Court Opinion

ID: 9548242
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:00:30.929298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:19.855541
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-40548         Document: 00516847947             Page: 1      Date Filed: 08/07/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                                      United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                               Fifth Circuit

                                      ____________                                           FILED
                                                                                        August 7, 2023
                                       No. 22-40548                                     Lyle W. Cayce
                                      ____________                                           Clerk

   Angela Germaine Spencer, by and through next friend and mother of
   A.S., a minor,

                                                                     Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                             versus

   The County of Harrison Texas,

                                                Defendant—Appellee.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                           for the Eastern District of Texas
                                USDC No. 2:20-CV-37
                      ______________________________

   Before Wiener, Southwick, and Duncan, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          A 10-year-old boy was handcuffed and shackled as he was transported
   from a detention center to juvenile court. He appeared before the juvenile
   court judge with leg shackles. He sued the county responsible for his
   shackling, contending his constitutional rights were violated by the county’s
   policies and practices for juvenile shackling. The district court granted the

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-40548     Document: 00516847947          Page: 2    Date Filed: 08/07/2023

                                   No. 22-40548

   county’s summary judgment motion, ruling the plaintiff failed to provide any
   authority supporting the claimed violation. We AFFIRM.
           FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
          A.S. is an African American male who was 10 years old when the
   events underlying this suit occurred. On April 28, 2017, A.S. was restrained
   by two staff members at his elementary school. During the incident, A.S. hit
   and kicked the individuals. On May 10, another incident resulted in A.S.’s
   biting and scratching two staff members. On that same day, a judge of the
   Juvenile Court of Harrison County, Texas, issued an order for A.S. to be
   taken immediately into custody for assault on a public servant. The cited
   authority was Section 52.01(a)(1) of the Texas Family Code for a violation of
   Section 22.01 of the Texas Penal Code. Law enforcement officers took A.S.
   to the Harrison County Juvenile Detention Center, where he was placed in
   the custody of the County’s Juvenile Probation Department.
          Once A.S. was in custody, trained and certified officers conducted the
   intake process. He was given a medical-health screening, a risk-and-needs
   assessment, and a mental-health assessment. On the assessment, A.S. scored
   a two out of five on suicidal ideation. Based on this, he was placed on
   “cautionary” status where he was observed regularly by detention center
   staff. During his stay in detention, A.S. did not receive any written reports
   of incidents or have any instances of behavior warranting disciplinary action.
          On May 12, A.S. was scheduled for a hearing in juvenile court,
   variously referred to as a “release hearing,” “pre-determination hearing,”
   and “probable cause hearing.” The hearing was within 48 hours of his
   detention. For his hearing, A.S. was dressed in standard detention clothes
   and was leg shackled and handcuffed with a “belly belt.” He and other
   juveniles going to court went through the entrance of the Harrison County
   Sheriff’s Office in the basement of the courthouse, and then went up to the

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   first floor through a non-public elevator. In the waiting room outside the
   juvenile courtroom, his handcuffs and belly belt were removed, but his leg
   shackles remained. The leg shackles — a restraint approved by the Juvenile
   Court Judge — were used for all detainees taken to juvenile court. After
   probation staff ensured there were no adult inmates in the courtroom, A.S.
   and the other juveniles were taken into the courtroom and seated in the jury
   box. A.S. had counsel at his hearing. 1 At the close of the hearing, A.S. was
   conditionally released to his mother.
           On February 14, 2020, A.S., by and through his next of friend and
   mother, Angela Germaine Spencer, filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
   against Harrison County. The county moved for summary judgment on all
   claims. The magistrate judge entered a Report and Recommendation that
   summary judgment should be granted. The only claim relevant in this appeal
   is for the “unnecessary and excessive restraints” during transport and in the
   courtroom, a claim A.S. asserts based on the Fourth and/or Fourteenth
   Amendment. 2 The magistrate judge, in a brief explanation, ruled A.S. failed
   to provide relevant caselaw supporting the claimed violation. Plaintiff filed
   objections to the magistrate judge’s decision. The district court rejected
   Plaintiff’s objections and adopted the Report and Recommendation. A.S.
   timely appealed.
                                      DISCUSSION
           “We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo,
   applying the same standard as the district court.” Hicks-Fields v. Harris
           _____________________
           1
            The record does not include a transcript from the hearing, nor do the parties
   address whether Plaintiff’s counsel objected to the shackling or requested that his shackles
   be removed for the hearing.
           2
             Plaintiff’s counsel at oral argument conceded that the restraint used on A.S.
   during transport from the detention center to courthouse is not an issue in this appeal.

