Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/94/1191/602495/
Timestamp: 2019-09-15 14:27:08
Document Index: 451122003

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3626', '§ 1988', '§ 3626', '§ 1997', '§ 802', 'art, 461']

Jerry Jensen, on Behalf of Himself and All Others Similarlysituated; Reginald Pierce; Richard Duff; al Wilson;harold Crisp; Laddie Dittrich; Gus Dawson; Victor Carter;george Carter; Michael Kane; Ernest L. Sims; Mohamedabdul Hafiz El-tabech; and Victor Luna, Appellees/cross-appellants, v. Harold W. Clarke, Individually and in His Official Capacityas Director of the Nebraska Department of Correctionalservices; and Frank X. Hopkins, Individually and in Hisofficial Capacity As Warden of the Nebraska Statepenitentiary, Appellants/cross-appellees, 94 F.3d 1191 (8th Cir. 1996) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Eighth Circuit › 1996 › Jerry Jensen, on Behalf of Himself and All Others Similarlysituated; Reginald Pierce; Richard Duff;...
Jerry Jensen, on Behalf of Himself and All Others Similarlysituated; Reginald Pierce; Richard Duff; al Wilson;harold Crisp; Laddie Dittrich; Gus Dawson; Victor Carter;george Carter; Michael Kane; Ernest L. Sims; Mohamedabdul Hafiz El-tabech; and Victor Luna, Appellees/cross-appellants, v. Harold W. Clarke, Individually and in His Official Capacityas Director of the Nebraska Department of Correctionalservices; and Frank X. Hopkins, Individually and in Hisofficial Capacity As Warden of the Nebraska Statepenitentiary, Appellants/cross-appellees, 94 F.3d 1191 (8th Cir. 1996)
US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit - 94 F.3d 1191 (8th Cir. 1996)
Submitted July 5, 1996. Decided Sept. 5, 1996
The District Court made extensive findings of fact in its thorough opinion. Jensen v. Gunter, 807 F. Supp. 1463 (D. Neb. 1992). We will recount those findings here only to the extent necessary for our review. The NSP, opened in 1981, is a maximum security prison, housing the State's most violent offenders. It consists of six housing units. Units one through four, the main housing units, are at issue in this case. The cells are approximately 74 square feet in size, and were intended to house one inmate. Because of the large prison population, that limitation has never been possible. The population at NSP hovers at about 150% of capacity. To accommodate the large number of prisoners, the NSP must double cell the inmates.
When we initially reviewed this case, we found it necessary to remand it to the District Court for further findings in light of Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 114 S. Ct. 1970, 128 L. Ed. 2d 811 (1994). Remand was required because the District Court, following our pre-Farmer precedents, found only that the defendants knew or should have known that the plaintiffs faced a pervasive risk of harm. Farmer requires a finding of actual knowledge on the part of prison officials in order to support an Eighth Amendment violation. Id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1981.
On remand, the District Court met that requirement. El Tabech v. Gunter, 922 F. Supp. 244 (D. Neb. 1996) (El Tabech III) . It found that the defendants were aware of the level of violence at the NSP, and that the violence spilled over to the double cells. Id. at 257-61. It went on to find that newly arriving inmates are randomly assigned to cells, Id. at 248-49, and that the defendants are aware of that fact. Id. at 252-54. Thus, the District Court reaffirmed its original position that the plaintiffs had proved an Eighth Amendment violation.
In its initial opinion finding liability, the District Court noted that " [t]his case is not an overcrowding case in the sense that plaintiffs are asserting that the penitentiary houses more inmates than it can manage" or for whom it can provide services. Jensen, 807 F. Supp. at 1469. In addition, it stated that it was using the term "overcrowding" to "refer to the fact that the number of inmates exceeds the design capacity of the facilities; it does not imply any judgment about that fact." Id. at 1468 n. 3. Thus, the issue in this case is not whether the NSP is overcrowded to a constitutionally significant degree. Notably, the plaintiffs never made any such claim.
