Littlefield v. Deland, 80-1751

• Decision Date: 12 May 1981
• Docket Number: No. 80-1751,80-1751
• Citation: 641 F.2d 729
• Parties: David LITTLEFIELD, as next friend for the protection of the interests of James Ed Langley, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gary DELAND, individually and in his capacity as supervisor of the Salt Lake City County Jail, Defendant, and Salt Lake County, a municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellant.*
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 729

641 F.2d 729

David LITTLEFIELD, as next friend for the protection of the interests of James Ed Langley, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gary DELAND, individually and in his capacity as supervisor of the Salt Lake City County Jail, Defendant and Salt Lake County, a municipal corporation Defendant-Appellant.*

No. 80-1751.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted March 18, 1981.

Decided May 12, 1981.

Patricia J. Marlowe, Deputy County Atty., Salt Lake City, Utah (Ted Cannon, Salt Lake County Atty., Salt Lake City, Utah, with her on the briefs), for defendants-appellants.

John B. Maycock, Salt Lake City, Utah (Brian M. Barnard and Kerry Eagan, Salt Lake City, Utah, with him on the brief), for plaintiff-appellee.

Before McWILLIAMS, DOYLE and McKAY, Circuit Judges.

McKAY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff, a young man suffering from mental illness, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct based on certain bizarre but nonviolent activities in a service station. He was placed in a "strip cell" a solitary cell long used by the county to punish disorderly pretrial detainees and to segregate prisoners with severe mental disorders. For a period of nearly two months (fifty-six days) he was held there without notice or opportunity to be heard with respect to the nature or duration of his confinement. The "strip cells" in which plaintiff was held for a substantial part of this period have no windows, no interior lights, no bunk, no floor covering, and no toilet except for a hole in the concrete floor which was flushed irregularly from outside the cell. During most of his fifty-six days of confinement, plaintiff was deprived of all his clothes and was given no bedding whatsoever. He slept naked on the concrete floor. Moreover, he was given no opportunity to engage in any recreation outside his cell during this long period and was not permitted to have any reading or writing materials. Thus, to amuse himself this mentally ill prisoner was relegated to banter with inmates in nearby cells. Some of these exchanges escalated into the throwing back and forth of urine and feces. Because plaintiff was denied articles of personal hygiene, he had no means of washing his hands after these unsanitary exchanges, and yet was required to eat most of his food with his fingers. Plaintiff's cell frequently stank of feces and urine.

Plaintiff's court-appointed attorney did nothing of substance to help plaintiff obtain relief from these conditions; ¹ on the initiative of a "next friend," however, plaintiff finally obtained an attorney who apparently recognized that plaintiff could not be held indefinitely under such conditions absent any procedural safeguards. This attorney filed a state court action which was followed immediately by plaintiff's release from the "strip cell" and his transfer to the state mental hospital, where his illness which not surprisingly had been exacerbated by his long and oppressive confinement was brought under control. In due course, plaintiff filed an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Salt Lake County and various county officials. After an extended bench trial, the court awarded compensatory damages, court costs, and attorney's fees and reasonable expenses against the corporate County. The County then filed this appeal.

Plaintiff's theories are, alternatively, that this kind and length of confinement without hearing deprived him of due process of law and that it subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment. The trial court found that

Salt Lake County deprived plaintiff of due process of law by confining him in such a strip cell for more than 56 days without notice, hearing or meaningful opportunity for reevaluation or review of his condition, or the necessity of his confinement under the conditions in which he was confined, in violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Memorandum Decision, at 16.

We affirm the judgment of the district court that plaintiff's confinement amounted to punishment and therefore that the county's failure to provide plaintiff with any meaningful notice and hearing violated the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. As the Supreme Court in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 534, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1871, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), explained, "what is at issue when an aspect of pretrial detention that is not alleged to violate any express guarantee of the Constitution is challenged, is the detainee's right to be free from punishment." Thus, the constitutionality under a due process analysis of the nature or duration of pretrial detention turns on whether such detention amounts to "punishment" in the constitutional sense. "For under the Due Process Clause, a detainee may not be punished prior to an adjudication of guilt in accordance with due process of law." Id. at 535, 99 S.Ct. at 1872.

In determining whether the disabilities imposed on plaintiff during his detention constituted punitive measures implicating due process or, conversely, were permissible regulatory restraints, the trier of fact must first consider whether detention facility officials expressed an intent to punish the pretrial detainee. If they did not, the "determination generally will turn on 'whether an alternative purpose to which (the restriction) may rationally be connected is assignable for it, and whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned (to it).' " Id. at 538, 99 S.Ct. at 1873 (quoting Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 168-69, 83 S.Ct. 554, 567-568, 9 L.Ed.2d 644 (1963)). This standard obviously does not permit a court to impose on prison administrators its idea of how best to operate a detention facility. On the other hand, the court must apply the Bell standard to the facts underlying a § 1983 claim based on an allegedly unconstitutional policy of pretrial detention to determine whether that policy in fact constitutes punishment whatever its asserted purposes may be.

Here, the district court found no clear evidence of an expressed intent by facility officials to punish plaintiff. The court did find, however, that "the condition and manner in which he was maintained could hardly have been any worse than if he were being punished for adjudicated infractions of a serious nature." Memorandum Decision, at 9. The court also concluded that the extreme deprivations to which plaintiff was subjected during his fifty-six days of confinement were "partly retributive, partly precautionary", id. at 2, but, in any event, were "unreasonably degrading and inhumane" a mere "masquerade as essential custodial detention," id. at 3, and therefore clearly "excessive in relation to the alternative purpose (of essential custodial detention) assigned (to it)," Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 538, 99 S.Ct. at 1873, in manifest violation of plaintiff's rights of due process as a pretrial detainee.

In finding the trial court's judgment abundantly supported by the record, we do not hold that the use of any kind of "strip cell" is per se unconstitutional. We hold only that to hold a pretrial detainee under conditions of detention this extreme for such an excessive period as fifty-six days is punishment and, absent a determination of guilt, ² cannot be imposed in accordance with the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). See also Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978); Wright v. Enomoto, 434 U.S. 1052, 98 S.Ct. 1223, 55 L.Ed.2d 756 (1978), aff'g 462 F.Supp. 397 (N.D.Cal.1976); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974).

We must next determine who is to bear the responsibility for this violation of plaintiff's constitutional rights. In Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), the Court concluded, "(I)t is when execution of a (local) government's policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy,...