 (5th Cir.1982); and Brewer v. Blackwell, 692 F.2d 387 (5th Cir.1982). Although the Supreme Court has refused to require government officials to predict the developing nuances of constitutional law, the Court has recognized that "[i]f the law was clearly established, the immunity defense ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 102 S.Ct. at 2738.

We have little difficulty concluding that the objective factors demonstrate that the constitutional right allegedly infringed by the defendants was clearly established at the time of their challenged conduct and that they knew of this clearly established constitutional guarantee. None of the defendants-appellants seriously contend that Jackson's right to be free from inadequately screened trusty shooters was not clearly established at the time of the alleged constitutional violation. Nor could they so contend. Gates specifically held that Parchman's use of inadequately screened trusty shooters constituted cruel and unusual punishment necessitating immediate judicial intervention and broad sweeping reform. Gates directed immediate...