The plaintiffs did, however, claim that the practice of double celling at the NSP was an Eighth Amendment violation. This claim is based on the notion that double celling can be a constitutional violation when it leads "to deprivations of essential food, medical care, or sanitation," or when it causes an "increase [in] violence among inmates or create [s] other conditions intolerable for prison confinement." Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 348, 101 S. Ct. 2392, 2400, 69 L. Ed. 2d 59 (1981); Cody v. Hillard, 830 F.2d 912, 914 (8th Cir. 1987) (en banc), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 906, 108 S. Ct. 1078, 99 L. Ed. 2d 237 (1988). The District Court, however, held the plaintiffs' evidence that "double celling has taxed the penitentiary beyond its limits to provide essential human services, resources, and adequate physical structures" to be "lacking." Jensen, 807 F. Supp. at 1481. Likewise, the plaintiffs were unable to present sufficient evidence to establish that "double celling is the cause of an increase in violence institution wide." Id. at 1482. The plaintiffs do not appeal this decision. Thus, this case is not a "double celling" case in the conventional sense.
The District Court found that "a pervasive risk of harm exist [ed] in the four main housing units." Jensen, 807 F. Supp. at 1483. It did not limit this finding to newly arriving inmates. Then the District Court held that randomly assigning "newly arriving inmates into double cells under the volatile conditions that exist in the four main housing units is not a reasonable response to the pervasive risk of harm." Id. at 1484. Once again, it did not limit its holding to the newly arriving inmates. We read the District Court's opinion as finding a substantial risk of serious harm to all inmates in the form of violence from cellmates, to which risk the defendants have shown deliberate indifference by randomly assigning incoming inmates to cells. The District Court described it as "an Eighth Amendment violation respecting random double-celling of newly arrived inmates." El Tabech v. Gunter, 869 F. Supp. 1446, 1467 (D. Neb. 1994) (El Tabech II) . That constitutional violation applies to every inmate who faces the possibility of being randomly celled either as an incoming inmate or with an incoming inmate, which is to say any inmate in the four main housing units. It is only the remedy, an injunction against randomly assigning cells to incoming inmates, that applies to incoming inmates only. The plaintiffs need not appeal this holding, because it is exactly what they want.
We can dispose one of the arguments raised by the defendants in similar fashion. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 forbids federal courts from holding "prison or jail overcrowding unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment except to the extent that an individual plaintiff" proves the violation. 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a) (1). This legislation, the defendants argue, precludes class-action prison lawsuits challenging prison overcrowding. The case before us, they continue, is a class-action suit challenging overcrowding.
We need not decide whether the defendants' reading of the statute, that it precludes class-action prison suits, is correct because the statute does not apply to this case in any event. By its very terms, the statute applies to suits challenging "prison or jail crowding." This case, as we have seen, and as the District Court held, El Tabech II, 869 F. Supp. at 1450, is not a simple crowding case. It is a failure-to-protect case, focusing not on crowding but on the manner of assignment of new inmates to cells. Thus, regardless of what the Act means for class-action overcrowding cases, an issue we do not decide, it does not apply here. Furthermore, if the statute did apply, the relief granted here would not violate it. Individual plaintiffs have proved a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which is what the statute requires.
We also reject the other half of the plaintiffs' cross-appeal, challenging the District Court's grant of qualified immunity. The District Court correctly held that the precedents are diverse on the issue of the constitutional necessity of classification systems. See, e.g., McGill v. Duckworth, 944 F.2d 344 (7th Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 907, 112 S. Ct. 1265, 117 L. Ed. 2d 493 (1992); Walsh v. Mellas, 837 F.2d 789 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1061, 108 S. Ct. 2832, 100 L. Ed. 2d 933 (1988). This diversity precludes a holding that reasonable prison officials would have known that they were violating the plaintiffs' clearly established rights, Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S. Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L. Ed. 2d 396 (1982), by randomly assigning incoming inmates to double cells. Kennedy v. Schafer, 71 F.3d 292, 294 (8th Cir. 1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S. Ct. 2548, 135 L. Ed. 2d 1068 (1996).
