Odom v. South Carolina Dept. of Corrections

• Decision Date: 19 November 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-7086.,02-7086.
• Citation: 349 F.3d 765
• Parties: Clinton W. ODOM, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS; Doug Catoe; D.J. Evans; P. Powell; W. Taylor; J. Griffin; S. Johnson; R. Chavis; South Carolina Department of Corrections Medical Facility; Nurse Walters; Nathaniel Hughes, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

349 F.3d 765

Clinton W. ODOM, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS; Doug Catoe; D.J. Evans; P. Powell; W. Taylor; J. Griffin; S. Johnson; R. Chavis; South Carolina Department of Corrections Medical Facility; Nurse Walters; Nathaniel Hughes, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 02-7086.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: May 7, 2003.

Decided: November 19, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED: David Isaac Bruck, Law Offices of David I. Bruck, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant.

Andrew Frederick Lindemann, Davidson, Morrison & Lindemann, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Robert E. Lominack, Law Offices of David I. Bruck, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant. James E. Parham, Jr., Irmo, South Carolina, for Appellees.

Before LUTTIG, WILLIAMS, and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges.

Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge TRAXLER wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge WILLIAMS joined. Judge LUTTIG wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge:

Clinton W. Odom appeals the district court's entry of summary judgment based on qualified immunity in favor of correctional officers Perry Powell, David Evans, and Willy Taylor. Odom asserts that Powell, Evans, and Taylor were deliberately indifferent to his safety, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, when they ignored Odom's requests for protection against an assault committed by fellow inmates at Evans Correctional Institution (ECI). According to Odom's uncontradicted version of the facts, the defendants knew the inmates intended to kill or seriously injure him and the defendants even watched as these inmates worked for at least forty-five minutes to break into an outdoor recreational cage in which Odom was being held, yet ignored Odom's pleas for help. The defendants failed to submit any evidence explaining why they did not grant Odom's request to be removed from his cage despite the clear and substantial risk posed by the hostile inmates in the adjoining cage. Accordingly, we vacate the district court's order and remand for further proceedings.

I.

Odom presents evidence to support the following version of events. On June 15, 2000, shortly after 9:00 p.m., Odom's fellow inmates started a fire in order to create an opportunity to attack Odom. Because of the fire, inmates were moved from their cells to outdoor, chain-link cages used for temporary confinement in the recreation yard.

As he was being moved from his cell, Odom warned Powell that a group of fellow inmates would kill him if he were put in an area where they could gain access to him. When Odom told Powell repeatedly that he if he was put "on the rec[reational] field, they are going to try and kill me," Powell dismissed his concern, stating that "those dudes ain't going to f____ with you." J.A. 11-12.

However, Powell's hasty dismissal of Odom's fears about his safety soon proved to be mistaken. Several inmates from the Special Management Unit where Odom was assigned demanded that defendant Evans put them in Odom's cage. When they were put in the adjoining cage instead, they immediately began tearing down the fence that separated them from Odom and making verbal threats to Odom. Odom's pleas to be removed from the cage fell on deaf ears:

[U]pon the inmates entering this [adjoining] cage it was very evident what th[ei]r [p]lan was, by the verbal threats and actions of trying to breakout of th[ei]r cage and into the one [I] was in. As time continued, and it became more ap[p]arent of these inmates['] intentions, [I] begged the defendants to get me out of the cage more times th [a]n I can recall. I pleaded for the defendants to help me and to get me out. My pleas were ignored and laughed at by the defendants. At one point [Officer] Alford and [Sergeant] Martin told P. Powell, W. Taylor, and D.J. Evans [the defendants] to get me out, but all of them ignored this order. One of the [d]efendants even made the remar[k] that [I] "should not have snitched on them." When asked by an inmate what was going on, [Officer] Powell stated, "they got th[ei]r snitch."

J.A. 107.

Powell actually observed Odom's eventual attackers trying to break into Odom's cage soon after they had been placed in the neighboring cage. In fact, Powell filed an incident report acknowledging that he saw several inmates destroying the fence separating the two recreational cages. There is no evidence, however, that Powell attempted to remove Odom or responded in any way. To the contrary, Powell simply observed that the inmates who were about to assault Odom had "got[ten] th[ei]r snitch." J.A. 107.

