Smith v. Arkansas Dept. of Correction, I-

• Decision Date: 18 December 1996
• Docket Number: D,Nos. 95-1565,I-,95-2744,s. 95-1565
• Parties: Ernest SMITH; Jimmy Rudd, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION; A.L. Lockhart, Director of the Arkansas Department of Correction; Defendants, Larry Norris, Acting Director of the Arkansas Department of Correction; Willis H. Sargent, Warden of the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction; A.J. Hall, Major, Chief of Security; R.R. Wood, Lieutenant, Shift Supervisor; J. Cleveland, Guard; John Hood, Officer; James Banks, Classification and Assignment Officer, Defendants-Appellants, Ron Smyers, Medical Services Administrator; John Does,efendants, Dale Reed, Warden, Cummins Unit, Arkansas Department of Correction, Defendant-Appellant. Linda C. SMITH, Administratrix of the Estate of John E. Stewart, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION; A.L. Lockhart, Director of the Arkansas Department of Correction, Defendants, Larry Norris, Acting Director of the Arkansas Department of Correction; Willis H. Sargent, Warden of the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction; A.J. Hall, Major, Chief of Security; R.R. Wood, Lieutenant, Shift Supervisor; J. Cleveland, Guard; John Hood, Officer, Defendants-Appellants, James Banks, Classification and Assignment Officer; Ron Smyers, Medical Services Administrator; John Does,efendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 637

103 F.3d 637

Ernest SMITH; Jimmy Rudd, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION; A.L. Lockhart, Director

of the Arkansas Department of Correction; Defendants,

Larry Norris, Acting Director of the Arkansas Department of

Correction; Willis H. Sargent, Warden of the Cummins Unit

of the Arkansas Department of Correction; A.J. Hall, Major,

Chief of Security; R.R. Wood, Lieutenant, Shift Supervisor;

J. Cleveland, Guard; John Hood, Officer; James Banks,

Classification and Assignment Officer, Defendants-Appellants,

Ron Smyers, Medical Services Administrator; John Does, I-X,

Defendants,

Dale Reed, Warden, Cummins Unit, Arkansas Department of

Correction, Defendant-Appellant.

Linda C. SMITH, Administratrix of the Estate of John E.

Stewart, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION; A.L. Lockhart, Director

of the Arkansas Department of Correction, Defendants,

Larry Norris, Acting Director of the Arkansas Department of

Correction; Willis H. Sargent, Warden of the Cummins Unit

of the Arkansas Department of Correction; A.J. Hall, Major,

Chief of Security; R.R. Wood, Lieutenant, Shift Supervisor;

J. Cleveland, Guard; John Hood, Officer, Defendants-Appellants,

James Banks, Classification and Assignment Officer; Ron

Smyers, Medical Services Administrator; John

Does, I-X, Defendants.

Nos. 95-1565, 95-2744.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Jan. 8, 1996.

Decided Dec. 18, 1996.

David B. Eberhard Assistant Attorney General, argued, Little Rock, AR (Kyle R. Wilson, on the brief), for Appellants.

Paul Joseph James, argued, Little Rock, AR (Hugh E. Crisp, on the brief), for Appellees.

Before MAGILL, REAVLEY, ¹ and HANSEN, Circuit Judges.

HANSEN, Circuit Judge.

These two prisoners' civil rights cases arise out of an incident where an Arkansas inmate stabbed two fellow inmates, Ernest Smith and John Stewart, murdering Stewart and seriously injuring Smith. Smith sought declaratory and injunctive relief based on the conditions of his confinement; Smith and Stewart's estate both sought damages based on the stabbing incident. In this consolidated appeal, the Arkansas Department of Correction prison officials appeal the district court's grant of declaratory and injunctive relief requiring additional staffing, the denial of their motions for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, and the district court's grant of partial summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs on liability.

I. BACKGROUND

Ernest Smith and John Stewart were both inmates at the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction. During the early morning hours of August 10, 1992, while they were asleep in their beds, they were brutally stabbed by fellow inmate Robert Lewis. Smith was seriously injured, and Stewart died as a result of the attack. Lewis accomplished the act with a hobby craft knife that he had either borrowed or stolen from another inmate within the barracks.

These inmates were all incarcerated together in Barracks No. 8, a large, open, dormitory-style room in the West Hall of the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction. Inmates in the open barracks are free to move about the entire room. Barracks No. 8 housed 86 general population inmates at the time of this incident and was not staffed with a correctional officer inside the room. Barracks Nos. 5 and 6 are similarly organized and similarly lack the presence of a supervising correctional officer inside them.

