Opinion ID: 69245
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Monitor

Text: Hill includes failing to monitor Loggins within her Fourth Amendment unreasonable seizure claim. Kirkham, her police procedure expert, characterized the transport of Loggins from Carrollton to Grenada as the thing that's most singly critical in terms of the events that occurred. He asserted that, rather than being driving on her stomach in four-point restraint, Loggins should have been calmed down by an officer and an officer should have ridden in the back seat with her during transport. This claim sounds not in the Fourth Amendment but in the Fourteenth. See Nerren v. Livingston Police Department, 86 F.3d 469, 473 (5th Cir.1996) ([a]fter the initial incidents of a seizure have concluded and an individual is being detained by police officials but has yet to be booked, an arrestee's right to medical attention, like that of a pre-trial detainee, derives from the Fourteenth Amendment). Although the panel in Gutierrez suggests otherwise, 139 F.3d at 452, a later panel of this court cannot overrule an earlier panel decision. Harvey v. Blake, 913 F.2d 226, 228 n. 2 (5th Cir.1990); see also Wagner, 227 F.3d at 324-25 (applying Fourteenth Amendment). Nerren, as the earlier decision, therefore controls. The claim for failure to monitor is, at its heart, the failure to provide medical attention due to insufficient monitoring. With the constitutional basis for the claim clarified, we briefly address the merits. The standard for this claim is well-established: the plaintiff must show that an officer acted with subjective knowledge of a substantial risk of serious medical harm, followed by a response of deliberate indifference. Nerren, 86 F.3d at 473. Although Hill's evidence might imply negligence by Deputies Spellman, Mims and Jones, she submitted no evidence that they possessed subjective knowledge that their chosen method of transporting Loggins posed a substantial risk of serious medical harm. No evidence contradicts Deputy Jones's testimony that he did monitor her while driving to the jail and he could hear her in the back seat muttering or talking for at least half the journey to Grenada. No evidence supports a fact issue that the deputies acted with deliberate indifference toward Loggins at any time. For the foregoing reasons, Hill has not created a genuine issue of material fact concerning the existence of a constitutional violation; we need not address the deputies' qualified immunity or the county's liability under Monell. The district court's judgment in favor of the defendants is AFFIRMED.