Court Opinion

ID: 9493707
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:16:04.354484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:58.976707
License: Public Domain

DIANE P. WOOD,
Circuit Judge, with whom WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, joins, concurring.
I agree with much of what the principal opinion has written in this case, including most importantly its conclusion that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity from suit on Fuller’s claims for damages and its conclusion that any claims for injunctive relief he is still raising are moot. I write only to note that I understand the discussion of the merits of Illinois’s system for administering forced medication to a prisoner as something directed to the question whether the state officials must have known that without a second level of independent review their system was clearly unconstitutional. As the principal opinion’s discussion illustrates, there is much that appears quite reasonable in the system the state has adopted, and thus there is no way Fuller can overcome the claim of qualified immunity from suit. See, e.g., Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987); May v. Sheahan, 226 F.3d 876, 881 (7th Cir.2000). Because our decision rests on qualified immunity, however, I do not read it as a final conclusion on the constitutionality of Illinois’s system in the absence of review by the Agency Medical Director. The district court did not rest its decision on that ground, and there is no need for us to do so either. It is enough to say that we agree with the district court that qualified immunity is surely present on these particular facts, and leave other possible cases for another day.