Jacobs v. West Feliciana Sheriff's Dept.

• Decision Date: 13 September 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-30185,99-30185
• Parties: (5th Cir. 2000) SHEILA STOCKSTILL JACOBS, Deceased; ANTHONY JULIUS LAFORTE, Son of Sheila Stockstill Jacobs; and CHRISTOPHER LOFORTE, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. WEST FELICIANA SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT, et al., Defendants, BILL DANIEL; EARL REECH; and WAYNE RABALAIS, Defendants-Appellants
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 388

228 F.3d 388 (5th Cir. 2000)

SHEILA STOCKSTILL JACOBS, Deceased; ANTHONY JULIUS LAFORTE, Son of Sheila Stockstill Jacobs; and CHRISTOPHER LOFORTE, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. WEST FELICIANA SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT, et al., Defendants, BILL DANIEL; EARL REECH; and WAYNE RABALAIS, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 99-30185

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

September 13, 2000

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Appeal from the United States District Court For the Middle District of Louisiana

Before KING, Chief Judge, and GARWOOD and DeMOSS, Circuit Judges.

DeMOSS, Circuit Judge:

In this section 1983 claim brought by the sons of a woman who committed suicide as a pretrial detainee in a Louisiana jail, Defendants-Appellants, West Feliciana Sheriff Bill Daniel, Deputy Earl Reech, and Deputy Wayne Rabalais have filed this interlocutory appeal from the denial of their motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. For the reasons discussed below, we dismiss this appeal as it relates to claims against Sheriff Daniel in his official capacity, we affirm the denial of qualified immunity for Sheriff Daniel and Deputy Reech, and we reverse the denial of qualified immunity for Deputy Rabalais.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On August 21, 1996, Sheila Jacobs was arrested for the attempted, second-degree murder, by shooting, of her uncle. Jacobs had become enraged at her uncle when she learned that he had allegedly sexually molested one of her sons years before. The arresting state troopers informed an investigator for the West Feliciana Sheriff's Department that Jacobs told them shortly after her arrest that, after shooting her uncle, she had tried to kill herself by placing a loaded gun in her mouth and pulling the trigger, but the gun had jammed. The investigator conveyed this information to Sheriff Daniel.

Sheriff Daniel and Deputy Rabalais both testified that they were, indeed, told that Jacobs had attempted suicide shortly before her arrest. After processing Jacobs, the officers at the West Feliciana Parish Prison placed Jacobs in a "detox" cell, which is used to house inmates who are intoxicated, who need to be isolated for safety reasons, or who are designated for placement on a suicide watch. According to Deputy Rabalais's deposition testimony, when Jacobs was placed in the detox cell, the officers had her on suicide watch and had placed a note to that effect in the control center. The various defendants testified that the detox cell could be constantly observed from the jail's control room through a window, but that a substantial portion of the cell, including the bunk area, fell into a "blind spot," and was not visible from the control room. This cell could be completely observed only if an officer viewed it from the hallway. The cell also had several "tie-off" points (bars and light fixtures from which a makeshift rope could be suspended), despite Sheriff Daniel's acknowledgment that a suicide prevention cell should not have such tie off points and despite the fact that another inmate, James Halley, had previously committed suicide in the very same cell by hanging himself with a sheet from one of these tie-off points. To the best of Deputy Rabalais's knowledge, and pursuant to Sheriff Daniel's directive, Jacobs was not given sheets on the first night of her detention, August 21.

On the morning of August 22, Jacobs appeared before a Louisiana state district judge, who appointed attorney Clayton Perkins to represent her. The next morning, Friday, August 23, Perkins visited Jacobs at the jail. Perkins requested that Sheriff Daniel leave Jacobs in the detox cell, and perhaps provide her with a blanket and towel. Sheriff Daniel instructed one of his deputies to give these items to Jacobs, but the record reflects only that Jacobs received a sheet (which she eventually used to kill herself), and there is no evidence that she received either a towel or a blanket. In his report, Sheriff Daniel stated that he had been thinking about moving Jacobs to another cell with other female detainees, but decided to leave her in the detox cell after she asked him not to move her because she was afraid the other women would hurt her. He also noted that Jacobs had asked for her hepatitis medication and had given no other indications that she was planning to attempt suicide or to harm herself.

