Opinion ID: 625170
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sixth Amendment Claim Against Hunter

Text: The jury found that Chief Deputy Hunter acted in a manner that was deliberately indifferent to Appellees' asserted Sixth Amendment right to use a telephone to contact an attorney and/or family and friends following their arrest. The jury also rejected Hunter's defense of qualified immunity. On appeal, Hunter contends that the district court erred by denying him qualified immunity because (1) there was no violation of Appellees' Sixth Amendment right to counsel because that right never attached, no critical stage of the proceedings was reached, and Hunter did not act intentionally; and (2) even if there were such a violation, it had not been clearly established that refusing to allow pre-trial detainees to use cell phones when land lines are disrupted in an emergency violates the Sixth Amendment. A public official is entitled to qualified immunity unless the plaintiff demonstrates that (1) the defendant violated the plaintiff's constitutional rights and (2) the defendant's actions were objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established law at the time of the violation. [21] A defendant violates clearly established law only if the contours of [the] right are sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right. [22] For a legal principle to be clearly established, we must be able to point to controlling authorityor a robust consensus of persuasive authoritythat defines the contours of the right in question with a high degree of particularity [23] and that places the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate. [24] When a defendant asserts qualified immunity, the plaintiff has the burden of proving that it is inapplicable. [25] Qualified immunity should be adjudicated at the earliest possible stage in litigation, [26] but if the issue is not decided until trial the defense goes to the jury which must then determine the objective legal reasonableness of the officers' conduct. [27] We have discretion to decide which prong of the qualified immunity analysis to address first. [28] As a preliminary matter, Appellees contend that Hunter has waived qualified immunity. Hunter raised qualified immunity generally in his answer and proposed jury instructions, the district court instructed the jury on qualified immunity, and the jury found that Hunter's actions were not objectively reasonable in light of Appellees' constitutional rights. Hunter did not raise qualified immunity in his pre-verdict motions for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(a), [29] but he did in his post-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(b). In response to Hunter's Rule 50(b) motion, Appellees did not counter that Hunter waived qualified immunity but instead responded to the merits of that issue. Thus, Appellees have waived their waiver argument. [30] Appellees also contend that even if Hunter has not waived qualified immunity generally, he has waived his specific contentions that Appellees' Sixth Amendment right to counsel never attached and that no critical stage of the proceedings was reached. In lieu of addressing this specific waiver argument, we hold that even if Appellees had a Sixth Amendment right to counsel during the period in question, Hunter did not act in an objectively unreasonable manner in light of clearly established law, so the district court should have granted him judgment as a matter of law on qualified immunity. There is no dispute that, during the period in question, telephones were made available to Appellees, but that it was not possible to place calls on these or any telephones at the facility. Donald Hancock, the telephone supervisor for the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Office, testified that on the Saturday before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, calls could not be placed from OPP because the telephone service provider's lines were overloaded. He testified further that because the problem was external, and the OPP telephones themselves were functioning properly, there was nothing he could have done to remedy the problem. Hancock timely reported his findings to Hunter and evacuated New Orleans that Sunday morning. When Hancock and Hunter spoke again later that day, Hunter asked Hancock to return and continue working on the phones, but Hancock again informed Hunter that the problem was external and that there was nothing he could do. Appellees contend that in this situation, Hunter should have allowed them to use their cell phones to make calls. In accordance with standard procedures, Appellees' cell phones had been confiscated when they were booked into the prison. As noted, Gusman testified that inmates are not allowed to possess cell phones because that would pose a security risk. He went on to explain that allowing the use of cell phones would impair prison officials' ability to record inmates' calls, which is important because inmates either make threatening phone calls or try to continue their illegal activity while in jail. Gusman also stated that, for security reasons, even deputies are generally not allowed to carry cell phones while on duty. Gusman testified that he was completely unaware of the problems with the OPP telephone system during the period in question, but he acknowledged that Hunter would have had the authority to allow prisoners to use their cell phones. There is no particularized, clearly established law which would have instructed Hunter that, under the Sixth Amendment, he had to allow pre-trial detainees to use their cell phones when land lines were disrupted. Appellees have pointed us to no such authority, and we have found none. To the contrary, we have ruled that prisoners have no right to unlimited telephone use. [31] Other courts have observed that a prisoner's right to telephone access is subject to rational limitations in the face of legitimate security interests of the penal institution.' [32] As a general matter, maintaining institutional security and preserving internal order and discipline are essential goals that may require limitation or retraction of the retained constitutional rights of both convicted prisoners and pretrial detainees. [33] Thus, prison officials are accorded wide-ranging deference in the adoption and execution of policies and practices that in their judgment are needed to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain institutional security. [34] In this case, Hunter faced the security risks that would generally follow from allowing prisoners to use cell phones, which were exacerbated by the emergency conditions that were present during the approach, landfall, and aftermath of Katrina. Inmates were unable to use the land-line telephones in the OPP not because of any action that Hunter took, but because of overloaded external lines, a situation beyond any control of law enforcement. Distributing cell phones to approximately 5,930 inmates, or even just the 1,200 pre-trial detainees in Templeman III, would have been a creative and potentially beneficial option, but it would also have added to prison officials' unprecedented logistical burden as well as the potential security risks. Before Hurricane Katrina struck, prison officials had no reason to assume that the telephone lines would be overloaded for a significant length of time; after the prison flooded, they were overwhelmed with more urgent emergency tasks. The unprecedented emergency conditions would also have made it very difficult if not impossible for any counsel that Appellees might have reached to provide meaningful assistance. We do not suggest (or deny) that there is a blanket emergency exception to the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Rather, we hold only that in light of the security risks and unique emergency conditions he faced, Hunter did not act in an objectively unreasonable manner under clearly established law. The district court therefore erred by not granting Hunter qualified immunity as a matter of law.