The opinion
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FOR PUBLICATION
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-12167
____________________
RACHEAL GANTT,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
DEPUTY EVERETT,
Jefferson County Corrections Officer,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 2:23-cv-00648-RDP
____________________
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and LAGOA and KIDD, Circuit
Judges.
WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge:
This interlocutory appeal requires us to decide whether a
deputy was deliberately indifferent to injuries suffered by an
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2 Opinion of the Court 24-12167
inmate during her attempted suicide. After Deputy Monica Everett
saw that Racheal Gantt had suffered a head injury that needed med-
ical attention and spoke with a nurse about it, she remotely un-
locked Gantt’s jail cell door to transport her to the medical clinic.
Gantt suddenly ran up a flight of stairs and jumped from a second-
story landing. Gantt sued Everett for deliberate indifference, 42
U.S.C. § 1983, and Everett later moved for summary judgment
based on qualified immunity. The district court denied summary
judgment. We vacate and remand with instructions to grant Ever-
ett qualified immunity because she did not violate Gantt’s consti-
tutional rights.
I. BACKGROUND
This appeal arises out of Racheal Gantt’s pretrial detainment
at the Jefferson County Jail. After Gantt expressed suicidal thoughts
to mental health personnel, she was placed on suicide watch and
transferred to the A Block. The A Block is on the fifth floor, and it
contains two stories of cells that open to a common area called the
“day space.” Gantt was placed in a cell on the bottom story. Be-
cause she was on suicide watch, Gantt had a “suicide smock” in-
stead of a standard uniform. Suicide smocks are thick, green Velcro
blankets that inmates cannot rip or tear.
On February 8, 2023, Deputies Morgan and Yunker were
working on the fifth floor where Gantt was detained. Control
Room Operator Lovell was stationed in the fifth-floor control
room. Deputies can unlock cell doors from the control room or,
while standing in a particular block, use the intercom system to
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24-12167 Opinion of the Court 3
request that the control room operator unlock a certain cell door.
When a cell door is unlocked from the control room, it swings
open.
Everett was stationed on the first floor that day, but she
went to the fifth floor “to assist with a shakedown in [the] F Block.”
During the shakedown, Everett and Deputy McCants escorted a
female inmate from the F Block to the A Block for disciplinary pur-
poses.
In the A Block, Everett heard Gantt “screaming and crying
hysterically” in her cell. Everett had never interacted with or heard
of Gantt. Everett testified that suicide attempts are “well-known
throughout the jail,” and that she “would have heard [Gantt’s]
name plenty of times if she had done anything.” But Everett knew
that prison staff typically kept suicidal inmates on the bottom floor
of the A Block because jumping off the second-story landing is an
“obvious suicide” risk. Before the incident with Gantt, Everett
knew of two inmates in the general jail population who had
jumped off the second-story landing and injured themselves.
Everett noticed Gantt’s suicide smock and realized that she
was on suicide watch, which meant “that at some point, [Gantt]
had to have told somebody she wanted to kill herself.” Gantt told
Everett that she had a head injury, but it is unclear precisely what
Gantt said. In any event, Everett saw a “large knot” on Gantt’s
head, so she went to the control room and called the medical clinic.
A nurse told Everett to bring Gantt to the clinic. When Ev-
erett told the other deputies in the control room that she was
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4 Opinion of the Court 24-12167
taking Gantt to the medical clinic, none of them warned her that
“they [were] worried about [Gantt], [or] thought she was one that
was more likely to commit suicide,” even though the deputies reg-
ularly “rely on each other . . . for information . . . about particular
inmates.” And in Everett’s view, Gantt’s request for help was “a
sure sign that [Gantt] want[ed] help not to harm herself any fur-
ther.” Everett yelled for another deputy to grab a uniform for Gantt
and unlocked Gantt’s cell door from the control room. There were
no deputies in the A Block when Everett unlocked Gantt’s cell.
After her cell door unlocked, Gantt ran out of her cell, across
the day space, and up the stairs leading to the second level of the A
Block. At this point, Everett had left the control room and returned
to the A Block. She saw Gantt run up the stairs and yelled at her to
come down. Everett initially “assumed that [Gantt] was just trying
to get something from somebody” on the second story because
Gantt did not have access to the prison store. But when Gantt
reached the top landing and “had her hand on the rail,” Everett
“knew what she was doing.”
Everett ran up the stairs to try to stop Gantt, but she did not
reach Gantt before Gantt jumped. Gantt jumped 23 seconds after
Everett unlocked her cell door. Gantt was taken to the emergency
room, where she was treated for ankle fractures from her jump and
for her preexisting head injury.
