Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01393/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01393-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 07-1393

___________

Gregory Edwards Jr., *

*

Appellant, *

*

v. *

*

Larry Norris, Director, Arkansas *

Department of Correction; Ronald *

Dobbs, Assistant Director, Arkansas * Appeal from the United States 

Department of Correction; Mark * District Court for the

Cashion, Warden, Delta Regional Unit, * Eastern District of Arkansas.

ADC; Steve Outlaw, Assistant Warden, * [UNPUBLISHED]

Delta Regional Unit, ADC; Freddie *

Walls, Captain, Delta Regional Unit, *

ADC; Douglas Harris, Major, Delta *

Regional Unit, ADC; Jack Lewis, Lt., *

Delta Regional Unit, ADC; Charlotte *

Jones, Correctional Officer, Delta *

Regional Unit, ADC; James Payne, *

Correctional Officer, Delta Regional *

Unit, ADC; Undray Fields, Sgt. Delta *

Regional Unit, ADC; Sharmon Curtis- *

Tyler, Classification Officer, Delta *

Regional Unit, ADC, *

*

Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: November 16, 2007

Filed: January 9, 2008

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Appellate Case: 07-1393 Page: 1 Date Filed: 01/09/2008 Entry ID: 3389576
1

The Honorable David S. Doty, United States District Judge for the District of

Minnesota, sitting by designation.

2

The Honorable James M. Moody, United States District Judge for the Eastern

District of Arkansas, adopting the report and recommendations of the Honorable H.

David Young, United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas. 

-2-

Before WOLLMAN and BENTON, Circuit Judges, and DOTY,1

 District Judge.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Gregory Edwards, Jr., an Arkansas inmate, appeals the district court’s2

dismissal of his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint following an evidentiary hearing. We

affirm. 

Edwards argues that the appellees failed to provide adequate security within his

barracks and failed to protect him from an attack by another inmate, in violation of the

Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. At the

evidentiary hearing, Edwards was permitted to introduce evidence and testify.

Edwards testified that the attack by another inmate occurred when no guards were

watching his barracks and that the incident caused him serious medical problems,

including a laceration to his liver and kidney and skull fractures. The magistrate judge

denied Edwards’s request to hear testimony from the prison guards to elicit

information on their whereabouts during the attack. 

We have previously approved the use of evidentiary hearings to determine

whether the plaintiff has set forth a cognizable claim that should go to a jury or

whether the facts are so one-sided as to warrant a decision as a matter of law. Johnson

v. Bi-State Justice Ctr., 12 F.3d 133, 135-36 (8th Cir. 1993) (indicating that the

standard is whether the plaintiff’s case would survive a Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a) motion).

In such a hearing, the plaintiff’s testimony and evidence must be taken as true, all

Appellate Case: 07-1393 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/09/2008 Entry ID: 3389576
-3-

appropriate inferences must be drawn in the plaintiff’s favor, and the judge may not

make any credibility determinations. Id. at 136. 

For Edwards to prevail, he must show that the lack of supervision of his

barracks posed a substantial risk of serious harm and that the appellees were

deliberately indifferent to that risk. See Lenz v. Wade, 490 F.3d 991, 995 (8th Cir.

2007) (citing Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994)). During the evidentiary

hearing, the magistrate judge accepted Edwards’s testimony as truthful and drew all

appropriate inferences in Edwards’s favor. Thereafter, the magistrate judge concluded

that, although Edwards was attacked by another inmate and suffered medical

consequences that were both severe and ongoing, he failed to present any evidence

that the appellees knew of a serious risk of harm or that they were deliberately

indifferent to that risk. Edwards acknowledged that he had not informed anyone at

the facility of his concerns of lack of supervision before the attack. He also

acknowledged that he had not been concerned that the inmate who attacked him posed

a risk of serious harm. 

The magistrate judge did not err in denying Edwards’s request to question the

appellees during the evidentiary hearing because such testimony would not have

constituted evidence different from or in addition to that which could be inferred from

Edwards’s testimony. See Munson v. Norris, 435 F.3d 877, 880 (8th Cir. 2006) (“For

purposes of the evidentiary hearing, all of [the plaintiff’s] testimony had to be (and

was) regarded as true, making other witnesses’ testimony cumulative.” (internal

citation omitted)). Even after taking Edwards’s testimony as true and drawing all

inferences in his favor, the fact that Edwards was violently attacked is not enough to

establish a trial-worthy issue of fact on whether the appellees were deliberately

indifferent to a serious risk of harm. 

The judgment is affirmed. 

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