Thread by @RMFifthCircuit

A very tough for me to read QI case this PM. A prisoner was made to sleep in a cell on a floor, naked. The floor was covered in urine and excrement.

The panel held that the prisoner could not overcome QI because of the time period involved (6 days)
1/
drive.google.com/file/d/1wloQO8…

This was not just some excrement, according to the complaint. It was "massive amounts of feces."

* I will get to it, but the panel revised one of his claims, so he does have a case. 2/

The panel observes that there might be circumstances where putting prisoners naked on the floor is ok.

* Again, speaking entirely for myself, I do not know what those are. /3

One piece of good news from my perspective here, which is that the Panel now establishes going forward that this is unacceptable. Won't help this man, but may help someone else. /4

OK, but I said earlier the prisoner does have a claim. What is it? Well, the Panel revived the prisoner's deliberate indifference claim where he wasn't allowed to urinate for a day, and his drain was backed up with sewage, so finally he was hospitalized. /5

The panel correctly (thankfully) holds that a jury could (easily, imo) find that this preposterous scenario exposed the prisoner to danger for no reason. /6

Finally, the panel kills his claim that when he complained about his distended bladder, he was ignored, because he was not clear enough about how bad the situation was. /e

To editorialize briefly - I am disgusted that this was allegedly done to a prisoner. I assume it happens often, however. But put that aside - what is the policy justification for QI here? /e+1

The idea is that something bad would happen if there were trials when prisoners credibly alleged they were left for days in excrement and urine? What bad thing, exactly?

*That's a criticism of the doctrine, not this opinion.
/e+2

And before I get accused of being some softy, I still believe in the retributive force of prison, which I know is very much out of step. I don't think prison should be *nice.* But this, if true, is total barbarity. /e+3

One more note: I think it's very easy to get in an uproar about this or that QI case, and oh the judges got it wrong and whatever - I think that's a mistake. The doctrine is the root cause of all these opinions. And that's at SCOTUS's door, both left and right.

SCOTUS goes around issuing summary reversals of qualified immunity denials basically for no reason, as far as I can tell - it expends its rare and precious capital for that work. I don't know why. But it does. And the message is quite clear to the lower courts.

Congress could act to properly protect law enforcement but also to provide some remedy for people when they are abused. I am not saying there should be trials every time someone is upset about a law enforcement officers actions. The political branches could fix this.