Likewise, Odom's evidence showed that Evans was aware of the risk of harm to Odom. Odom told Evans more than once that this group of inmates intended to harm him. When the inmates told Evans they wanted to be placed in Odom's cage, Odom protested and told Evans that they intended to attack him. Later, after Odom's attackers had been placed in the adjacent cage and had begun the forty-five minute process of breaking into Odom's cage, Odom again asked Evans for help. When Evans approached, one of the inmates pulled a piece of chain link fence out of his back pocket and threatened to stab Evans. Evans then withdrew, looking at Odom and stating "I ain't f with you." J.A. 13. There is no evidence that Evans took any additional action to assist Odom.

Odom also tried to get help from Officer Taylor. According to Odom, the same inmate who threatened Officer Evans "stuck his arm out the rec[reational] cage handcuff hole and started pushing little pieces of tissue in the lock on [Odom's] rec [reational] cage door in order to jam it so it could not be unlocked." J.A. at 13. Odom tried to prevent this by slapping the inmate's hand away from the lock, but when the inmate tried to stab Odom's hand and arm, Odom was "forced to move away." J.A. at 13. Concerned that he would be a sitting duck if the lock were disabled, Odom begged Taylor to remove him, but Taylor ignored him.

Not only did the defendants ignore Odom's requests for help and the inmates' efforts to break into Odom's cage, but they ignored directives from fellow correctional officers Martin and Alford to remove Odom. Alford noticed "several inmates were working to tear the chain-link fence in order to get into the Plaintiff's recreation area." J.A. 69. At the same time, inmates in "adjoining recreation areas" were goading one of the inmates in Odom's recreational cage, Timothy Evans, into assaulting Odom. J.A. at 69. Inmate Evans eventually struck Odom and a fight ensued between them, forcing Alford to use pepper spray to break it up. Powell's incident report indicates he also witnessed this scene. Odom asserts, without contradiction, that Alford and Martin told Powell, Evans and Taylor they needed to "get [Odom] out," but Odom was left in the cage. J.A. 107.

Shortly after 10:00 p.m., several inmates from the adjoining cage finally destroyed enough of the fence to climb into Odom's cage and brutally attack him. Alford and Martin used pepper spray on the inmates after the assault was in progress. According to Odom, this effort was temporarily successful and the attackers retreated to their own cage, but some five minutes later, two of the attackers returned to Odom's cage and, picking up Odom, swung him face first into the fence. The second beating lasted until Odom's attackers "got tired." J.A. 108. Forty-five minutes later, Odom was removed from the cage on a stretcher with three broken ribs.

Odom filed a pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West 2003), alleging that prison officials violated his Eighth Amendment rights by knowingly and willingly placing his life in danger. He named as defendants the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC); SCDC Director Doug Catoe; several individual correctional officers, including Evans, Powell, and Taylor; the SCDC Medical Facility; and other personnel employed by SCDC. The district court dismissed the complaint as to SCDC and Catoe, and granted summary judgment to the remaining defendants based on qualified immunity.¹ This appeal followed.

II.

We review de novo an award of summary judgment based on qualified immunity. See Taylor v. McDuffie, 155 F.3d 479, 482 (4th Cir.1998). In determining whether summary judgment is appropriate, we must determine "whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). And, "[i]n deciding whether there is a genuine issue of material fact, the evidence of the non-moving party is to be believed and all justifiable inferences must be drawn in his favor." Taylor, 155 F.3d at 482.

Because Powell, Evans, and Taylor have invoked qualified immunity as a defense, we examine this case under the two-step qualified immunity analysis. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). The "threshold question" in the qualified immunity analysis on summary judgment is whether, "[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, ... the facts alleged show [that] the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right." Id.² "If no constitutional right would have been violated were the allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified immunity." Id.; see Figg v. Schroeder, 312 F.3d 625, 635 (4th Cir.2002). If, however, the facts alleged show a constitutional violation, "then the next step is to ask whether the constitutional right was clearly established in the specific context of the case." Figg, 312 F.3d at 635 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The Eighth Amendment imposes a duty on prison officials "to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners." Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 833, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) (...