Court Opinion

ID: 9430262
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:22.232369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:23.961274
License: Public Domain

*349Justice Brennan,
dissenting.
I agree with the Court that merely negligent conduct by a state official, even though causing personal injury, does not constitute a deprivation of liberty under the Due Process Clause. I do believe, however, that official conduct which causes personal injury due to recklessness or deliberate indifference, does deprive the victim of liberty within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
As Justice Blackmun persuasively demonstrates in his dissent, the record in this case strongly suggests that the prison officials’ failure to protect petitioner from attack was reckless and not merely negligent. Accordingly, like Justice Blackmun, I would vacate the judgment and remand this case so that the Court of Appeals may review the District Court’s holding that respondents’ conduct was not reckless.