Deputies Reech and Rabalais were on duty at the West Feliciana jail facility from 11:30 p.m. the night of August 23, until 7:30 a.m. the next morning, August 24. The record reveals that the defendants still regarded Jacobs as a suicide risk during that time. Indeed, Sheriff Daniel testified that Jacobs was on a "precautionary," though not a "straight" suicide watch. Our review of the record reveals few discernable differences between these two types of suicide watches. When an inmate was on "strict" suicide watch, the informal policy at the jail was to have the inmate checked on every fifteen minutes. Deputy Reech testified that he and Deputy Rabalais made periodic checks on Jacobs; however, it is unclear exactly how often the deputies checked on Jacobs while she was under the "precautionary" suicide watch. What is clear is that as many as 45 minutes elapsed from the time a deputy last checked on Jacobs to the time she was discovered hanging from the light fixture in the detox cell.

Specifically, the record reveals that, after having observed Jacobs in the detox cell at 12:22 a.m. and 1:00 a.m., Deputy Reech checked on Jacobs at 1:22 a.m., and he observed her lying awake in her bunk. At 2:00 a.m., Deputy Rabalais went to investigate some loud music down the hall, and on his way back to the control station, he observed Jacobs lying awake in her bunk. Deputy Rabalais testified that both he and Deputy Reech checked on Jacobs sometime between 2:00 and 2:44 a.m., and that Jacobs was still awake in her bunk. After this last check, Deputy Reech returned to the jail lobby to read his newspaper. At approximately 2:44 a.m., Deputy Rabalais looked into the detox cell from the control room and saw what appeared to be part of an arm hanging from the ceiling. Concerned, he went to find Deputy Reech, who was still reading the newspaper, to help him get into the detox cell. When the deputies arrived at the cell, they found Jacobs hanging from a sheet that had been tied around the cagingsurrounding a ceiling light fixture. Deputy Rabalais found a knife and enlisted the assistance of another inmate in cutting the sheet and lowering Jacobs onto the floor. By all indications, Jacobs had torn a small string from the bunk mattress and wrapped that string around the sheet to form a make-shift rope. The paramedics who arrived only moments later were unable to resuscitate Jacobs. Jacobs's suicide was the third suicide at the jail during Sheriff Daniel's tenure there. As noted above, James Halley's suicide had occurred in the same cell where Jacobs killed herself. The third suicide had occurred in a cell down the hallway from the detox cell.

On July 8, 1997, Anthony LaForte commenced this action in the Eastern District of Louisiana. The case was transferred to the Middle District, which includes the Parish of West Feliciana. On April 6, 1998, Jacobs' other son, Christopher LoForte,¹ was added as a plaintiff. The plaintiffs' amended complaint alleged a violation of section 1983 by the Parish of West Feliciana, the West Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Daniel, in his individual and official capacities, and Deputies Reech and Rabalais, in their individual capacities. The plaintiffs asserted that the individual defendants violated Jacobs's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by exhibiting deliberate indifference to her obvious suicidal tendencies and failing to protect her from self-inflicted harm. They also contended that Sheriff Daniel in his official capacity, violated Jacobs' Fourteenth Amendment rights by failing to implement a suitable policy for accommodating the medical and psychiatric needs of pretrial detainees like Jacobs. On January 26, 1998, the case was transferred to a magistrate judge and the parties consented to disposition by a magistrate judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 636(c). On August 31, 1998, Sheriff Daniel, Deputy Reech, and Deputy Rabalais, moved for summary judgment, claiming qualified immunity with respect to the claims asserted against them in their individual capacity. Additionally the defendants claimed that the medical/psychiatric accommodation policy for pretrial detainees was constitutionally sufficient to defeat the claim asserted against Sheriff Daniel in his official capacity. The Magistrate Judge conducted a hearing on October 16, 1998, and on January 19, 1999, denied the motion. The individual defendants have now timely filed this interlocutory appeal from the denial of summary judgment on grounds of qualified immunity.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Jurisdiction

As a preliminary matter, we must consider whether we have jurisdiction to hear this appeal. "Normally, we do not have appellate jurisdiction to review a district court's denial of a motion for summary judgment because such [an order] is not a final one within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. 1291." Lemoine v. New Horizons Ranch and Center, Inc., 174 F.3d 629, 633 (5th Cir. 1999). There is an exception to this rule, however, when a summary judgment motion is based on an official's claim of absolute or qualified immunity and the district court's disposition is premised upon a legal conclusion, and not simply a dispute with regard to the sufficiency of the evidence. See id. (citing Mitchell v. Forsythe, 105 S. Ct. 2806 (1985)). The district court's order in this case states that the defendants' conduct was not objectively reasonable in light of the applicable legal standard of deliberate indifference. Accordingly, we have interlocutory appellate jurisdiction to review the denial of the defendants' motion for summary judgment, but only insofar as...