United States Court of Appeals 

for the Fifth Circuit ____________ 

No. 22-10382 

____________ 

Lonnie Kade Welsh, 

Plaintiff—Appellant, 

versus

Lubbock County; Kelly Rowe, Sheriff; C. Scott, Chief Jail 

Administrator; FNU Payne, Sergeant; K. Young, Sergeant; FNU 

McDaniel, Sergeant; FNU LNU-269, Lubbock County Jail OfficeRadio Number 8281; Ron Jenkins, Captain, 

Defendants—Appellees, 

consolidated with 

_____________ 

No. 22-11049 

_____________ 

Lonnie Kade Welsh, 

Plaintiff—Appellant, 

versus

Lubbock County; Kelly Rowe, Sheriff; C. Scott, Chief Jail 

Administrator; K. Young, Sergeant, 

Defendants—Appellees. 

United States Court of Appeals 

Fifth Circuit 

FILED 

June 15, 2023 

Lyle W. Cayce 

Clerk 

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______________________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Texas 

USDC No. 5:19-CV-255 

______________________________ 

Before Elrod, Ho, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam: 

Plaintiff Lonnie Welsh, a convicted sexually violent predator, was held 

in the Lubbock County Detention Center as a pre-trial detainee for a period 

of approximately one month from December 2017 to January 2018. Soon 

after his arrival, he was placed in administrative segregation away from the 

facility’s general population, where he was held for most of the remainder of 

his time there. He subsequently brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against 

Lubbock County and a number of law enforcement officials, asserting a series 

of claims regarding his alleged mistreatment there. 

The district court entered an order dismissing the claims against the 

county and all but one of the officials, which he now appeals in the first of the 

consolidated cases. Plaintiff challenges the process by which he was placed 

and remained in administrative segregation, a claim the district court rejected 

because “absent extraordinary circumstances, administrative segregation as 

such, being an incident to the ordinary life of a prisoner, will never be a 

ground for a constitutional claim” because it “simply does not constitute a 

deprivation of a constitutionally cognizable liberty interest.” Pichardo v. 

Kinker, 73 F.3d 612, 612–13 (5th Cir. 1996). See also Cardenas v. Young, 655 

F. App’x 183, 186 (5th Cir. 2016) (applying this conclusion to pre-trial 

detention); Bonner v. Alford, 594 F. App’x 266, 267 (5th Cir. 2015) (same); 

Rhine v. City of Mansfield, 499 F. App’x 334, 335 (5th Cir. 2012) (same); 

Amaya v. Richardson, 289 F. App’x 792, 793 (5th Cir. 2008) (same); Gibbs v. 

Grimmette, 254 F.3d 545, 548 n.1 (5th Cir. 2001) (same). He also challenges 

a slew of aspects of his treatment in custody—such as his clothing, food, 

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sanitation, recreation, and entertainment—that the district court rejected for 

failure to amount to a constitutional violation. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 

520, 539 & n.21 (1979) (allowing “condition[s] or restriction[s] of pretrial 

detention” that are “reasonably related to a legitimate governmental 

objective” or are “‘de minimis’” in nature). Additionally, Plaintiff raises 

policy claims against Lubbock County for deliberate indifference and failure 

to train and supervise, which the district court found lacked an underlying 

constitutional violation necessary to proceed. See Hicks-Fields v. Harris 

Cnty., 860 F.3d 803, 808 (5th Cir. 2017) (explaining that municipal liability 

requires an underlying constitutional violation). 

After the district court subsequently dismissed the remaining named 

official, Plaintiff moved to reconsider that dismissal and the dismissal of 

several of his other claims. The district court rejected both motions for lack 

of new evidence, which Plaintiff now appeals in the second of the 

consolidated cases. 

The Court has carefully considered these appeals in light of the briefs 

and pertinent portions of the record. Having found no reversible error, we 

affirm.

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Jennifer Walker Elrod, Circuit Judge, concurring: 

While I agree that the district court did not reversibly err here, I write 

separately to address the appropriate standard for review of claims brought 

by pre-trial detainees. 

Welsh was retained in administrative segregation from December 5, 

2017, to January 8, 2018, while he awaited his criminal trial.1

 Prison records 

establish that paper reviews of Welsh’s placement in administrative 

segregation were conducted on December 17, 2017, and January 2, 2018, but 

Welsh asserts that he was improperly denied: notice of the reviews; a hearing; 

the opportunity to challenge the use of his status as a sexually violent 

predator as grounds for placing and keeping him administratively segregated; 

and written factual determinations for continuing to keep him in 

administrative segregation. This rendered him “unable to appeal the result 

under the procedures described in Texas Administrative Code 271.4.” 

In district court, Welsh relied on Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460 (1983), 

in which the Supreme Court held that state statutes defining procedures for 

confining an inmate to administrative segregation can give an inmate a 

protected liberty interest. Id. at 476. The district court agreed that Welsh 

was potentially denied procedural safeguards, but it nevertheless dismissed 

_____________________ 

1

 Welsh was held in the Lamb County Jail awaiting trial from November 28, 2017, 

to June 20, 2018, except when he was transferred to the Lubbock County Jail from 

December 2017 to January 2018. In a separate case, Welsh v. Lamb County, et al., No. 22-

10124, 2023 WL 3918995 (5th Cir. June 9, 2023), Welsh brought claims against officials at 

the Lamb County Jail. We reversed the district court’s dismissal of Welsh’s substantive 

due-process claim arising out of his allegation that he was forced for several days to drink 

from a toilet, because this was not a de minimis imposition such that his constitutional right 

to be free from punishment as a pre-trial detainee was not implicated. Id. at *3 (citing Bell 

v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535–40 (1979)). We remanded with instructions that Welsh’s 

factual allegations be considered under the law governing pre-trial detainees’ due-process 

rights. Id.

