Court Opinion

ID: 9462451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:41:15.839357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:35.723508
License: Public Domain

BUTZNER, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring):
I concur in the judgment based on Judge Russell’s majority opinion because the limited remedy it affords the prisoner is more consistent with the Constitution than the district court’s dismissal of this action. Although the judgment is a *867step in the right direction, it does not, in my opinion, provide the full remedy that the eighth and fourteenth amendments of the Constitution require.
Because other convicts endanger his life, James E. Sweet has been confined since October 1968 in a 9' x 12' segregated cell with only two one-hour periods a week for exercise followed by a shower. The reason why the convicts dislike Sweet is disputed. Whether their animosity is unfounded is of no consequence, for the prison officials know the threat to his life is real.1 Nevertheless, the warden maintains that Sweet’s segregated confinement is voluntary and that he may return to the prison population at any time. The district court, accepting the warden’s argument, dismissed the complaint.
Sweet’s predicament is not unique.2 The record discloses that more than a score of prisoners in the same institution are confined under similarly harsh conditions because they too are threatened, not because they are being punished for any wrong. Other prisoners’ complaints of assault and rape have previously come to our attention.3 We therefore convened the court en banc to examine the constitutional issues of this pervasive aspect of prison life. This required us to reconsider Breeden v. Jackson, 457 F.2d 578 (4th Cir. 1972), in which a divided court held that guarding a prisoner from harm by detaining him in maximum security at his own request was not cruel and unusual punishment, even though the conditions of his confinement were identical to those imposed on wrongdoers.
In Woodhous v. Virginia, 487 F.2d 889, 890 (4th Cir. 1973), we held, “A prisoner has a right, secured by the eighth and fourteenth amendments, to be reasonably protected from constant threat of violence and sexual assault by his fellow inmates, and he need not wait until he is actually assaulted to obtain relief.” Accord, Finney v. Arkansas Board of Correction, 505 F.2d 194, 201 (8th Cir. 1974). This salutary principle is not disputed. Therefore, the only issue in this case is the constitutionality of the means employed by the state to provide protection. As the citations in the majority opinion disclose, many cases hold that solitary confinement for a limited time to punish the infraction of prison rules is not unconstitutional. These cases do not, however, answer the critical issue before us, which is the constitutionality of using solitary confinement for an indefinite time to guard a prisoner who has violated no rules. Moreover, cases sanctioning punishment by solitary confinement rest on the premise that the warden’s discipline of unruly prisoners must be upheld to enable him to govern the prison effectively. See Sostre v. McGinnis, 442 F.2d 178, 192 (2d Cir. 1971). But these cases are inapplicable when the proof shows that unrestrained prisoners dominate other inmates through terror. Then, discipline is not promoted by placing the victims in solitary confinement while those who threaten them enjoy the privileges of prisoners at large.
It is now settled that a prisoner is not shorn of all constitutional rights. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 555, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). Among those which he retains is immunity from *868the arbitrary and capricious imposition of punishment for breaking prison disciplinary rules. Wolff v. McDonnell, supra; Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 9 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972). It is undisputed that Sweet has violated no prison regulations recently.4 Nevertheless, he is confined under conditions identical to those imposed on recalcitrant inmates. He is in solitary confinement because others have threatened his life. It is no answer to say that his complaint about this punishment should be dismissed on the ground that his confinement is voluntary. As Judge Craven convincingly demonstrated in Breeden v. Jackson, 457 F.2d 578, 581 (4th Cir. 1972) (Craven, J., dissenting), a preference for solitary confinement over the probability of death is not a real choice. Pragmatically, Sweet does not demand release from his segregated confinement lest his request be granted and death follow. His only alternative is to ask that his conditions of segregation be ameliorated. Because Sweet is coerced by the threat of harm, he has not voluntarily waived those constitutional rights which all prisoners possess. Cf. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938).
A prisoner charged with a breach of discipline is entitled to notice and a hearing to determine the validity of the charges before he can be placed in solitary confinement for an appreciable length of time. Haines v. Kerner, supra; Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, 418 U.S. at 556, 94 S.Ct. 2963 (dictum). The procedures required by these cases are not intended to be empty rituals. On the contrary, they are designed to insure that an innocent prisoner shall not be subjected to punitive confinement. When a prisoner has not broken any rules, the state has an obligation to provide an explanation for treating him as though he had. Threats against a prisoner’s life establish a rational explanation for protecting him, but not for punishing him. Though Sweet’s assignment to a punitive cell is labeled administrative or segregative, his treatment is tantamount to punishment. Confining him as though he has breached prison rules, when in fact he has not, is so arbitrary and capricious that it deprives him of due process of law. And placing him in the same class as lawless prisoners, though he is not lawless, denies him the equal protection of the law.
It is also settled that the fourteenth amendment makes applicable to the states the eighth amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962). Several tests have been articulated to determine whether punishment is cruel and unusual. Among these is whether the punishment is disproportionate to the offense. See Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 30 S.Ct. 544, 54 L.Ed. 793 (1910). Sweet is a victim of prison lawlessness, not a perpetrator of prison crime. Even if his years of solitary confinement were considered in the abstract to be neither cruel nor unusual punishment for one who broke a prison rule,5 Sweet’s confinement cannot be viewed in the abstract. Robinson v. California, supra, 370 U.S. at 667, 82 S.Ct. 1417. Measured by the prison’s own standards of punishment, his solitary confinement is clearly disproportionate to his conduct and therefore constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the eighth amendment.
Since the district court ruled that Sweet had suffered no constitutional *869wrong, it had no occasion to consider an appropriate remedy. I would overrule Breeden v. Jackson, 457 F.2d 578 (4th Cir. 1972), and remand Sweet’s case. The district court should direct the warden to submit a plan for imprisoning Sweet without depriving him of the privileges accorded other prisoners, so long as he does not violate any disciplinary rules. The plan might employ any of the following alternatives: the isolation or transfer of prisoners who threaten his life, so that Sweet could rejoin the general prison population; provision of additional guards for Sweet so he could regularly exercise, shower, and attend chapel; transferring Sweet to another institution where he could safely be confined; or other measures not readily apparent to a court. The fact that precautions for Sweet’s safe imprisonment may entail additional expense is not a justification for retaining him in solitary confinement in violation of his constitutional rights. Cf. Finney v. Arkansas Board of Correction, 505 F.2d 194, 201 (8th Cir. 1974); Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 571, 580 (8th Cir. 1968). Only if the warden is unable to devise a plan which will safely alter the present conditions of Sweet’s confinement would I authorize the district court to retain a consultant to investigate and report to the court what changes in the conditions of Sweet’s imprisonment are feasible. In this event, the court should consider appointing a person approved or nominated by Sweet’s counsel, and the cost should be taxed against the Board of Corrections. I would not award damages to Sweet. The warden acted in good faith, and he is entitled to rely on Breeden v. Jackson, 457 F.2d 578 (4th Cir. 1972), until its principles are authoritatively supplanted. Cf. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 555-57, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967).
Judge WINTER and Judge CRAVEN concur in this opinion.

