Court Opinion

ID: 9480804
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:58:57.191079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:55.147842
License: Public Domain

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge,
with whom Circuit Judges RUSSELL, WIDENER, and WILKINS join, dissenting:
Our nation’s prisons, already racially charged, will become more so with this decision. The majority holds that an inmate can deliver racial taunts at a prison guard in an effort to provoke an altercation, and when the guard responds in a measured way, then sue him under § 1983. I am astounded that a § 1983 suit would lie for a prisoner who has engaged in a course of deliberate racial provocation, and I can only conclude that, despite the majority’s invocation of Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 106 S.Ct. 1078, 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986), its standard has effectively been confined to its factual setting of institution-wide disturbances. On both of these grounds, and for the reasons expressed in the superseded panel opinion, see 885 F.2d 151, I dissent.
I.
The majority holds that “verbal provocation” on the part of a prisoner is legally irrelevant for purposes of summary judgment. I disagree. I believe that it is not only appropriate, but essential, that an inmate’s deliberate racial provocation of his guard be taken into account when assessing whether the force employed by the guard " 'was applied in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline or maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.’ ” Whitley, 475 U.S. at 320-21, 106 S.Ct. at 1084-85 (quoting Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1033 (2d Cir.1973)).
It is undisputed that Miller baited Officer Leathers with degrading racial epithets. The majority fails even to mention that Miller, who is white, admits calling Leathers a “slush-headed nigger” and threatening him with physical violence. In addition, Miller leveled sexual insults against Leathers’ mother. Miller even conceded in his own deposition testimony that he made a deliberate decision to provoke Leathers so that Leathers would write him up for a disciplinary infraction. Moreover, these taunts and threats were issued by a violent criminal who had many times over proven his willingness to back up his threats with action. Between March 1, 1978, and November 22, 1986, Miller had committed some twenty-seven disciplinary infractions, involving, among other things, possession of weapons, physical assaults, and threats of physical harm against numerous prison officials. In fact, it was because of Miller’s past unruly conduct that he was in close custody and administrative segregation when Leathers left the grievance form with him and instructed him to sign it.
In the face of Miller’s verbal assault accompanied by threats of physical violence, Leathers took no immediate action. It was only when Miller turned to face him — a move that would be difficult to interpret as anything but confrontational— that Leathers struck Miller with his baton three times about the arms and forced his retreat. Absent from the incident were the indicia of a retaliatory beating. Leathers *1090did not strike Miller in the head, groin, or from behind, nor while prostrate; instead, he struck him in the obvious area of the body with which Miller appeared to be attacking Leathers, his raised handcuffed arms and fists. While it is true Leathers struck Miller three times, the three blows were necessary because Miller caught and blocked the first blow between his handcuffs, and then laughed and taunted Leathers, telling him “his mama could hit harder than he was doing” — an indication that the first blow had not deterred Miller and that Miller sought to further provoke Leathers. It would be unrealistic to expect a more restrained response by Leathers to what can only be considered a threat of violence. See Johnson, 481 F.2d at 1033 (“The management by a few guards of large numbers of prisoners, not usually the most gentle or tractable of men and women, may require and justify the occasional use of a degree of intentional force.”).*
The majority now rules that Miller’s stream of slurs and threats of violence were mere “verbal provocation” and all but immaterial for purposes of summary judgment. I do not think Miller’s taunting conduct can be dismissed so lightly. The abusive language used by Miller was of the most contemptible sort — “fighting words” intended “by their very utterance [to] inflict injury or ... to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 769, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942). While endurance of a certain amount of verbal jousting is part of the profile of professionalism of any prison guard, the people behind the uniforms are still human beings. Prisons, moreover, are combustible settings, and prison order rests upon a fragile equilibrium. See Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526-27, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3200, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984). By discounting for purposes of summary judgment the significance of Miller’s efforts to provoke a fight with Leathers, the majority tips the balance against the maintenance of institutional order. It issues a regrettable invitation to racial conflagration by signaling prisoners that they may freely barrage their guards with slurs and threats of violence, and then, in a no-lose proposition, sue them under § 1983 if the guards respond in even so much as a measured way. Few rulings more seriously jeopardize the stability of the prison environment.
II.
While professing to apply the “obduracy and wantonness” standard for cruel and unusual punishment in Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 106 S.Ct. 1078, 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986), the majority in fact limits the standard’s applicability to the quelling of prison riots. Such a departure from the Eighth Amendment standard is warranted neither under the language of Whitley nor the concerns expressed in that decision.
The Supreme Court in Whitley stressed the difficulties of maintaining discipline in the prison setting, emphasizing that these difficulties are exacerbated when defiant and disobedient prisoners threaten institutional order. “[I]n making and carrying out decisions involving the use of force to restore order in the face of a prison disturbance, prison officials undoubtedly must take into account the very real threats the unrest presents to inmates and prison officials alike, in addition to the possible harms to inmates against whom force might be used.” Id. at 320, 106 S.Ct. at 1084; see also Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 547, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1878, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). Because prison officials often must immediately and emphatically defuse potentially explosive situations, courts should be “hesi-tan[t] to critique in hindsight decisions necessarily made in haste, under pressure, and frequently without the luxury of a second *1091chance.” Whitley, 475 U.S. at 320, 106 S.Ct. at 1084.