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Welsh’s claim because of this court’s holding that “absent extraordinary 

circumstances, administrative segregation as such, being an incident to the 

ordinary life of a prisoner, will never be a ground for a constitutional claim.” 

Pichardo v. Kinker, 73 F.3d 612, 612 (5th Cir. 1996). Pichardo relied on the 

Supreme Court’s holding in Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995). 

However, both Pichardo and Sandin dealt with convicted prisoners, not pretrial detainees like Welsh. 

Every circuit to consider the issue of the proper standard for review of 

pre-trial detainee claims has held that Sandin does not apply to pre-trial 

detainee claims. See Dilworth v. Adams, 841 F.3d 246, 252 (4th Cir. 2016); 

Jacoby v. Baldwin County, 835 F.3d 1338, 1347–50 (11th Cir. 2016); Hanks v. 

Prachar, 457 F.3d 774, 776 (8th Cir. 2006); Surprenant v. Rivas, 424 F.3d 5, 

17 (1st Cir. 2005); Peoples v. CCA Det. Ctrs., 422 F.3d 1090, 1106 & n.12 (10th 

Cir. 2005), vacated in part on other grounds by 449 F.3d 1097 (10th Cir. 2006) 

(en banc); Benjamin v. Fraser, 264 F.3d 175, 188–89 (2d Cir. 2001); Rapier v. 

Harris, 172 F.3d 999, 1004–05 (7th Cir. 1999); Mitchell v. Dupnik, 75 F.3d 

517, 524 (9th Cir. 1996); see also Fuentes v. Wagner, 206 F.3d 335, 342 n.9 (3d 

Cir. 2000) (holding Sandin inapplicable to detainee convicted but not yet 

sentenced), abrogated in part on other grounds by Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 

U.S. 389 (2015). 

Although circuits have uniformly held that pre-trial detainees’ claims 

are not governed by Sandin, they have reached different conclusions as to 

whether detainees may continue to rely on Hewitt to support their due 

process claims. Compare Thorpe v. Clarke, 37 F.4th 926, 944–46 (4th Cir. 

2022) (discussing the baseline procedural requirements for retaining an 

inmate in administrative segregation under Hewitt), Williamson v. Stirling, 

912 F.3d 154, 174–77 (4th Cir. 2018) (relying on Hewitt to determine whether 

a pre-trial detainee is entitled to procedural due process before and after 

being placed in administrative segregation), and Williams v. Hobbs, 662 F.3d 

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994, 1006–09 (8th Cir. 2011) (holding post-Sandin that prisoners who were 

confined in non-disciplinary administrative segregation were entitled to 

meaningful periodic review under Hewitt), with Rapier v. Harris, 172 F.3d 

999, 1004–05 (7th Cir. 1999) (“We are aware that Sandin distinguishes 

between convicted prisoners and pretrial confinees, but we do not believe 

that the distinction made by the Court, read in context, justifies the 

continued vitality of the Hewitt approach in dealing with pretrial 

confinees.”). 

In several unpublished cases, we have applied Sandin and cases based 

on Sandin to pre-trial detainees, but we have not explicitly addressed whether 

Sandin’s holding applies to pre-trial detainees. See, e.g., Aucoin v. Terrebonne 

Par. Sheriff’s Off., No. 21-30322, 2022 WL 16657429, at *2 (5th Cir. Nov. 3, 

2022) (concluding that a pre-trial detainee’s claims about his disciplinary 

proceeding and subsequent lockdown sentence were properly dismissed 

because he did not allege any atypical or significant hardship); Cardenas v. 

Young, 655 F. App’x 183, 186 (5th Cir. 2016) (only applying Sandin during 

time when plaintiff was convicted prisoner, not pre-trial detainee); Bonner v. 

Alford, 594 F. App’x 266, 267 (5th Cir. 2015) (applying Pichardo to pre-trial 

detainee); Rhine v. City of Mansfield, 499 F. App’x 334, 335 (5th Cir. 2012) 

(applying Pichardo to pre-trial detainee); Amaya v. Richardson, 289 F. App’x 

792, 793 (5th Cir. 2008) (applying Pichardo to pre-trial detainee). 

Sandin does not apply to pre-trial detainees. For a convicted prisoner, 

administrative segregation falls under the “expected perimeters of the 

sentence imposed by a court of law.” Sandin, 515 U.S. at 485. But a pre-trial 

detainee is not subject to such an expectation of punishment. Id. at 484 (“[A] 

detainee ‘may not be punished prior to an adjudication of guilt in accordance 

with due process of law.’” (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535 

(1979))); Welsh v. Lamb County, 2023 WL 3918995, at *3 (remanding Welsh’s 

claim against Lamb County Jail). Unlike a convicted prisoner, a pre-trial 

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detainee has a liberty interest in freedom from increased restraint, even if that 

restraint does not exceed the Sandin requirements. Hewitt continues to 

provide the correct framework for determining the procedural protections to 

which a pre-trial detainee is entitled to ensure that solitary confinement is not 

imposed as punishment. 

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