.The warden testified:
Q: He is maximum security then?
Warden: Yes.
Q: Is he considered dangerous to the population then?
Warden: No, he is not considered dangerous to the population. I think — and I am not being facetious — the population is dangerous to him.
Q: I understand that but he is not a dangerous individual?
Warden: From my personal knowledge, I don’t feel Mr. Sweet is dangerous, no.

. See generally Toal, Recent Developments in Correctional Case Law, 1 Resolution of Correctional Problems and Issues 55 (S.C.Dept. of Corrections 1975).

. See, e. g., Woodhous v. Virginia, 487 F.2d 889 (4th Cir. 1973); Breeden v. Jackson, 457 F.2d 578 (4th Cir. 1972).

. In 1969 Sweet was disciplined by being placed in maximum detention on limited rations for twenty-eight days after he cursed and threatened a correctional officer. His present confinement, however, does not arise out of any rule violations.

. It has been suggested- that solitary confinement for unlimited duration constitutes cruel and unusual punishment per se, either because it endangers sanity or because of the inherent excessiveness of unlimited isolation. Cf. O’Brien v. Moriarty, 489 F.2d 941, 944 (1st Cir. 1974) (dictum); Sostre v. McGinnis, 442 F.2d 178, 207-09 (2d Cir. 1971) (Feinberg, J., dissenting). The disposition of Sweet’s case that I favor makes consideration of this question unnecessary.