In light of the dangers posed by defiant inmates and in recognition of the fact that unabated lawsuits against prison authorities are themselves no aid to prison discipline, the Whitley Court made the Eighth Amendment standard a difficult one to satisfy. For conduct to violate Eighth Amendment rights, it “must involve more than ordinary lack of due care for the prisoner’s interests or safety.” Whitley, 475 U.S. at 319, 106 S.Ct. at 1084. The infliction of pain is not cruel and unusual punishment “simply because it may appear in retrospect that the degree of force authorized or applied for security purposes was unreasonable.” Id. “It is obduracy and wantonness, not inadvertence or error in good faith, that characterize the conduct prohibited by the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause.” Id.
There is nothing whatsoever in Whitley to suggest that this standard is not applicable to instances of individual insurgency or insubordination. See Brown v. Smith, 813 F.2d 1187 (11th Cir.1987). Indeed, one can readily imagine why the standard should apply. Defiance of prison rules may be contagious among inmates; testing the tolerances of guards may prove to be great sport. By reversing the grant of summary judgment here, the majority countenances conduct which hardly needs encouragement. It must do so, it explains, because “[t]he outcome of the case depends on the resolution of certain factual disputes which will largely turn on judgments about credibility.” Maj. op. at 1089. While it is no doubt true that the quarrel between Miller and Leathers, like any other, had two sides, not every disputed fact between an inmate and a guard is a material fact for purposes of summary judgment. Rather, “a prisoner may avoid ... summary judgment ... only if the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to him goes beyond a mere dispute over the reasonableness of the force used and will support a reliable inference of wantonness in the infliction of pain.” Brown, 813 F.2d at 1188.
The Whitley Court indicated that obduracy and wantonness have not been demonstrated, and a § 1983 suit should not go forward, unless the prisoner who has allegedly been wronged can make “a showing that there was no plausible basis for the officials’ belief that this degree of force was necessary.” Whitley, 475 U.S. at 323, 106 S.Ct. at 1086. Here, Miller is incapable of making such a showing. In light of Miller’s abusive language, his threats of violence, and his turning on Leathers in direct defiance of an order to move forward, it was not just plausible, but entirely reasonable, that Leathers believed the force he applied to be necessary to protect himself. To hold, as the majority does, that there is a genuine issue of disputed fact on this record is to “effectively collapse[ ] the distinction between mere negligence and wanton conduct ... implicit in the Eighth Amendment.” Id. at 322, 106 S.Ct. at 1086. The result of the majority’s holding is to leave the Whitley standard intact only in the context of prison riots, and to substitute a negligence standard in all other contexts.
Moreover, the majority compounds its error by relying on a statement of the standard for summary judgment which not only predates the Supreme Court’s recent pronouncements on the subject, see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986), but also affords prison officials little legal protection against a spate of prison altercation suits. Quoting from Charbonnages de France v. Smith, 597 F.2d 406, 414 (4th Cir.1979), the majority states that the nonmoving party “is entitled ‘to have the credibility of his evidence as forecast assumed, his version of all that is in dispute accepted, [and] all internal conflicts in it resolved favorably to him.’ ” Maj. op. at 1087. The Supreme Court has recently made clear, however, that the burden on the responding party is considerably more exacting. In Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986), the Court stated that “there is no issue for trial unless there is sufficient evidence favoring the nonmoving party for a jury to return a verdict for that party. If the evidence is *1092merely colorable, or is not significantly probative, summary judgment may be granted.” Id. at 249-50, 106 S.Ct. at 2510-11 (citations omitted). Under this standard, it is even more plain that summary judgment was warranted because Miller failed to make the required showing that there was “no plausible basis” for Leathers to believe his use of force was necessary. Whitley, 475 U.S. at 323, 106 S.Ct. at 1086. The majority’s view of summary judgment has transformed the inevitable two sides of every prison argument into a jury question under § 1983 and deprived prison officials of Rule 56’s ordinary purposes.
In addition to being in error as a matter of law, the majority’s position is disastrous as a matter of prison policy. From this day forward, every altercation between prisoner and guard will provide the basis for a § 1983 suit which will invariably be allowed to go to the jury. Courts will become the new wardens whose job it now is to resolve the innumerable spats that may be expected to arise in any setting of confinement. Moreover, as a result of the majority’s ruling, prison guards will be placed in an intolerable dilemma. If they fail to respond quickly and forcefully to a reasonably perceived threat of violence, they risk bodily injury to themselves and others; if they do respond, however, they will undoubtedly find themselves defending a § 1983 suit before a jury.
III.
I recognize, of course, that the danger to institutional order is a double-edged sword in that the wanton use of force in violation of Eighth Amendment safeguards may itself be an impediment to institutional peace. Section 1983 is a vital protection against the malicious use of force by guards against prison inmates. The majority, however, transforms it from a protection into a license — a license for inmates to engage with impunity in calculated challenges to institutional authority.
I respectfully dissent.

 The majority makes much of the fact that Leathers may have acted in violation of a prison regulation by removing Miller from his cell outside the supervision of a higher authority to take him to see Leathers' superior. If such were the case, it would be a matter between Leathers and his supervisors, and would not be disposi-tive of the present action. Indeed, if violations of internal prison regulations were conclusive of § 1983 liability, prison authorities might either be reluctant to promulgate strict rules of conduct for prison guards or be prone to cover up infractions.