Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-almd-2_04-cv-01218/USCOURTS-almd-2_04-cv-01218-3/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

---

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE

MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, NORTHERN DIVISION

JASON MURPHY, )

)

Plaintiff, )

) CIVIL ACTION NO.

v. ) 2:04cv1218-MHT

) (WO)

BILL FRANKLIN, Sheriff of )

Elmore County, in his )

individual capacity; and )

GARRY BOWERS, Administrator )

of the Elmore County Jail, )

in his individual )

capacity, )

)

Defendants. )

OPINION AND ORDER

Upon consideration of the recommendation of the

United States Magistrate Judge and the objections filed

by defendants, and after an independent and de novo

review of the record, it is ORDERED as follows:

(1) The defendants’ objections (Doc. No. 29) are

overruled.

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1. This case is currently before the court regarding

Murphy's amended complaint. In considering the motion to

dismiss the first complaint, this court found that Murphy

had not adequately alleged supervisory liability and

granted him leave to amend. Murphy v. Franklin, No.

06cv583, 2007 WL 954310, at *3 (M.D. Ala. Mar. 28. 2007).

2

(2) The recommendation of the United States

Magistrate Judge (Doc. No. 27) is adopted.

(3) The defendants’ motion to dismiss (Doc. No. 19)

is denied.

* * *

The court adds the following comments:

The court has determined that the motion to dismiss

should be denied on grounds narrower than those

considered by the magistrate judge. Rather than

considering information not in plaintiff Jason Murphy’s

amended complaint, this court has found, on the face of

the complaint, that it states a claim for which relief

can be granted and that qualified immunity does not

apply.1

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2. Because this case comes before the court on a

motion to dismiss, the court accepts the plaintiff's

allegations as true, Hishon v. King and Spalding, 467

U.S. 69, 73 (1984), and construes the complaint in the

plaintiff's favor. Duke v. Cleland, 5 F.3d 1399, 1402

(11th Cir. 1999).

3

I. BACKGROUND

Murphy’s case is the latest of several that have

arisen out of allegedly unconstitutional treatment of

inmates at the Elmore County Jail. He alleges that, as

a pretrial detainee, he was deprived of Fourteenth

Amendment substantive-due-process rights following an

alleged infraction of jail rules. He spent one day in a

lockdown cell, where his right hand was shackled to the

frame of a cot and his right leg was shackled to the

other end of the frame, such that he could not get up or

move around.2

 While in the cell, he soiled himself, as he

had to urinate and defecate into drinking cups left on

the floor of his cell, and he was unable to clean himself

or maintain basic levels of hygiene. Am. Compl. (Doc.

No. 17) ¶ 14. Murphy was then taken to an isolation

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cell. His cuffed hands were secured to his shackled

feet, which were secured to a “Chinese toilet” consisting

of a hole in the cell’s floor covered with a grate. Id.

at ¶ 16.

Murphy was kept in this position from December 31,

2003, until January 13, 2004. His only respite came

during an interview with defendant Bill Franklin, the

county sheriff, on January 12, after which Franklin

ordered him reshackled to the floor drain. Id. at ¶ 18.

Murphy was freed from the floor drain the next day, but

he was kept in the isolation cell--gradually being

released from the handcuffs and shackles--until March 15.

Id. at ¶¶ 19-21. For the duration of his occupancy of

the cell, he was unable to exercise, was subject to

subhuman conditions due to the presence of the Chinese

toilet, was unable to provide for his personal hygiene,

and was not permitted a change of underwear. Id. at

¶¶ 22, 24, 26-27.

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Murphy filed suit against Franklin and defendant

Garry Bowers, the administrator of the Elmore County

Jail, claiming substantive-due-process violations. The

defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that Murphy’s

allegations failed to (1) implicate a fundamental right;

(2) describe “conscience-shocking” conduct; and (3)

include evidence showing that Franklin and Bowers, as

supervisors in the jail, had notice of the alleged abuses

and failed to correct them; they also argued that (4) the

case must be dismissed because they are entitled to

qualified immunity. 

II. DISCUSSION

The court adopts the magistrate judge’s

recommendations as to (1), (2), and (4) and will discuss

(3) in greater detail below. 

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3. In Bonner v. Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th

Cir. 1981) (en banc), the Eleventh Circuit Court of

Appeals adopted as binding precedent all of the decisions

of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior to the

close of business on September 30, 1981.

6

A. Adoption of the Magistrate Judge’s Recommendation

1. Violation of a fundamental right

Murphy did allege the violation of a fundamental

right, as his allegations highly resemble actions that

have already been found to be constitutional violations.

See, e.g., Hope v. Pelzer, 240 F.3d 975, 1979 (11th Cir.

2001) (requiring inmates to “maintain awkward positions

for prolonged periods of time”), rev’d on other grounds,

536 U.S. 730 (2002); Gates v. Collier, 501 F.2d 1291,

1306 (5th Cir. 1974)3

 (depriving inmates of hygienic

materials; handcuffing inmates to a fence or cell for

long periods of time; forcing inmates to “maintain

awkward positions for prolonged periods”); Austin v.