Gantt sued Everett for violating her rights under the Four-
teenth Amendment. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She alleged that Everett
was deliberately indifferent to a strong likelihood that she would
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24-12167 Opinion of the Court 5
attempt to take her own life and that Everett’s deliberate indiffer-
ence resulted in her suicide attempt and injuries.
After discovery, Everett moved for summary judgment
based on qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion.
It ruled that a reasonable juror could find that Everett violated
Gantt’s constitutional rights by “deliberately disregard[ing] a
strong likelihood . . . that harm would occur if she let [Gantt] out
of her cell unsupervised.” It also ruled that Everett violated clearly
established law because “the Eleventh Circuit has made clear that
an officer’s deliberate indifference to the risk of serious harm to a
detainee is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We “review a denial of qualified immunity de novo and, on a
motion for summary judgment, view the evidence in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party.” Nelson v. Tompkins, 89 F.4th
1289, 1295 (11th Cir. 2024).
III. DISCUSSION
“[Q]ualified immunity completely protects government of-
ficials performing discretionary functions from suit in their individ-
ual capacities unless their conduct violates clearly established stat-
utory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would
have known.” Marbury v. Warden, 936 F.3d 1227, 1232 (11th Cir.
2019) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The official
invoking qualified immunity has the initial burden to establish that
she was acting within her discretionary authority. Id. Gantt does
not dispute that Everett acted within her discretionary authority.
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So Gantt bore the burden to prove that a reasonable jury could find
that Everett violated her constitutional right and that her right was
clearly established when Everett violated it. See Nelson, 89 F.4th at
1296.
Pretrial detainees have a Fourteenth Amendment right “to
be protected from self-inflicted injuries, including suicide.” Jackson
v. West, 787 F.3d 1345, 1352 (11th Cir. 2015) (citation omitted). For
a prisoner-suicide claim, “the plaintiff must show that the jail offi-
cial displayed deliberate indifference to the prisoner’s taking of his
own life.” Id. at 1353 (emphasis omitted) (citation and internal quo-
tation marks omitted). A deliberate-indifference claim has both an
objective and a subjective component: an inmate must prove that
she “suffered a deprivation that was, objectively, sufficiently seri-
ous” and that the defendant “acted with subjective recklessness as
used in the criminal law.” Wade v. McDade, 106 F.4th 1251, 1262
(11th Cir. 2024) (en banc) (citations and internal quotation marks
omitted) (clarifying the standard for establishing liability on an
Eighth Amendment deliberate-indifference claim); see also Tittle v.
Jefferson Cnty. Comm’n, 10 F.3d 1535, 1539 (11th Cir. 1994) (en banc)
(“Whether the alleged violation is reviewed under the Eighth or
Fourteenth Amendment is immaterial because in a prisoner suicide
case . . . under either the [E]ighth or [F]ourteenth [A]mendment,
the plaintiff must show that the jail official defendant displayed de-
liberate indifference to the prisoner’s taking of his own life.” (alter-
ations adopted) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).
Subjective recklessness means that “the defendant was actually,
subjectively aware that his own conduct caused a substantial risk
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24-12167 Opinion of the Court 7
of serious harm to the plaintiff.” Wade, 106 F.4th at 1262. The offi-
cial’s subjective awareness of the risk must be tied to the specific
individual whose rights are at issue. See Tittle, 10 F.3d at 1539
(“[O]fficials [must] have notice of the suicidal tendency of the indi-
vidual whose rights are at issue in order to be held liable for the
suicide of that individual.”).
Gantt satisfied the objective requirement of her claim of de-
liberate indifference. She “suffered a deprivation that was, objec-
tively, sufficiently serious” because she was not prevented from in-
juring herself by jumping off the stairs. Wade, 106 F.4th at 1262 (ci-
tation and internal quotation marks omitted). But Gantt failed to
establish that Everett was “actually, subjectively aware” that her
decision to unlock Gantt’s cell from the control room “caused a
substantial risk of serious harm” to Gantt based on Gantt’s suicidal
tendencies. Id.
To be sure, Everett knew that suicidal inmates were kept on
the bottom floor of the A Block because jumping off the second-
story landing is an “obvious suicide” risk, and she knew of two in-
mates in the general jail population who had jumped from the sec-
ond-story landing and injured themselves. She agreed that when
the cell door was unlocked, that would give Gantt the opportunity
to run up the stairs and jump “[i]f she wanted to.” And Everett
“knew that at some point, [Gantt] had to have told somebody she
wanted to kill herself to be on suicide watch.”
