Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/594-f-2d-997-596853646
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 10:16:50+00:00

Document:
Party Name: Marvin JONES, on his own behalf and on behalf of those similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Fred R. DIAMOND, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees.
Fred R. DIAMOND, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees.
David M. Lipman, Miami, Fla., John L. Walker, Jackson, Miss., Lennox S. Hinds, Nat'l Conference of Black Lawyers, Harlem, N. Y., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Raymond L. Brown, Pascagoula, Miss., for defendants-appellees.
Before COLEMAN, CLARK and RUBIN, Circuit Judges.
This is a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenge to nearly every conceivable facet of the Jackson County jail at Pascagoula, Mississippi, in use at the time the lawsuit was filed and the case was tried.
Since oral argument before us, a New jail designed for Single cell occupancy, with approximately 80 square feet to the cell, has been opened. In uncontroverted post argument affidavits, we have been assured that the "old jail" will hereafter be in limited use to detain individuals for short periods of time while they are in the process of supplying bail, and the like. Since the old jail is not to be closed and could be returned to its former functions, we shall decide this appeal on the merits. We are, however, entitled to take into consideration the existence of the new jail, Smith v. Sullivan, 5 Cir., 1977, 553 F.2d 373. We must remember, also, that except where necessary to maintain federal constitutional rights, federal courts do not sit to supervise state prisons, Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976).
The case is unusual in that the State of Mississippi, in violation of prior precedent, has seen fit to temporize by directing that many convicted felons be held in county jails while the penitentiary is slowly, ever so slowly, being brought up to constitutional standards. Hence, in this particular jail setting we are dealing with the federal constitutional rights of convicted felons, convicted misdemeanants, and pretrial detainees, held in a county jail, not in a penitentiary.
This necessitates recognition of the Constitutional distinctions between convicts and pretrial detainees.
Convicted prisoners are entitled to the protection of the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
"( C)onfinement conditions of a pretrial detainee, it must be analyzed as a due process deprivation rather than as cruel and unusual punishment", and a detainee is entitled to relief only if jail conditions amount to a violation of Due Process, McMahon v. Beard, 5 Cir., 1978, 583 F.2d 172.
trial, but the fact remains that they are being held on probable cause to believe that they are, in fact, guilty of a violation of the criminal statutes.
There was another circumstance of no small importance. In December, 1976, the Jackson County Sheriff found drugs in the jail. In an effort to put a stop to that, he inaugurated a policy of searching all jail visitors, a policy expressly approved in Newman v. Alabama, 5 Cir., 1977, 559 F.2d 283, 291. The prisoners responded with a riot, in which they very nearly wrecked the jail. The necessary repairs cost the taxpayers over $30,000.
It has been said that the pretrial detainee should not have to suffer conditions any more restrictive than those necessary to ensure his presence for trial, Duran v. Elrod, 7 Cir., 1976, 542 F.2d 998, 999; Rhem v. Malcolm, 2 Cir., 1974, 507 F.2d 333, 336, 337; Miller v. Carson, 5 Cir., 1977, 563 F.2d 741, 750. It is an ineluctable fact, however, that the detainee is in jail, subject to all the institutional necessities that are thus brought into play. "(T)he same practical reasons that counsel judicial restraint in second-guessing correctional officials dictates restraint in second-guessing the authorities who run jails", Feeley v. Sampson, 1 Cir., 1978, 570 F.2d 364, 371.
Furthermore, for a prisoner to establish a prima facie § 1983 case of cruel and unusual punishment he must prove that the prison authorities acted with deliberate or callous indifference to his constitutional rights. Proof of simple negligence is not enough to pierce official immunity, Bogard v. Cook, 5 Cir., 1978, 586 F.2d 399; Fielder v. Bosshard, 5 Cir., 1979, 590 F.2d 105.
Whirl v. Kern, 5 Cir., 1968, 407 F.2d 781, Cert. denied, 396 U.S. 901, 90 S.Ct. 210, 24 L.Ed.2d 177 (1969), was a § 1983 action for false imprisonment wherein it was held that neither good faith nor non-negligence could exculpate a sheriff from Civil Rights Act liability for false imprisonment. Whirl has been undercut on both points. First, as to reasonable good faith defense, Bryan v. Jones, 5 Cir., 1976, 530 F.2d 1210 (en banc). Judge Gee would have expressly overruled Whirl rather than to have it "materialize from time to time . . . present in form but eviscerated". Three Judges, including the author of the original Whirl opinion, said that the majority opinion cast Whirl "adrift to become a derelict in the law", 530 F.2d 1219. See, also, Miller v. Jones, 5 Cir., 1976, 534 F.2d 1178. Secondly, simple negligence is not enough to pierce official immunity in a § 1983 case, Bogard v. Cook, supra.
all persons who were incarcerated at the time of the filing of the complaint, or are now, or in the future will be confined in the Jackson County jail, either to serve a sentence or awaiting sentence . . . .
On appeal, neither party has attacked the certification. The trial proof concerned both pretrial detainees and convicts. Since the parties and the trial court clearly regarded the class as including all jail inmates, we shall do likewise. This, of course, includes all black prisoners within the certified subclasses, and the claims of racial discrimination are properly here.
for a later date. Judgment was then entered on Jones' claims.

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