Martin v. White

• Decision Date: 21 September 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-2712,83-2712
• Citation: 742 F.2d 469
• Parties: Gary MARTIN and Michael L. Gleason, Appellants, v. Carl WHITE, Superintendent, Steve Long, Dr. Lee Roy Black, and Lew Kollias, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 469

742 F.2d 469

Gary MARTIN and Michael L. Gleason, Appellants, v. Carl WHITE, Superintendent, Steve Long, Dr. Lee Roy Black and Lew Kollias, Appellees.

No. 83-2712.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted June 13, 1984.

Decided Aug. 29, 1984.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 21, 1984.

Wion, Burke & Boll by Mason W. Klippel, Clayton, Mo., for appellants.

John Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., Rosalynn Van Hefst, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Mo., for appellees.

Before ROSS, Circuit Judge, HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

ROSS, Circuit Judge.

In this case we deal with a subject matter which has become a national disgrace in some of our nation's prisons. We speak, of course, of the inability or unwillingness of some prison administrators to take the necessary steps to protect their prisoners from sexual and physical assaults by other inmates.

Gary Martin and Michael Gleason, inmates of the Missouri Training Center for Men in Moberly, Missouri, were sexually threatened and assaulted by fellow inmates in 1981. They brought this action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against Carl White, Superintendent of the Missouri Training Center, ¹ seeking injunctive and monetary relief. They assert that the failure of defendant White to take reasonable steps to protect them from attacks by other inmates violated their eighth amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

The case was tried before a jury. At the close of plaintiffs' case, the magistrate ² granted defendant's motion for a directed verdict. Plaintiffs claim the magistrate erred. We agree.

I. FACTS

The evidence shows that Martin was sexually threatened on at least three separate occasions in 1981: in April in the shower, on September 27 in his cell, and on October 7 in the dining room. Martin escaped actual forced intercourse on each occasion. However, in an effort to protect himself from the homosexual attacks, he obtained a knife. He was caught with this knife and given a three year sentence for carrying a concealed weapon.

According to plaintiffs' evidence Gleason was alone in his locked cell on the night of September 27, 1981, when he heard an inmate scratching on his lock with a paperclip. Within a second, the lock was picked and the door was open.

Four inmates rushed into his cell and, threatening him with a knife and iron bar, forced him into inmate Mark McCabe's cell. Gleason was placed face down onto a bed, spread-eagled, and sodomized by McCabe.

The Missouri Training Center is a medium security institution designed for a maximum occupancy of 1,034 inmates. However, in September of 1981, the institution housed 1,227 inmates.

Defendant White, as Superintendent of the Missouri Training Center, is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the facility. MO.REV.STAT. Sec. 217.170 (1982). Plaintiffs argue that White failed to operate the Missouri Training Center in such a manner as to reasonably protect them from sexual assaults. They break this failure into four categories.

First, plaintiffs point to White's failure to establish adequate patrol procedures. The defendants stipulated that guards only infrequently patrol the hallways, especially at night. In fact, neither plaintiff saw any sign of guards on patrol during their assaults.

The design of the Missouri Training Center is such that the guards cannot see or hear much inmate activity unless they are on patrol. The guards are stationed in a central rotunda area from which four wings, each approximately fifty yards long, branch out. There are four floors to each wing. A solid, relatively soundproof metal door with a glass window separates the guards in the rotunda from the inmates in the wings. This door is kept locked. From the rotunda area, the guards cannot see into the inmate's cells.

Second, plaintiffs point to White's failure to establish an adequate classification system. More specifically, they direct attention to the fact that McCabe's record showed that he had assaulted other inmates at another Missouri prison in April and June of 1981. Yet, Missouri Training Center officials assigned McCabe to the general population amongst inmates with nonviolent histories.

Third, plaintiffs point to White's failure to establish an adequate mechanism to assure that the inmates' cells are safe from attack. In 1981, White relied entirely on the inmates themselves to discover whether their locks were defective. In the fall of 1982 all of the locks were examined for defects, for the first time, during an accreditation examination.

Finally, plaintiffs point to White's failure to refer previous inmate assaults to the local prosecutor. They assert, and White admitted, that a practice of not reporting such assaults would fail to provide deterrence for future assaults.