The Eighth Amendment proscribes the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishments." The Supreme Court counsels that this amendment imposes upon prison officials the duty to "provide humane conditions of confinement." Farmer, 511 U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1976. That duty, in part, requires those officials to take reasonable measures to " 'protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners.' " Ibid. (quoting Cortes-Quinones v. Jimenez-Nettleship, 842 F.2d 556, 558 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 823, 109 S. Ct. 68, 102 L. Ed. 2d 45 (1988)). The Eighth Amendment imposes this duty because being subjected to violent assaults is not "part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses...." Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 347, 101 S. Ct. at 2399.
In order to prevail in failure-to-protect cases, inmates must make two essential showings. First, they must demonstrate that they are "incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm." Farmer, 511 U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1977. This objective requirement ensures that the deprivation is sufficiently serious to amount to a deprivation of constitutional dimension.
The second requirement inquires into the subjective state of mind of the prison official who is being sued. It mandates that the plaintiff inmates show that the official "knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of harm exists, and he must also draw the inference." Id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1979. This subjective requirement ensures that "only the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain implicates the Eighth Amendment." Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 297, 111 S. Ct. 2321, 2323, 115 L. Ed. 2d 271 (1991).
[T]o be guilty of deliberate indifference [prison officials] must know they are creating a substantial risk of bodily harm. If they place a prisoner in a cell that has a cobra, but they do not know that a cobra is there (or even that there is a high probability that there is a cobra there), they are not guilty of deliberate indifference even if they should have known about the risk, that is, even if they were negligent--even grossly negligent or even reckless in the tort sense--in failing to know. Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, 618 (7th Cir. 1982). But if they know that there is a cobra there or at least that there is a high probability of a cobra there, and do nothing, that is deliberate indifference.
Once that much is accomplished, prison officials still have a defense. They may be "found free from liability if they responded reasonably to the risk, even if the harm ultimately was not averted." Farmer, 511 U.S. at ---- - ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1982-83. This defense is available because the "duty under the Eighth Amendment is to ensure 'reasonable safety,' " Id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1983 (quoting Helling, 509 U.S. at 33, 113 S. Ct. at 2481), a standard that is mindful of the very difficult task of warehousing the most dangerous people our society has to offer in a safe environment. Ibid. Thus, " [w]hether one puts it in terms of duty or deliberate indifference, prison officials who act reasonably cannot be found liable under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause." Ibid.
Each step of this inquiry is fact-intensive. See Reece v. Groose, 60 F.3d 487, 490 (8th Cir. 1995). We review the District Court's factual conclusions for clear error. Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a).
This evidence is ample support for the District Court's conclusion that inmates in the double cells face a substantial risk of assault at the hands of their cellmates. This record compares favorably with those in prior cases holding that a jury question existed regarding whether there was a pervasive risk of harm. See, e.g., Butler v. Dowd, 979 F.2d 661, 674-75 (8th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 930, 113 S. Ct. 2395, 124 L. Ed. 2d 297 (1993).
We now address the subject of our earlier remand, whether the defendants were deliberately indifferent to the risk that the plaintiffs faced. Farmer counsels that this question, like the first step in our analysis, is a question of fact. It is "subject to demonstration in the usual ways, including inference from circumstantial evidence, ... and a factfinder may conclude that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was obvious." 511 U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1981 (citation omitted). Furthermore, the Supreme Court in Farmer set forth certain types of evidence that can be useful in making this determination. When evidence is introduced
Id. at ---- - ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1981-82.