Hopper, 15 F. Supp. 2d 1210, 1258 (M.D. Ala. 1998)

(Thompson, J.) (denying inmates the opportunity to use

the restroom and “refus[ing] to provide inmates who had

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4. The cases cited are Eighth Amendment cases, which

are relevant precedent here because the “standard for

providing basic human needs to those incarcerated or in

detention is the same under both the Eighth and

Fourteenth Amendments.” Marsh v. Butler County, 268 F.3d

1014, 1024 n.5 (11th Cir. 2001) (en banc). 

7

urinated or defecated upon themselves with a means to

clean their bodies”).4

2. “Conscience-shocking” conduct

In the Eleventh Circuit, a plaintiff claiming a

substantive-due-process violation must prove that the

conduct at issue “shocks the conscience.” Lumley v. City

of Dade City, Fla., 327 F.3d 1186, 1196 (11th Cir. 2003).

Conduct is most likely to rise to the level of conductshocking if it is “intended to injure in some way

unjustifiable by any government interest.” Tinker v.

Beasley, 429 F.3d 1324, 1328 (11th Cir. 2005). In such

a circumstance, “a court may infer that the purpose of

the government action is punishment.” See Lynch v.

Baxley, 744 F.2d 1452, 1463 (11th Cir. 1984). 

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The actions taken here cannot be explained by any

reasonable government interest, as whatever infraction

Murphy allegedly committed, prison officials’ need to

maintain order and discipline would almost certainly not

justify a response lasting two-and-a-half months that

subjects the detainee to inhumane conditions. While lawenforcement officials are entitled to deference on

prison-management issues, “this deference ‘does not

insulate from review actions taken in bad faith and for

no legitimate purpose.’” Austin, 15 F. Supp. 2d at 1255

(quoting Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 322 (1986)).

As such, the court can infer that the alleged conduct is

punishment and that the conduct thus does “shock the

conscience.”

3. Qualified immunity

In evaluating a qualified immunity claim, the court

“must first determine whether the plaintiff has alleged

the deprivation of an actual constitutional right at all,

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and if so, proceed to determine whether that right was

clearly established at the time of the alleged

violation.” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 609 (1999).

As described previously, Murphy has adequately alleged

that a constitutional right was violated, and that the

right was clearly established at the time of the alleged

activities. 

Furthermore, in Hope v. Pelzer, the Supreme Court

counseled against “rigid overreliance on factual

similarity” in qualified-immunity claims. 536 U.S. 730,

742 (2002). The Court refused to “draw a constitutional

distinction” between handcuffing inmates to fences for

prolonged periods, as in Gates, 501 F.2d at 1306, and

handcuffing an inmate to a hitching post for seven hours,

as was alleged in Hope. Hope, 536 U.S. at 730. Franklin

and Bowers nevertheless seek a similarly rigid

constitutional line, but their argument has already been

rejected by another judge: Judge Fuller, in one of the

other suits against Franklin and Bowers, could “identify

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no difference in the severity of the treatment between

painfully cuffing one’s hands at the level of his head to

a hitching post [in Hope] and shackling one’s hands and

legs to the grate of an open toilet.” Cotney v.

Franklin, No. 03cv1181, 2005 WL 1514047, at *9 (M.D. Ala.

June 24, 2005). In another case against Bowers and

Franklin, Judge Watkins called the defendants’ claimed

lack of notice “incredulous” in the face of a situation

“so clearly analogous to the hitching post scenario in

Hope.” Brinson v. Franklin, No. 04cv1217, 2006 WL

3147673, at *4 (M.D. Ala. Nov. 1, 2006).

B. Defendants’ Notice of Unconstitutional Behavior

The remaining issue concerns whether Murphy’s

complaint included information sufficient to show that

Franklin and Bowers had notice of alleged abuses in the

jail. In his recommendation, the magistrate relied on

what the defendants failed to deny, rather than what the

plaintiff failed to show. He commented, for example,

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that the defendants did not actually deny knowledge of

Murphy’s conditions of confinement and that they did not

claim that exigent or volatile circumstances justified

Murphy’s treatment. Recommendation at 8. These

statements place an improper burden on the defendants to

deny allegations at the motion-to-dismiss stage. See

Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1982

(2007) (stating that a motion to dismiss is not

appropriate “for testing the truth of what is asserted or

for determining whether a plaintiff has any evidence to

back up what is in the complaint”). Nor was it proper to

take judicial notice, from a prior case against Franklin

and Bowers, of the disputable fact that the isolation

cell “is located next to Bowers’s office, and that Bowers

has personally seen the conditions of confinement.”

Recommendation at 9. See United States v. Jones, 20 F.3d

1549, 1553 (11th Cir. 1994) (“In order for a fact to be

judicially noticed under Rule 201(b), indisputability is

a prerequisite.”)

