Court Opinion

ID: 9402539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-16 00:00:53.100373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:00.630724
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10382   Document: 00516789005   Page: 1    Date Filed: 06/15/2023

          United States Court of Appeals
               for the Fifth Circuit                         United States Court of Appeals
                                                                      Fifth Circuit
                           ____________                             FILED
                                                                June 15, 2023
                            No. 22-10382
                                                               Lyle W. Cayce
                           ____________
                                                                    Clerk
   Lonnie Kade Welsh,

                                                   Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                versus

   Lubbock County; Kelly Rowe, Sheriff; C. Scott, Chief Jail
   Administrator; FNU Payne, Sergeant; K. Young, Sergeant; FNU
   McDaniel, Sergeant; FNU LNU-269, Lubbock County Jail Office-
   Radio Number 8281; Ron Jenkins, Captain,

                                               Defendants—Appellees,

                        consolidated with
                          _____________

                            No. 22-11049
                          _____________

   Lonnie Kade Welsh,

                                                   Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                versus

   Lubbock County; Kelly Rowe, Sheriff; C. Scott, Chief Jail
   Administrator; K. Young, Sergeant,

                                               Defendants—Appellees.
Case: 22-10382      Document: 00516789005          Page: 2     Date Filed: 06/15/2023

                   ______________________________

                  Appeals from the United States District Court
                       for the Northern District of Texas
                             USDC No. 5:19-CV-255
                  ______________________________

   Before Elrod, Ho, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:
          Plaintiff Lonnie Welsh, a convicted sexually violent predator, was held
   in the Lubbock County Detention Center as a pre-trial detainee for a period
   of approximately one month from December 2017 to January 2018. Soon
   after his arrival, he was placed in administrative segregation away from the
   facility’s general population, where he was held for most of the remainder of
   his time there. He subsequently brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against
   Lubbock County and a number of law enforcement officials, asserting a series
   of claims regarding his alleged mistreatment there.
          The district court entered an order dismissing the claims against the
   county and all but one of the officials, which he now appeals in the first of the
   consolidated cases. Plaintiff challenges the process by which he was placed
   and remained in administrative segregation, a claim the district court rejected
   because “absent extraordinary circumstances, administrative segregation as
   such, being an incident to the ordinary life of a prisoner, will never be a
   ground for a constitutional claim” because it “simply does not constitute a
   deprivation of a constitutionally cognizable liberty interest.” Pichardo v.
   Kinker, 73 F.3d 612, 612–13 (5th Cir. 1996). See also Cardenas v. Young, 655
   F. App’x 183, 186 (5th Cir. 2016) (applying this conclusion to pre-trial
   detention); Bonner v. Alford, 594 F. App’x 266, 267 (5th Cir. 2015) (same);
   Rhine v. City of Mansfield, 499 F. App’x 334, 335 (5th Cir. 2012) (same);
   Amaya v. Richardson, 289 F. App’x 792, 793 (5th Cir. 2008) (same); Gibbs v.
   Grimmette, 254 F.3d 545, 548 n.1 (5th Cir. 2001) (same). He also challenges
   a slew of aspects of his treatment in custody—such as his clothing, food,

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                                       No. 22-10382
                                     c/w No. 22-11049

   sanitation, recreation, and entertainment—that the district court rejected for
   failure to amount to a constitutional violation. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S.
   520, 539 & n.21 (1979) (allowing “condition[s] or restriction[s] of pretrial
   detention” that are “reasonably related to a legitimate governmental
   objective” or are “‘de minimis’” in nature). Additionally, Plaintiff raises
   policy claims against Lubbock County for deliberate indifference and failure
   to train and supervise, which the district court found lacked an underlying
   constitutional violation necessary to proceed. See Hicks-Fields v. Harris
   Cnty., 860 F.3d 803, 808 (5th Cir. 2017) (explaining that municipal liability
   requires an underlying constitutional violation).
             After the district court subsequently dismissed the remaining named
   official, Plaintiff moved to reconsider that dismissal and the dismissal of
   several of his other claims. The district court rejected both motions for lack
   of new evidence, which Plaintiff now appeals in the second of the
   consolidated cases.
             The Court has carefully considered these appeals in light of the briefs
   and pertinent portions of the record. Having found no reversible error, we
   affirm.

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                                          No. 22-10382
                                        c/w No. 22-11049

   Jennifer Walker Elrod, Circuit Judge, concurring:
           While I agree that the district court did not reversibly err here, I write
   separately to address the appropriate standard for review of claims brought
   by pre-trial detainees.
           Welsh was retained in administrative segregation from December 5,
   2017, to January 8, 2018, while he awaited his criminal trial.1 Prison records
   establish that paper reviews of Welsh’s placement in administrative
   segregation were conducted on December 17, 2017, and January 2, 2018, but
   Welsh asserts that he was improperly denied: notice of the reviews; a hearing;
   the opportunity to challenge the use of his status as a sexually violent
   predator as grounds for placing and keeping him administratively segregated;
   and written factual determinations for continuing to keep him in
   administrative segregation. This rendered him “unable to appeal the result
   under the procedures described in Texas Administrative Code 271.4.”
           In district court, Welsh relied on Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460 (1983),
   in which the Supreme Court held that state statutes defining procedures for
   confining an inmate to administrative segregation can give an inmate a
   protected liberty interest. Id. at 476. The district court agreed that Welsh
   was potentially denied procedural safeguards, but it nevertheless dismissed

           _____________________
           1
              Welsh was held in the Lamb County Jail awaiting trial from November 28, 2017,
   to June 20, 2018, except when he was transferred to the Lubbock County Jail from
   December 2017 to January 2018. In a separate case, Welsh v. Lamb County, et al., No. 22-
   10124, 2023 WL 3918995 (5th Cir. June 9, 2023), Welsh brought claims against officials at
   the Lamb County Jail. We reversed the district court’s dismissal of Welsh’s substantive
   due-process claim arising out of his allegation that he was forced for several days to drink
   from a toilet, because this was not a de minimis imposition such that his constitutional right
   to be free from punishment as a pre-trial detainee was not implicated. Id. at *3 (citing Bell
   v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535–40 (1979)). We remanded with instructions that Welsh’s
   factual allegations be considered under the law governing pre-trial detainees’ due-process
   rights. Id.