The District Court undertook just such an analysis in this case. Initially, the District Court found that the statistics detailing the level of violence at the NSP, the same statistics utilized by the District Court to find a substantial risk of serious harm, were provided to the defendants. Thus, each defendant was actually informed "of virtually every verified incident of violence" that occurred at the NSP. El Tabech III, 922 F. Supp. at 257-58. Notably, the defendants admitted as much in their testimony. Id. at 258.
All adult male prisoners in the Nebraska prison system undergo a detailed evaluation called a classification study. El Tabech III, 922 F. Supp. at 248. This evaluation, conducted at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center, considers factors such as the crime for which the inmate was convicted, the inmate's criminal history, his medical history and psychological status, and any particular needs or problems the inmate may have. Ibid. A condensed version of the study called a scoring instrument is created from the classification study. Ibid. These studies, as well as observations of the inmate while he is housed at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center, are used to determine to which institution the inmate will be sent.
Either of these resources could be used to help predict whether inmates who are slated to become cellmates will be compatible. However, the District Court found that neither resource is so utilized. El Tabech III, 922 F. Supp. at 248-49. Rather, the District Court found that cell assignments were made based on "space availability." Jensen, 807 F. Supp. at 1477. Space availability is just another way to say randomly. Ibid.
The District Court came to these conclusions after hearing testimony from numerous prison officials who are intimately familiar with the cell-assignment procedure. Virtually every witness, prison officials all, testified that the primary, if not sole, factors used in determining where an incoming inmate will be celled were "available bunks" and racial balance. El Tabech III, 922 F. Supp. at 249. The housing unit managers, who actually made the cell assignments, would not have seen either classification resource prior to making cell assignments. Nor did they know the inmate's size, age, or length of sentence, all important factors in predicting compatibility. Id. at 249-50.
After liability was determined in this case, the District Court fashioned a remedy in the form of an injunction. That injunction imposes upon the defendants a duty to use the classification instruments available to them to try to predict whether incoming inmates and their cellmates will be compatible. El Tabech v. Gunter, No. CV87-L-377, slip op. at 26 (D. Neb. 1994) (El Tabech I) . Citing language from Farmer v. Brennan, supra, the defendants claim that this injunction should not have been issued.
In Farmer, the Supreme Court wrote that in order to "establish eligibility for an injunction, the inmate must demonstrate the continuance of [prison officials' disregard of a risk of harm] during the remainder of the litigation and into the future." Farmer, 511 U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1983. Parties may rely on "developments that postdate the pleadings and pretrial motions" in order to determine whether an injunction is appropriate. Ibid. Furthermore, prison officials who are violating prisoners' rights when a lawsuit is filed can "prevent the issuance of an injunction by proving, during the litigation, that they [are] no longer unreasonably disregarding an objectively intolerable risk of harm and that they [will] not revert to their obduracy upon cessation of the litigation." Ibid. n. 9.
We also disagree with the defendants' assertion that the District Court improperly imposed the burden of proving the above-described elements on them. When the District Court wrote that the defendants had not "met their burden of proving that an injunction is no longer necessary," El Tabech I, slip op. at 19, it was in reference to the language in Farmer setting forth how prison officials can avoid an injunction, not the language describing what the plaintiff would have to prove to merit an injunction. The District Court correctly placed the burden of proof. Farmer, 511 U.S. at ---- n. 9, 114 S. Ct. at 1983 n. 9 ("prison officials ... could prevent issuance of an injunction by proving ... that they were no longer unreasonably disregarding an objectively unreasonable risk of harm and that they would not revert to their obduracy upon cessation of the litigation").
In Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S. Ct. 2565, 57 L. Ed. 2d 522 (1978), the Supreme Court held that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar an award of attorneys' fees ancillary to prospective relief, even though the fees would be paid from the state treasury. Id. at 693-98, 98 S. Ct. at 2574-77. The defendants argue that this holding was overturned sub silentio by Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, --- U.S. ----, 116 S. Ct. 1114, 134 L. Ed. 2d 252 (1996). There, the Supreme Court reiterated its rule that Congress could abrogate the sovereign immunity that states enjoy by virtue of the Eleventh Amendment, but only if its "intention [is] unmistakably clear in the language of the statute," Id. at ----, 116 S. Ct. at 1123 (quoting Dellmuth v. Muth, 491 U.S. 223, 227-28, 109 S. Ct. 2397, 2400, 105 L. Ed. 2d 181 (1989)), and Congress acts "pursuant to a valid exercise of power." Ibid. (quoting Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 68, 106 S. Ct. 423, 425-26, 88 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1985)). Section 1988, the defendants argue, has no "unmistakably clear" language, and, thus cannot abrogate sovereign immunity. (The fees in this case would be paid from the state's coffers, thus implicating the Eleventh Amendment).
This very argument was made, and rejected by the Supreme Court, in Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 109 S. Ct. 2463, 105 L. Ed. 2d 229 (1989). There, the State of Missouri argued that "the principle enunciated in Hutto has been undermined by subsequent decisions of [the Supreme] Court that require Congress to 'express its intention to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment in unmistakable language in the statute itself.' " Id. at 279, 109 S. Ct. at 2467 (quoting Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 243, 105 S. Ct. 3142, 3148, 87 L. Ed. 2d 171 (1985)); Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation, 483 U.S. 468, 107 S. Ct. 2941, 97 L. Ed. 2d 389 (1987). The "flaw in this argument," an argument identical to the one made by the defendants in this case, with one more citation added to the list, "lies in its misreading of the holding of Hutto." Jenkins, 491 U.S. at 279, 109 S. Ct. at 2467.
In Jenkins, the Supreme Court made it quite clear that "application of § 1988 to the States did not depend on congressional abrogation of the States' immunity." Ibid. Rather, Hutto held that Section 1988 "imposes attorney's fees 'as a part of costs.' Costs have traditionally been awarded without regard for the States' Eleventh Amendment immunity." Hutto, 437 U.S. at 695, 98 S. Ct. at 2576. Indeed, following Hutto and Jenkins "it must be accepted as settled that an award of attorney's fees ancillary to prospective relief is not subject to the strictures of the Eleventh Amendment." Jenkins, 491 U.S. at 279, 109 S. Ct. at 2467. In short, Section 1988 attorneys' fees do not depend on abrogation of sovereign immunity, and Seminole Tribe does not affect the fee award in this case.
The defendants' second challenge to the fee award involves the Prison Litigation Reform Act, Pub. L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321, to be codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3626 and 42 U.S.C. § 1997. This legislation, enacted well after both the liability and attorneys' fee determinations in this case, alters how prison cases are to be prosecuted in various ways. One provision of the Act, Section 803(7) (d), applies to attorneys' fees. In order to affect this case, Section 803(7) (d) must have retroactive application. We hold that it does not.
The Supreme Court recently announced a procedure for determining when a statute is to be applied to actions that occurred prior to enactment of the statute. Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 114 S. Ct. 1483, 128 L. Ed. 2d 229 (1994). Initially, a court should determine whether "Congress has expressly prescribed the statute's proper reach." Id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1505. If so, the dictates of the statute should be followed, barring some constitutional prohibition. Id. at ---- - ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1497-98. Absent an express command, "the court must determine whether the statute would have retroactive effect, i.e., whether it would impair rights a party possessed when he acted, increase a party's liability for past conduct, or impose new duties with respect to transactions already completed." Id. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1505. If so, then the "traditional presumption" against retroactivity precludes application "absent clear congressional intent favoring such a result." Ibid.
The defendants base their argument for retroactivity on Bradley v. Richmond School Bd., 416 U.S. 696, 94 S. Ct. 2006, 40 L. Ed. 2d 476 (1974). In Bradley, the District Court awarded attorney's fees and costs to parents who had prevailed in a school desegregation case on general equitable principles. Bradley, 416 U.S. at 706, 94 S. Ct. at 2013-14. While the appeal of the case was pending, Congress passed a statute that allowed courts to award fees to prevailing parties in school desegregation cases. Id. at 709, 94 S. Ct. at 2015. The Supreme Court held that the statute applied to the case at hand because courts are "to apply the law in effect at the time [they] render [their] decisions, unless doing so would result in manifest injustice or there is statutory direction or legislative history to the contrary." Id. at 711, 94 S. Ct. at 2016.
