Opinion ID: 6931624
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Corporal McKinley, Officer Roberson, and Officer Riebeling

Text: Mrs. Belcher contends that Corporal McKinley, Officer Roberson, and Officer Rie-beling acted with deliberate indifference to Mr. Belcher’s serious medical and psychiatric needs by failing to take Mr. Belcher to a hospital, failing to obtain his medication, and failing to determine the name of, and to contact, his psychiatrist. Mrs. Belcher further contends that Corporal McKinley acted with deliberate indifference to Mr. Belcher’s life by failing to transfer him to the Baldwin County jail and by failing to assign an officer to guard him continuously. Officers Roberson and Riebeling, she contends, acted with deliberate indifference to Mr. Belcher’s life by leaving him unguarded, particularly while they met in the courtroom with Investigator Crook. To overcome the officers’ qualified immunity defenses, Mrs. Belcher maintains that, at the time of her son’s death, the law was clearly established that reasonable officers, in circumstances materially similar to these officers, would have known that their conduct amounted to deliberate indifference. Mrs. Belcher first asserts that Waldrop v. Evans, 871 F.2d 1030 (11th Cir.1989), clearly established that officers in circumstances materially similar to the defendants’, who fail to notify competent authorities of an inmate’s request for medication and psychiatric help, are guilty of deliberate indifference to the inmate’s psychiatric needs. Officer Roberson is the only officer who did not notify a superior officer about Mr. Belcher’s request for medication and request to see his psychiatrist. 7 Therefore, we can assume either that Mrs. Belcher’s argument based on Waldrop is directed at Officer Roberson only, or that by the term “competent authorities,” Mrs. Belcher means mental health professionals and she is contending that all of the defendants should have notified a mental health professional of Mr. Belcher’s medical and psychiatric needs. As the district court recognized, Waldrop could not have clearly established the law governing the conduct of police officers in positions materially similar to Officer Roberson’s or any of the other defendant police officers in this case, because Waldrop addressed the liability of a physician at a state mental health evaluation facility who failed to notify the facility’s staff psychiatrist that an inmate under that psychiatrist’s care had committed an act of self-mutilation when his medication was discontinued. 871 F.2d at 1036. 8 The defendants in this case are not physicians and are not responsible for meeting the medical and psychiatric needs of inmates in a mental health evaluation facility. They are police officers whose primary responsibility is to enforce laws and to arrest persons suspected of violating laws in their community. Because the circumstances in Waldrop are not materially similar to the circumstances in this case, Waldrop did not clearly establish the law applicable to this case. Mrs. Belcher next cites Popham v. City of Talladega, 908 F.2d 1561 (11th Cir.1990), and Edwards v. Gilbert, 867 F.2d 1271 (11th Cir.1989), contending that those cases clearly established that a jail official, who knows that an inmate has attempted suicide and leaves the inmate unguarded in a cell with barred doors and the means to hang himself, is guilty of deliberate indifference to the inmate’s taking of his own life. 9 Neither case clearly established that proposition. Popham held that the actions of the defendants in that ease did not constitute deliberate indifference, 908 F.2d at 1565; consequently, it could not have clearly established that the actions of the defendants in this case did constitute deliberate indifference. Law is clearly established by holdings, not by inferences from language in opinions. But even if every sentence in the Popham decision established law, that decision contains more language unfavorable than favorable to Mrs. Belcher. For example, Popham states: Plaintiff complains of the fact that there were no guards on duty for the last shift and the failure of the camera to cover the small area of the cell in which the decedent committed suicide, but cites no cases for the proposition that deliberate indifference is demonstrated if prisoners are not seen by jailers at all times. 908 F.2d at 1565. Popham therefore rejected any argument that failing to guard an inmate continuously constitutes deliberate indifference. Nor did the Edwards decision clearly establish that the actions of the defendants in this case constitute deliberate indifference. In Edwards, a jail suicide ease, this Court reversed the denial of summary judgment to jail officials on qualified immunity grounds. 