Tag: Constitutional Law Page 1 of 4

by Megan Haddad*

Almost half a million people in U.S. jails are considered “pretrial detainees” ¹—people who are incarcerated while they await trial. Yet even though our criminal system presumes that the pretrial detainee is innocent, for decades federal courts of appeals have assumed that when jail officials fail to protect people detained pretrial, those people are entitled only to the diminished constitutional rights of “a prisoner”—a person who is incarcerated after being convicted. Although some circuit courts have begun to reverse course on this issue in response to Kingsley v. Hendrickson, application of the “prisoner” constitutional standard was always incorrect. This Contribution argues that deliberate indifference—the legal standard announced in Estelle v. Gamble and Farmer v. Brennan, which holds that the prisoner can only establish a constitutional violation by showing officials are deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of harm—should never have been applied to pretrial detainee claims. This Contribution first describes the difference between the pretrial detainee and prisoner status, including how each corresponds to a different constitutional provision (the Due Process Clause and the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, respectively). It then discusses the deliberate indifference standard, and how it is inextricably linked to the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause. Finally, it demonstrates that Supreme Court jurisprudence has always indicated that pretrial detainee claims warrant a different, Due Process Clause-based standard, and urges litigants to use the full picture of pretrial detainee/prisoner jurisprudential history to convince the remaining circuits to abandon the deliberate indifference standard for pretrial detainee claims.

Read More

by Jodi Lessner*

Section 1983 of the United States Code establishes a statutory basis for individuals to sue state and local government officials in federal court for violating their constitutional or federal statutory civil rights. For incarcerated individuals awaiting trial, § 1983 claims brought against corrections officials for unconstitutional conditions of confinement are rooted in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as opposed to § 1983 claims for those who have already been convicted, which are rooted in the Eighth Amendment. In Kingsley v. Hendrickson, the Supreme Court ruled that an objective standard should be used to analyze § 1983 claims for excessive force brought under the Fourteenth Amendment by incarcerated individuals awaiting trial. However, claims of deliberate indifference, which contain an inherently subjective component, defy analysis utilizing an objective standard. Therefore, this Contribution argues a subjective standard, as applied to the deliberate indifference claim brought by a convicted individual in Farmer v. Brennan, should also apply to deliberate indifference claims brought by individuals awaiting trial. 

Read More

by Austin Upshaw *

Since Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) in 1996, courts have struggled to harmonize one of its key provisions—the ‘three-strikes rule’—with the Heck bar, a rule derived from Heck v. Humphrey, which prevents district courts from reaching the merits of Section 1983 claims that attack the validity of a conviction before that conviction has been overturned on appeal or through collateral proceedings. The PLRA’s three-strikes rule provides that if an incarcerated person has had three or more of their suits dismissed for failing to state a claim, they can no longer proceed in forma pauperis. Denial of in forma pauperis effectively prevents indigent incarcerated people from accessing relief in federal court. The crux of the Heck issue is a procedural one: is every Heck dismissal equivalent to a dismissal for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)? The current circuit split mainly concerns whether Heck created a pleading requirement Section 1983 plaintiffs must plead and prove, or whether it is a waivable affirmative defense. But that focus is misplaced because a Heck-barred complaint can be properly dismissed under 12(b)(6) regardless of whether it is a pleading requirement or an affirmative defense. The better way to resolve the issue is on pragmatic, policy-driven grounds. The Heck bar is best treated as a ripeness doctrine that district courts can bypass at their sound discretion. If Heck is treated as a tool for judicial traffic control, rather than a rigid jurisdictional bar, district courts can ensure meritorious claims are not wrongfully treated as ‘strikes’ under the PLRA.

Read More

by Mariana Lopez^*

Magistrate judges perform a crucial role in the federal judiciary system by reducing the administrative burden on Article III judges. Courts, however, remain divided on the scope of magistrates’ duties, and importantly, whether they have  final decision-making authority to accept felony guilty pleas under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Vesting this duty in a magistrate judge violates the Federal Magistrates Act, which allows district judges to delegate “additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and the laws of the United States.”¹ The weightiness of this task, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the separation of powers doctrine enshrined in the Constitution should prohibit magistrate judges from accepting guilty pleas, regardless of a criminal defendant’s consent, and require magistrates to submit a report and recommendation to an Article III judge who may then accept the plea. As the consequences of a felony verdict weigh heavily on defendants and our judicial system, this task should remain in the hands of a constitutionally endorsed Article III Judge.