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                                    No. 22-10382
                                  c/w No. 22-11049

   Welsh’s claim because of this court’s holding that “absent extraordinary
   circumstances, administrative segregation as such, being an incident to the
   ordinary life of a prisoner, will never be a ground for a constitutional claim.”
   Pichardo v. Kinker, 73 F.3d 612, 612 (5th Cir. 1996). Pichardo relied on the
   Supreme Court’s holding in Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995).
   However, both Pichardo and Sandin dealt with convicted prisoners, not pre-
   trial detainees like Welsh.
          Every circuit to consider the issue of the proper standard for review of
   pre-trial detainee claims has held that Sandin does not apply to pre-trial
   detainee claims. See Dilworth v. Adams, 841 F.3d 246, 252 (4th Cir. 2016);
   Jacoby v. Baldwin County, 835 F.3d 1338, 1347–50 (11th Cir. 2016); Hanks v.
   Prachar, 457 F.3d 774, 776 (8th Cir. 2006); Surprenant v. Rivas, 424 F.3d 5,
   17 (1st Cir. 2005); Peoples v. CCA Det. Ctrs., 422 F.3d 1090, 1106 & n.12 (10th
   Cir. 2005), vacated in part on other grounds by 449 F.3d 1097 (10th Cir. 2006)
   (en banc); Benjamin v. Fraser, 264 F.3d 175, 188–89 (2d Cir. 2001); Rapier v.
   Harris, 172 F.3d 999, 1004–05 (7th Cir. 1999); Mitchell v. Dupnik, 75 F.3d
   517, 524 (9th Cir. 1996); see also Fuentes v. Wagner, 206 F.3d 335, 342 n.9 (3d
   Cir. 2000) (holding Sandin inapplicable to detainee convicted but not yet
   sentenced), abrogated in part on other grounds by Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576
   U.S. 389 (2015).
          Although circuits have uniformly held that pre-trial detainees’ claims
   are not governed by Sandin, they have reached different conclusions as to
   whether detainees may continue to rely on Hewitt to support their due
   process claims. Compare Thorpe v. Clarke, 37 F.4th 926, 944–46 (4th Cir.
   2022) (discussing the baseline procedural requirements for retaining an
   inmate in administrative segregation under Hewitt), Williamson v. Stirling,
   912 F.3d 154, 174–77 (4th Cir. 2018) (relying on Hewitt to determine whether
   a pre-trial detainee is entitled to procedural due process before and after
   being placed in administrative segregation), and Williams v. Hobbs, 662 F.3d

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                                    No. 22-10382
                                  c/w No. 22-11049

   994, 1006–09 (8th Cir. 2011) (holding post-Sandin that prisoners who were
   confined in non-disciplinary administrative segregation were entitled to
   meaningful periodic review under Hewitt), with Rapier v. Harris, 172 F.3d
   999, 1004–05 (7th Cir. 1999) (“We are aware that Sandin distinguishes
   between convicted prisoners and pretrial confinees, but we do not believe
   that the distinction made by the Court, read in context, justifies the
   continued vitality of the Hewitt approach in dealing with pretrial
   confinees.”).
          In several unpublished cases, we have applied Sandin and cases based
   on Sandin to pre-trial detainees, but we have not explicitly addressed whether
   Sandin’s holding applies to pre-trial detainees. See, e.g., Aucoin v. Terrebonne
   Par. Sheriff’s Off., No. 21-30322, 2022 WL 16657429, at *2 (5th Cir. Nov. 3,
   2022) (concluding that a pre-trial detainee’s claims about his disciplinary
   proceeding and subsequent lockdown sentence were properly dismissed
   because he did not allege any atypical or significant hardship); Cardenas v.
   Young, 655 F. App’x 183, 186 (5th Cir. 2016) (only applying Sandin during
   time when plaintiff was convicted prisoner, not pre-trial detainee); Bonner v.
   Alford, 594 F. App’x 266, 267 (5th Cir. 2015) (applying Pichardo to pre-trial
   detainee); Rhine v. City of Mansfield, 499 F. App’x 334, 335 (5th Cir. 2012)
   (applying Pichardo to pre-trial detainee); Amaya v. Richardson, 289 F. App’x
   792, 793 (5th Cir. 2008) (applying Pichardo to pre-trial detainee).
          Sandin does not apply to pre-trial detainees. For a convicted prisoner,
   administrative segregation falls under the “expected perimeters of the
   sentence imposed by a court of law.” Sandin, 515 U.S. at 485. But a pre-trial
   detainee is not subject to such an expectation of punishment. Id. at 484 (“[A]
   detainee ‘may not be punished prior to an adjudication of guilt in accordance
   with due process of law.’” (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535
   (1979))); Welsh v. Lamb County, 2023 WL 3918995, at *3 (remanding Welsh’s
   claim against Lamb County Jail). Unlike a convicted prisoner, a pre-trial

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                                     No. 22-10382
                                   c/w No. 22-11049

   detainee has a liberty interest in freedom from increased restraint, even if that
   restraint does not exceed the Sandin requirements. Hewitt continues to
   provide the correct framework for determining the procedural protections to
   which a pre-trial detainee is entitled to ensure that solitary confinement is not
   imposed as punishment.

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