867 F.2d at 1277. Our holding that the Edwards defendants’ actions did not constitute deliberate indifference under clearly established law, does not establish, clearly or otherwise, that the actions of the defendants in this case do constitute deliberate indifference. Finally, Mrs. Belcher relies on two cases from other circuits that this Court cited with approval in our Edwards opinion: Cobrales v. County of Los Angeles, 864 F.2d 1454 (9th Cir.1988), and Partridge v. Two Unknown Police Officers, 791 F.2d 1182 (5th Cir.1986). She argues that those cases clearly established that the defendants’ conduct in this case constituted deliberate indifference. Although, for reasons we explain, we find these out-of-circuit cases distinguishable, by distinguishing them, “we do not mean to imply that the law [of this Circuit] can be clearly established for qualified immunity purposes by non-binding precedent.” Kelly v. Curtis, 21 F.3d 1544, 1550 n. 6 (11th Cir.1994); see also Hansen v. Soldenwagner, 19 F.3d 573, 578 n. 6 (11th Cir.1994) (“[T]he case law of one other circuit cannot settle the law in this circuit to the point of being ‘clearly established.’ ”). In Cóbrales, the Ninth Circuit held that a county jail supervisor, sued under section 1983, could not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support a jury finding that he had been deliberately indifferent to the medical and psychiatric needs of an inmate who committed suicide in his facility, because the jail official had not moved for a directed verdict at the close of all of the evidence. 864 F.2d at 1459. Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit limited its appellate review to a search for plain error in the jury’s finding. Id. The jury based its finding of deliberate indifference on the fact that jail officials had ordered the inmate into solitary confinement for ten days, even though they knew that, while in solitary confinement only months before, the inmate had attempted suicide to get himself returned to the general prison population. Id. at 1456-57. Thereafter, the inmate hung himself. Id. at 1457. The Cab-rales court found this evidence sufficient, under the plain error doctrine, to support the jury’s finding of deliberate indifference. Id. at 1459. The Cabrales court did not indicate what steps jail officials had taken to prevent the Cabrales inmate’s suicide, raising the possible inference that no preventive measures were taken. Here, the defendants took several steps to prevent suicide. After Mr. Belcher’s first attempt at suicide, the officers moved him from a furnished cell to an unfurnished cell and took away his shirt to prevent future suicide attempts. Officer Roberson checked on Mr. Belcher every five minutes, and Corporal McKinley took steps to obtain a warrant to have Mr. Belcher transferred to a facility better equipped to handle a suicidal inmate. Because of the lack of details concerning jail officials’ efforts to prevent the Cabrales inmate’s suicide and the limited nature of the Ninth Circuit’s review in Cab-rales, that decision could not have clearly established the law governing the defendants’ conduct in this case, even if it had been a decision of this Circuit. Partridge offers no better support for Mrs. Belcher’s case. In Partridge, a district court had dismissed a section 1983 action against jail officials who allegedly were deliberately indifferent to the psychiatric needs of a pretrial detainee who committed suicide three hours after being placed in a cell. 791 F.2d at 1183-84. The defendants in Partridge allegedly knew that the detainee was mentally ill and allegedly had access to clinical records revealing that the inmate was suicidal. Id. at 1184. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit reviewed the district court’s order terminating the case both as a dismissal and as a summary judgment. Reviewing the district court’s order as a dismissal, the Partridge court held that it was due to be reversed because the allegations, including the allegation that the police took no steps to protect the inmate from self-harm, were sufficient to establish deliberate indifference. Id. at 1185, 1187. Reviewing the district court’s order as a summary judgment, the Partridge court concluded that it was due to be reversed, stating that, because there was no evidence that the defendants took any steps to protect the detainee from self-harm, there existed genuine issues of material fact as to deliberate indifference. Id. at 1189. Specifically, the Partridge court was concerned with whether the officers had taken steps to check the inmate’s clinical records and whether they had cheeked on the inmate during the three hours between placing him in the cell and finding him dead. Id. In this case, by contrast, the defendants took steps to prevent Mr. Belcher from killing himself. Not only was he placed in a stripped-down cell, but an officer checked on him every five minutes. Because of the lack of evidence of preventive measures in Partridge, even if the decision had been one of this circuit, it could not have clearly established that the preventive measures taken by the defendants in this case constituted deliberate indifference. After reviewing the case law at the time of Mr. Belcher’s death, we conclude that it did not clearly establish that measures materially similar to those taken by Corporal McKinley, Officer Roberson, and Officer Riebeling, to prevent Mr. Belcher from committing suicide, were so inadequate as to constitute deliberate indifference. Therefore, these defendants are entitled to qualified immunity from suit in their individual capacities.