Two clear distinctions between Bradley and this case defeat the defendants' argument. First, in Bradley, there was no "manifest injustice" in allowing the fee statute to apply because the lower courts had already awarded fees on general equitable principles. As the Supreme Court wrote in Landgraf, it would be difficult to imagine a "stronger equitable case for an attorney's fee award" than a school desegregation case. Landgraf, 511 U.S. at ----, 114 S. Ct. at 1503. Given the availability of fees under an alternative theory, the new fee statute did not impose an "unforeseeable obligation" on the school board. Bradley, 416 U.S. at 721, 94 S. Ct. at 2021. Thus, being ordered to pay attorneys' fees was no great surprise, even though the legal theory under which those fees were to be imposed changed.
Furthermore, there is evidence of congressional intent contrary to retroactive application of this portion of the Act. Section 802, the section of the Act dealing with prospective relief, specifically provides that it "shall apply with respect to all prospective relief whether such relief was originally granted or approved before, on, or after the date of enactment of this title." § 802(b) (1). Section 803, conversely, is silent on retroactive application. Congress saw fit to tell us which part of the Act was to be retroactively applied, Section 802. The exclusion of Section 803 and its fee provisions from that clear statement is inconsistent with the defendants' argument for retroactivity.
The plaintiffs in this Section 1983 case are clearly prevailing parties. The District Court, employing the procedure described by the Supreme Court in Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 103 S. Ct. 1933, 76 L. Ed. 2d 40 (1983), awarded them $178,865.10 in fees and expenses. This method, known as the "lodestar" method, id. at 433, 103 S. Ct. at 1939, focuses on "the significance of the overall relief obtained by the plaintiff in relation to the hours actually expended on the litigation." Id. at 435, 103 S. Ct. at 1940. The district court multiplies the number of hours reasonably expended by the relevant market rate for legal services, then reduces the amount for partial success, if necessary.
The gravamen of the defendants' argument regarding the number of hours reasonably expended is that the plaintiffs' lawyers' records were inadequate to inform the court of the nature and reasonableness of the services rendered. The District Court considered this argument in its thorough and detailed opinion on fees. It noted that "the documentation submitted by the plaintiffs' counsel was voluminous, detailed, and in most cases, fully in compliance with our local rules of practice." El Tabech II, 869 F. Supp. at 1460. However, "there were certain instances where the documentation was simply not sufficient to make an intelligent determination as to whether the hours expended were in fact reasonable." Ibid. Therefore, the District Court imposed an across-the-board reduction in hours of 10%.
Though this deduction is significant, the defendants would have us add another 50% deduction. As we have consistently held, " [t]he trial court is in a much better position than this court to view the evidence and to evaluate the testimony and work product of the attorney." Vosburg v. Solem, 845 F.2d 763, 770 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 928, 109 S. Ct. 313, 102 L. Ed. 2d 332 (1988). Here, the District Court clearly considered, and to a degree accepted, the arguments of the defendants. However, it held that the severe deduction advocated by the defendants was far too great given the amount of detail and explanation provided by the plaintiffs' attorneys. We see no abuse of discretion in that holding.
Likewise, the District Court rejected the defendants' request to reduce the fee award by 75% for partial success, choosing instead a 15% reduction. El Tabech II, 869 F. Supp. at 1464. The defendants request a 75% reduction in the award because the plaintiffs failed altogether on their Fourteenth Amendment claim related to the contraband rule, and enjoyed only partial success on their Eighth Amendment claims. The Eighth Amendment claim that double celling was causing a deprivation of essential services was rejected.