Indeed, inmate assaults are commonplace at the Missouri Training Center. Between 1979 and April of 1983, there were 59 actual reported assaults ³ and over 300 claimed assaults. These figures are, in all likelihood, somewhat low, as many assaults may go unreported. The fact that there were over 1,837 appearances by inmates seeking protective custody between 1979 and April of 1983 supports this inference. Further, defendants stipulated that plaintiffs could produce a number of inmates who would testify that assaults, including those of a sexual nature, occur on a "fairly regular basis."

Yet, less than ten of the assault cases from the above period were referred by White to the local prosecutor and prosecuted. McCabe's assault on Gleason was not one of these.

II. STANDARD FOR DIRECTED VERDICT

We have often repeated the following standard:

It is fundamental that a motion for directed verdict is properly denied where the evidence presented allows reasonable men in a fair exercise of their judgment to draw different conclusions. A directed verdict is in order only where the evidence points all one way and is susceptible of no reasonable inferences sustaining the position of the nonmoving party. * * * In making this determination, the evidence, together with all reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.

Giordano v. Lee, 434 F.2d 1227, 1231 (8th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 403 U.S. 931, 91 S.Ct. 2250, 29 L.Ed.2d 709 (1971) (emphasis in original) (citations omitted). See, e.g., Hinkle v. Christensen, 733 F.2d 74, 76-77 (8th Cir.1984); Dace v. ACF Industries, Inc., 722 F.2d 374, 375 (1983), supplemented, 728 F.2d 976 (8th Cir.1984); Tribble v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 669 F.2d 1193, 1195 (8th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1080, 103 S.Ct. 1767, 76 L.Ed.2d 342 (1983).

In applying the above standard, the court must:

(1) resolve direct factual conflicts in favor of the nonmovant, (2) assume as true all facts supporting the nonmovant which the evidence tended to prove, (3) give the nonmovant the benefit of all reasonable inferences, and (4) deny the motion if the evidence so viewed would allow reasonable jurors to differ as to the conclusions that could be drawn.

Dace v. ACF Industries, Inc., supra, 722 F.2d at 375.

Further, as a general rule, only the evidence favoring the nonmoving party should be considered. Id. at 376-77.

III. DISCUSSION

A. General

The Missouri penal system presents this court with yet another look at the atrocities and inhumane conditions of prison life in America. In particular, we are focused on the failure of prisons to protect inmates from assaults.

The pervasive nature of prison assaults is well documented. Justice Blackmun summarized the findings of researchers and governmental agencies in this area as follows:

A youthful inmate can expect to be subjected to homosexual gang rape his first night in jail, or, it has been said, even in the van on the way to jail. Weaker inmates become the property of stronger prisoners or gangs, who sell the sexual services of the victim. Prison officials either are disinterested in stopping abuse of prisoners by other prisoners or are incapable of doing so, given the limited resources society allocates to the prison system. Prison officials often are merely indifferent to serious health and safety needs of prisoners as well.

Even more appalling is the fact that guards frequently participate in the brutalization of inmates. The classic example is the beating or other punishment in retaliation for prisoner complaints or court actions.

United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 421-22, 100 S.Ct. 624, 640-41, 62 L.Ed.2d 575 (1980) (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (footnotes omitted).

The facts presented in this case and in numerous other cases dealing with the failure of prisons to protect inmates are disturbingly consistent with the above findings.

Statistics on violence in America's prisons also shed light on the extent of the problem. The Supreme Court recently conducted a partial survey of statistics on violent crime in our nation's prisons, revealing that:

During 1981 and the first half of 1982, there were over 120 prisoners murdered by fellow inmates in state and federal prisons. A number of prison personnel were murdered by prisoners during this period. Over 29 riots or similar disturbances were reported in these facilities for the same time frame. And there were over 125 suicides in these institutions. See Prison Violence 7 Corrections Compendium (Mar. 1983). Additionally, informal statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons show that in the federal system during 1983, there were 11 inmate homicides, 359 inmate assaults on other inmates, 227 inmate assaults on prison staff, and 10 suicides. There were in the same system in 1981 and 1982 over 750 inmate assaults on other inmates and over 570 inmate assaults on prison personnel.

Hudson v. Palmer, --- U.S. ----, ----, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3200, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984).

These statistics take on additional meaning when it is recognized that they reflect merely the tip of the iceberg, as many violent assaults never find...