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5. Two additional grievances arose after the alleged

events, and four of the seven grievances have grown into

lawsuits. See Brinson v. Franklin, No. 04cv1217, 2006 WL

3147673 (M.D. Ala. Nov. 1, 2006) (Watkins, J.); Johnson

v. Franklin, No. 04cv671 2005 WL 1899361 (M.D. Ala. Aug.

8 2005) (Coody, J.); Cotney v. Franklin, No. 03cv1181,

2005 WL 1414047 (M.D. Ala. June 24 2005) (Fuller, C.J.);

Adams v. Franklin, 111 F. Supp. 2d 1255 (2000) (DeMent,

J.)

12

This court, limiting itself to the complaint, still

concludes that Murphy has demonstrated that Bowers and

Franklin had notice of allegedly unconstitutional

treatment in the Elmore County Jail. By enumerating the

five prior grievances filed against Franklin and Bowers

concerning inmates’ treatment in the Elmore County Jail,

Am. Compl. ¶ 36, Murphy adequately alleges evidence that

they had notice of problems in the jail.5

 In the

grievances filed prior to the actions at issue in this

case, David Cotney, Patricia Henderson, Felix Humphrey,

and Devon Kelley alleged having been shackled to the

floor drain as punishment, and at least one detainee

before Murphy claimed a lack of basic hygiene. With this

evidence, Murphy is able to survive the heightened

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pleading standards for § 1983 claims in this circuit.

See GJR Investments, Inc. v. Escambia County, Fla., 132

F.3d 1359, 1367 (11th Cir. 1998) (plaintiff must “allege

with some specificity the facts which make out its

claim”). Factual detail is particularly necessary in

cases involving qualified immunity, as the court must

assess whether an action violated a clearly established

right. Id. 

By thus showing that Franklin and Bowers had notice,

Murphy is also able to make out a claim of supervisory

liability. As a general rule, plaintiffs alleging

supervisory liability must demonstrate either that the

defendants personally participated in the alleged

constitutional violation or that “there is a causal

connection between actions of the supervising official

and the alleged constitutional violation.” Gonzalez v.

Reno, 325 F.3d 1228, 1234 (11th Cir. 2003). Murphy makes

no claim regarding the former, so he must rely on the

latter.

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A causal connection may be established “by facts

which support an inference that the supervisor directed

the subordinates to act unlawfully,” id. at 1235, or

facts showing that the supervisor “knew that the

subordinates would act unlawfully and failed to stop them

from doing so.” Id. Murphy’s complaint fails to show

that Franklin and Bowers directed jail personnel to

engage in the allegedly unconstitutional activities; his

only evidence is that Bowers ordered Murphy placed in the

lockdown cell and that Franklin, after interviewing

Murphy, ordered him returned to the isolation cell and

reshackled to the Chinese toilet. Am. Compl. at ¶¶ 12,

18. The defendants describe these orders as “innocuous

instructions associated with the legitimate operation of

a correctional facility,” Defs.’ Objection to

Recommendation at 17, and lacking evidence that Franklin

and Bowers ordered the unconstitutional conduct itself,

Murphy cannot prove liability based on their orders. 

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Murphy does, however, successfully use the other

grievances against the Elmore County Prison to show that

“a history of widespread abuse” could have put Franklin

and Bowers “on notice of the need to correct the alleged

deprivation.” Gonzalez, 325 F.3d at 1234. One judge on

this court has previously found such a enumeration of

prior allegations to demonstrate that the defendants had

notice: Judge DeMent, when assessing the complaint in

Adams v. Franklin, the first lawsuit filed against Bowers

and Franklin, explained that the plaintiff could have

shown notice by “alleging that the Elmore County deputies

had a history of engaging in similar unconstitutional

acts in the past so as to place Franklin and Bowers on

notice of the need to correct the violations at issue.”

111 F. Supp. 2d 1255, 1265 (M.D. Ala. 2000) (emphasis

added). While there may have been no such facts to

allege when Adams was decided in 2000, such allegations

certainly exist--and Murphy adequately alleged them--in

this case. These prior allegations suggest that Franklin

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and Bowers were on notice that their subordinates might

act unlawfully, and their failure to stop the behavior

establishes a causal connection between the supervisors’

policies and the abuse itself. See Gonzalez, 325 F.3d at

1235. Even if the other allegations are not identical to

Murphy’s, their existence could demonstrate a pervasive

problem at the prison that the defendants knew about but

opted not to solve.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Franklin and

Bowers--despite having protested that Murphy did not

“insist” that they received notice of “any of the

purported previous allegations,” Defs.’ Objection to

Recommendation at 24--conceded, in a status conference,

that the pleadings’ list of prior allegations of

unconstitutional treatment was adequate to give them

notice. The court asked why this list would not be

sufficient to show notice, and defense counsel responded,

“For that particular situation, I wouldn’t necessarily

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dispute that.” Transcript of telephone status

conference, at 6, line 12-16. 

In sum, because the amended complaint adequately

states a supervisory liability claim against the

defendants, their motion to dismiss is without merit.

DONE, this the 17th day of August, 2007.

 /s/ Myron H. Thompson 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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