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   Cnty., 860 F.3d 803, 807–08 (5th Cir. 2017). Summary judgment is proper
   “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact
   and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ.
   P. 56(a).
          A county is not subject to vicarious liability in a suit brought under
   Section 1983; the county must itself have caused the injury. Hicks-Fields, 860
   F.3d at 808. To establish municipal liability under Section 1983, a plaintiff
   must show an underlying constitutional violation and also “that (1) an official
   policy (2) promulgated by the municipal policymaker (3) was the moving
   force behind the violation of a constitutional right.” Id. (quotation marks and
   citation omitted).
          The question here is whether A.S.’s constitutional rights were
   violated when he was shackled without an individualized assessment of need
   during his initial detention hearing before the juvenile judge.
          Plaintiff maintains the “restraint was unnecessary and excessive and
   thus violated [A.S.’s] rights, pursuant to the Fourth Amendment of the
   United States Constitution, to be free from unnecessary and excessive
   restraint and seizure.” Underlying this claimed constitutional violation are
   due process principles that are intertwined with the goals of the juvenile
   delinquency process. One basis for Plaintiff’s claim is a “presumption of
   innocence in favor of the accused,” which “is the undoubted law, axiomatic
   and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the
   administration of our criminal law.” See Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 483
   (1978) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Another basis is the State’s
   “parens patriae interest in preserving and promoting the welfare of the child,
   which makes a juvenile proceeding fundamentally different from an adult
   criminal trial.” See Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S. 253, 263 (1984) (quotation
   marks and citation omitted). That relationship requires “a balance — to
   respect the informality and flexibility that characterize juvenile proceedings,

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   and yet to ensure that such proceedings comport with the fundamental
   fairness demanded by the Due Process Clause.” Id. at 263 (quotation marks
   and citations omitted).
            Certainly, a defendant’s entitlement to a presumption of innocence is
   a critical component of our criminal justice system. See Estelle v. Williams,
   425 U.S. 501, 503 (1976). In that light, courts have grappled with the due
   process concerns of shackling defendants in the courtroom. The Supreme
   Court has held that “the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the use
   of physical restraints visible to the jury absent a trial court determination.”
   Deck v. Missouri, 544 U.S. 622, 629 (2005). Shackling “‘undermines the
   presumption of innocence and the related fairness of the proceedings,’ ‘can
   interfere with a defendant’s ability to participate in his own defense,’ and
   affronts the ‘dignity and decorum of judicial proceedings that the judge is
   seeking to uphold.’” United States v. Banegas, 600 F.3d 342, 345 (5th Cir.
   2010) (quoting Deck, 544 U.S. at 630–31).
            The concerns precipitating the prohibition of shackling a defendant
   before the factfinder have not been extended to proceedings such as what
   occurred here. Plaintiff relies on some opinions from some state courts that
   analyzed juvenile detainees’ rights regarding restraint at the adjudicatory
   stage of the juvenile delinquency process. See, e.g., In re Staley, 352 N.E.2d 3
   (Ill. App. Ct. 1976), aff’d sub nom. In re Staley, 364 N.E.2d 72 (Ill. 1977)
   (reversed and remanded for new adjudicatory hearing when juvenile
   defendant was shackled during bench trial). Although the opinions Plaintiff
   cites identified considerations for indiscriminate shackling of juveniles, they
   lack factual application in this case and, of course, are not controlling on this
   court.
            Although we do not diminish concerns regarding juvenile shackling,
   authority does not dictate the result Plaintiff seeks. Plaintiff fails to provide

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   authority that recognizes a juvenile’s constitutional right not to be shackled
   without some assessment of necessity during an initial detention hearing
   before a juvenile judge. We will not create that right.
          AFFIRMED.

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