United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted April 28, 2021*

Decided May 11, 2021 

Before 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge 

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge 

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge

No. 20-1655 

JOSEPH G. REDMAN, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

CHAD DOWNS, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees. 

 

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Central District of Illinois. 

No. 18-cv-3288-EIL 

Eric I. Long, 

Magistrate Judge. 

O R D E R 

 After spending six days under suicide watch in the county jail, Joseph Redman, a 

pretrial detainee, hanged himself in the shower. Officers were able to revive him but 

did not get him medical attention for days. Redman sued the county sheriff and 

members of the jail staff, asserting that they violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights 

by denying him adequate health care and inhumanely isolating him without clothing 

and hygiene products. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. At screening, the district court dismissed 

*

We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 20-1655 Page 2 

Redman’s claims based on his conditions of confinement, and later it entered summary 

judgment for the defendants on Redman’s claim for inadequate medical care. But the 

court applied the incorrect standard when screening Redman’s conditions-ofconfinement claim, and a reasonable jury could find that three officers who discovered 

Redman unconscious in the shower responded unreasonably to his suicide attempt. We 

therefore vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings on those claims. 

Otherwise, we affirm. 

To the extent they concern claims dismissed at screening, we take the allegations 

in Redman’s complaint as true, see Schillinger v. Kiley, 954 F.3d 990, 994 (7th Cir. 2020), 

and we present the summary-judgment record in the light most favorable to Redman, 

see LaBrec v. Walker, 948 F.3d 836, 839 (7th Cir. 2020). Redman arrived at the Adams 

County Jail in Quincy, Illinois, on August 8, 2018. He told jail staff at his intake 

assessment that he was suicidal, he had attempted to kill himself the night before, and 

he wanted to see a doctor. Staff placed him on suicide watch in a segregated wing, gave 

him a mat and a blanket, and allowed him to wear only a “suicide smock” (designed so 

that the stiff fabric cannot be used for self-harm). He was not given soap, a toothbrush 

and toothpaste, or any other hygiene items. Eventually, another detainee on suicide 

watch was placed in Redman’s cell. 

Six days later, on August 14, Redman had not yet seen any medical provider. But 

Officer Nick Elbus opened the door to his cell and allowed him and his cellmate to walk 

down the hall and take a shower. Redman’s cellmate went first. When it was Redman’s 

turn, he entered the shower unattended, took a plastic trash bag from the wall, tied it 

into a noose, and hanged himself from a shower rod. Elbus found Redman and radioed 

for help; officers Dakota Downs and Deana Coleman responded. According to Elbus’s 

incident report, he and Dakota Downs were able to get Redman to “wake up and 

respond” with chest compressions and ammonia tablets (smelling salts). The three 

officers then put Redman in a restraint chair in the jail’s intake area with his smock on 

his lap and the ammonia tablets still in his nose as he faded in and out of consciousness. 

Dakota Downs joked that Redman could be “charged with chipping the paint” with his 

head. After a few hours, the officers returned Redman to his cell without his smock. For 

the next 10 days, he was naked, even when he went for meals, and although at least one 

officer, Blake Harper, told him to put something on, he was not given a new smock. He 

did not ask for one. 

 Redman did not see a medical professional until August 24—10 days after the 

suicide attempt. At that point, a family-medicine nurse practitioner from a local medical 
No. 20-1655 Page 3 

group gave him a short examination; it is not clear whether this was a response to the 

suicide attempt or something more routine. She noted that Redman appeared 

depressed. Three weeks later, on September 17, Redman saw a psychiatrist who 

diagnosed him with bipolar disorder and prescribed medication. There is no evidence 

that any defendant brought about the psychiatrist’s visit. A month later, Redman was 

removed from suicide watch at his request by Chad Downs, a jail administrator. The jail 

continued to give Redman his medications and allow him to see the psychiatrist until he 

was transferred in March 2019. 

Redman sued Elbus, Coleman, Harper, Dakota Downs, and Chad Downs, as well 

as the county sheriff, Brian Vonderhaar, and two other officers—Brinton Finley and 

Scott Smith—under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. At “merit review,” see 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a), a 

district judge dismissed Redman’s claims about his lack of clothing and hygiene 

products, concluding that he had not alleged a “sufficiently serious deprivation” or that 

jail officials were “deliberately indifferent to a serious risk of harm.” 

The parties later filed cross-motions for summary judgment on Redman’s 

medical-care claim, and the district court (Magistrate Judge Long, presiding by consent 

under 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)) entered judgment for the defendants. It concluded that, even if 

they knew Redman was suicidal, jail staff acted reasonably by placing Redman on 

suicide watch, eventually providing him with mental-health care, and giving him his 

prescribed medication after that. Further, the court explained, no evidence showed that 

they prevented him from getting necessary care; they all “did what they could.” 

On appeal, Redman continues to press his conditions-of-confinement claims 

relating to the deprivation of basic hygiene products and, later, clothing. We agree that 

the district court erred by dismissing them at screening under a deliberate-indifference 

standard. To state a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment, a pretrial detainee must 

allege only that the defendants purposefully, knowingly, or recklessly created 

conditions that were objectively unreasonable. See Hardeman v. Curran, 933 F.3d 816, 823 

(7th Cir. 2019); Miranda v. Cnty. of Lake, 900 F.3d 335, 353–54 (7th Cir. 2018) (citing 

Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015)). 

Redman did so. Jails must provide detainees with “basic human needs,” 

including clothing and hygiene products. Hardeman, 933 F.3d at 825 (quoting DeShaney 

v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 200 (1989)). Here, Redman alleged 

that he was not provided with soap, a toothbrush, and toothpaste for at least 51 days. 