Following the stabbing incident, Ernest Smith sought damages for his injuries pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the prison conditions at the time of the attack, including the prison officials' failure to protect him by not posting a guard inside the open barracks, violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment in the form of inmate on inmate attacks. Smith also sought injunctive relief to remedy the current conditions of confinement, contending that the prison officials were not complying with the requirements imposed in a prior case. See Finney v. Mabry, 546 F.Supp. 628 (E.D.Ark.1982). The district court determined that Smith lacked standing to seek injunctive relief for the current conditions of confinement at the Cummins Unit because he had been transferred from that facility over one year prior to the commencement of this suit. For the sake of judicial economy, however, the court allowed Smith to add a co-plaintiff to bring that claim. Smith joined Jimmy Rudd, who was a current resident of the Cummins Unit, for the purpose of seeking injunctive relief to remedy the current conditions of confinement. The administrator of John Stewart's estate filed a separate § 1983 action, seeking damages for the defendants' failure to protect Stewart from the violent attack.

The district court determined that Rudd was not entitled to a jury trial on his equitable claim for an injunction and held a five-day bench trial. In its findings of fact, the district court found that prison policy at the time of the stabbing incident allowed some inmates to possess dangerous hobby craft tools in the open barracks for purposes of making arts and crafts. Subsequent to the filing of this case, however, the prison officials adopted a new policy, which removes all hobby craft tools from the open barracks and thus provides an adequate remedy for the dangers inherent in the old policy.

The district court also determined that the prison officials were inadequately staffing the open barracks and had done nothing to alleviate the dangers posed by this shortcoming. Supervision of the open barracks is provided by one correctional officer stationed in the hallway between two open barracks. This correctional officer monitors the open barracks by looking through the bars, but this officer is not allowed to enter the barracks because he holds the keys. A different correctional officer periodically walks through the barracks to check on the inmates at unscheduled and unrecorded times. No hourly security checks are logged in security records; neither are random hourly security checks listed in the post orders which inform individual officers what is required during their shifts. Although the post orders include a requirement for random security checks, the court found no indication that random checks must be (or were) accomplished hourly as required by Finney, 546 F.Supp. at 640. The district court credited the testimony of various correctional officers, some of the defendants, and many inmate witnesses, which indicated that random hourly security checks in fact were not made.

The district court concluded that even assuming the defendants were complying with the standards found to be adequate in Finney, the evidence now proves that those standards are inadequate to guarantee inmate safety in the open barracks. Prison records do demonstrate that an officer had walked through the barracks for a security check only ten minutes before Smith and Stewart were violently attacked. Consequently, the district court concluded that even compliance with the random hourly security check found to be adequate in Finney would not have provided the inmates with adequate protection.

Additionally, the district court found that a great deal of both reported and unreported criminal activity goes on at night in the open barracks that is not deterred by periodic security checks. Since 1986, reports by independent investigators have indicated that operating large, open barracks with no correctional officer stationed inside presents a serious danger to the inmates so housed. In 1986, the Arthur Young Company, at the request of the Arkansas legislature, compiled two reports concerning the conditions in the open barracks at the Cummins Unit. The first report found that the absence of correctional officers inside the barracks "is contrary to the most fundamental security and safety practices." (Appellants' Addend. at 14.) It also noted that "the almost total lack of direct monitoring could be resulting in the criminal activities currently being charged." (Id.) The report recommended that at least two correctional officers be stationed inside each of the open barracks whenever the majority of the inmates are present there. The second Arthur Young report stated that "[h]ousing units of 100 inmates with no direct supervision cannot be thought to be under control." (Id. at 16.) Again, the second report recommended at least two correctional officers for each open barracks.

In 1989, the United States Department of Justice investigated the situation and notified then Governor Clinton that the staffing and supervision at the Cummins Unit were inadequate to ensure the safety of inmates, especially those inmates in the crowded dormitories. The Justice Department recommended that a minimum of 92 additional correctional officers would be needed to ensure inmate safety. To avoid a Justice Department lawsuit challenging the conditions at the state's prisons, the State of Arkansas entered into an agreement with the Justice Department to implement the additional staff recommendations. Funding was approved in 1991 but was subsequently cut back, providing for only 62 additional staff members. At the time of trial, however, the parties stipulated that all 92 positions had been funded.

A 1991 report by the Department of Justice specifically recommended that two correctional officers should be posted in each of the large open dormitories during the night shift. The Arkansas Department of Correction determined that four new positions should be created for each of the open barracks. As of April 22, 1992, a list outlining where the new positions are located showed that sixteen new correctional officers had been assigned to the four open, inadequately supervised barracks. At the time of trial in February 1995, one of the four open barracks was adequately staffed, but the three others, including Barracks No. 8, still did not have an officer...