Further, he allegedly lacked something to cover himself (even a suicide smock) for at 
No. 20-1655 Page 4 

least 10 days after his suicide attempt and had to walk the halls naked, past jail staff, to 

get his meals. Although Officers Finley and Harper taunted him as he did so, they never 

gave him another smock and neither did any other officer. Finally, Redman alleged that 

the deprivations of clothing and hygiene products were demeaning and humiliating. 

See Mulvania v. Sheriff of Rock Island Cty., 850 F.3d 849, 855–58 (7th Cir. 2017) (detainees 

stated cognizable harm under the Fourteenth Amendment by alleging that being denied 

underwear was “humiliating”). We note that “officials must be free to take appropriate 

action to ensure the safety of inmates.” Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 547 (1979). But that 

potential explanation for the deprivation did not provide a basis to dismiss Redman’s 

claim at the pleadings stage. Further, it does not follow from the need to keep hygiene 

items out of the cell to prevent self-harm—if that is why Redman did not have soap or 

dental hygiene products—that a detainee may be altogether deprived of opportunities 

to wash himself or brush his teeth. 

Redman also challenges the district court’s summary-judgment ruling, 

maintaining that the defendants knew that he was suicidal yet failed to get him timely 

treatment. He further contends that the district court overlooked that the defendants left 

him unsupervised in the shower with the means to harm himself and failed to timely 

arrange medical care even after his suicide attempt. 

The Fourteenth Amendment also applies to claims of inadequate medical care 

brought by pretrial detainees. See James v. Hale, 959 F.3d 307, 318 (7th Cir. 2020). For his 

claim to survive summary judgment, Redman again needed evidence that jail staff 

acted purposefully, knowingly, or recklessly when considering their response to his 

serious medical condition, Miranda, 900 F.3d at 353–54, and that their conduct was 

objectively unreasonable considering the relevant facts and circumstances. James, 

959 F.3d at 318. Mental-health disorders resulting in suicidal ideation are serious 

medical conditions. See Miranda, 900 F.3d at 349; Lord v. Beahm, 952 F.3d 902, 904 

(7th Cir. 2020). But even when jail staff respond unreasonably to such a condition, a 

detainee must prove that their conduct caused harm. See Pulera v. Sarzant, 966 F.3d 540, 

550 (7th Cir. 2020); Lord, 952 F.3d at 905 (risk from suicidality “not compensable without 

evidence of injury”). 

The district court rightly determined that no reasonable jury could find that 

Harper, Smith, Vonderhaar, or Chad Downs did, or failed to do, anything objectively 

unreasonable with respect to Redman’s serious medical condition. There is no evidence 

of the sheriff’s involvement, nor that the other three officers participated in delaying 
No. 20-1655 Page 5 

medical or mental health care. So no jury could find them liable under § 1983. See Rasho 

v. Elyea, 856 F.3d 469, 478 (7th Cir. 2017); Miranda, 900 F.3d at 343–44. 

But summary judgment was premature with respect to Elbus, Coleman, and 

Dakota Downs because a finding of objectively unreasonable conduct was not 

foreclosed on this record. At summary judgment, Redmond argued that it was 

“inhumane” for Elbus to leave him “unguarded in an insecure area with means to make 

an attempt on his life” and for all three officers to return him to his cell without any 

mental health care that night or for weeks after. Further, he contended, his mental 

health deteriorated because of his suicide attempt and after it, and so his condition 

would not have progressed had the officers protected him from self-harm and promptly 

gotten him treatment. This court has repeatedly acknowledged that jail officials may 

violate the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to protect inmates from genuine threats of 

self-harm, see Miranda, 900 F.3d at 349, and by significantly and inexplicably delaying 

effective medical treatment for a serious condition where it exacerbates a detainee’s 

suffering, see Grieveson v. Anderson, 538 F.3d 763, 779–80 (7th Cir. 2008) (jury could find 

that one-and-a-half-day delay in treatment for serious condition without explanation 

violated Fourteenth Amendment). The sparse declarations of the defendants in support 

of summary judgment did not support a conclusion that they are not liable for failing to 

prevent Redman’s suicide attempt and the subsequent delay in treatment. Because the 

record is thin, however, we say nothing more than summary judgment was premature 

on the issue of whether any defendant’s conduct was objectively unreasonable. The 

district court should consider this question—and the related issue of whether any 

defendant’s conduct caused harm to Redman—in the first instance. See Neely-Bey TarikEl v. Conley, 912 F.3d 989, 1005 (7th Cir. 2019). 

We end with a note about discovery on remand. Because neither the district 

court’s opinion nor the defendants’ summary-judgment and appellate filings addressed 

Redman’s attempted suicide, the jail officials’ response to it, or any harm Redman 

suffered as a result, we question whether discovery on the issue was adequate. As 

discovery will likely be reopened to address Redman’s conditions-of-confinement 

claim, the district court may consider whether, in its discretion, further discovery could 

also be appropriate on Redman’s claims for inadequate medical treatment against 

Elbus, Coleman, and Dakota Downs. See Lewis v. McLean, 864 F.3d 556, 565 (7th Cir. 

2017) (noting that district court could consider reopening discovery on remand 

following reversal of decision granting summary judgment); Peate v. McCann, 294 F.3d 

879, 885 (7th Cir. 2002) (same). 
No. 20-1655 Page 6 

We therefore VACATE the district court’s dismissal of Redman’s conditions-ofconfinement claim, VACATE its entry of summary judgment in part with respect to the 

Fourteenth Amendment claims against Elbus, Coleman, and Dakota Downs, and 

REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this decision.