But there is no evidence in the record from which a reason-
able jury could find that when Everett remotely unlocked Gantt’s
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8 Opinion of the Court 24-12167
cell door, Everett was subjectively aware that doing so created a
substantial risk that Gantt would climb the stairs and jump. Everett
had no prior knowledge about any suicide attempts by Gantt. She
testified that suicide attempts are “well-known throughout the
jail,” and that she “would have heard [Gantt’s] name plenty of
times if she had done anything.” She also testified that when she
walked into the control room and told the deputies there that she
was about to take Gantt to the medical clinic, “if they [were] wor-
ried about [Gantt], [or] thought she was one that was more likely
to commit suicide,” they would have warned her because the dep-
uties regularly “rely on each other . . . for information . . . about
particular inmates.” Everett testified, without dispute, that Gantt’s
request for assistance was, in her view, “a sure sign that [Gantt]
want[ed] help not to harm herself any further.” And when Everett
first saw Gantt climb the stairs, she “assumed that [Gantt] was just
trying to get something from somebody” because Gantt did not
have access to the prison store as a suicidal inmate. It was not until
Gantt “had her hand on the rail” that Everett “knew what she was
doing.”
We reject the notion that we must view Everett’s response
to Gantt’s suicide risk in isolation from the risk posed by her head
injury. Everett perceived that Gantt’s head injury created an imme-
diate risk of serious harm for which she was seeking help, and Ev-
erett indisputably tried to help her. She approached Gantt’s cell
upon hearing her cries, relayed her injury to the jail’s nurses, and
arranged for her transport to the medical clinic. After unlocking
Gantt’s door from the control room, Everett immediately walked
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24-12167 Opinion of the Court 9
back to the A Block to take Gantt to the medical clinic. When she
realized that Gantt was going to jump, Everett chased after her to
try to stop her. Because Everett sought to aid Gantt, we cannot say
that she knowingly ignored a substantial risk of harm at the same
time.
Perhaps Everett acted negligently in rendering aid. Perhaps
she should have ensured that another deputy was in the A Block
before unlocking Gantt’s cell. Perhaps she could have made her
way back to the A Block with greater haste. But the Fourteenth
Amendment does not prohibit negligence; it prohibits “subjective
recklessness as used in the criminal law.” Wade, 106 F.4th at 1262
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Because Everett
was not criminally reckless, she did not violate Gantt’s constitu-
tional rights and is entitled to qualified immunity.
IV. CONCLUSION
We VACATE and REMAND with instructions to enter
summary judgment for Everett based on qualified immunity.
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24-12167 Kidd, J., Dissenting 1
KIDD, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
This deliberate indifference claim comes with a knotty fact
pattern. Deputy Everett had to confront two separate, known risks
to Gantt’s health and safety. The first risk was the obvious head in-
jury that Everett saw when she observed Gantt in her cell. No one
faults Everett for attempting to help Gantt with that medical emer-
gency. But this first risk is not before us, and we must be careful not
to allow Everett’s response to Gantt’s head injury to cloud our re-
view of her response to the second risk: Gantt’s known suicidal
tendencies. I disagree with the majority’s finding that “there is no
evidence in the record from which a reasonable jury could find that
when Everett remotely unlocked Gantt’s cell door, Everett was sub-
jectively aware that doing so created a substantial risk that Gantt
would climb the stairs and jump.” That conclusion is at odds with
the record before us.
The majority and I both begin our deliberate indifference
analysis with Wade v. McDade, 106 F.4th 1251 (11th Cir. 2024) (en
banc). In Wade, we held that “a deliberate-indifference plaintiff
must show that the defendant acted with ‘subjective recklessness
as used in the criminal law,’ and that in order to do so, the plaintiff
must demonstrate that the defendant actually knew that his con-
duct—his own acts or omissions—put the plaintiff at substantial
risk of serious harm.” Id. at 1253 (citation omitted) (quoting Farmer
v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 839 (1994)). That is what occurred here.
As the majority recognizes, despite minimal prior interac-
tion between Everett and Gantt, Everett subjectively knew that (1)
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2 Kidd, J., Dissenting 24-12167
Gantt was suicidal and was on suicide watch; (2) suicidal inmates
were kept on the bottom floor of the A Block because jumping off
the second-story landing is an “obvious suicide” risk; (3) at least two
other inmates in the general jail population had jumped from the
second-story landing and injured themselves; and (4) remotely un-
locking Gantt’s door gave Gantt the opportunity to run up the
stairs and jump.
What did Everett do with this knowledge? She remotely un-
locked Gantt’s cell door (knowing that Gantt was on suicide
watch), which allowed Gantt to run up the stairs and jump (exactly
what Everett knew other inmates had done before). Everett’s ac-
tions went beyond mere negligence. It does not matter if Everett
thought, or if we believe that it was reasonable for Everett to think,
that Gantt might not attempt suicide at that moment. Rather, the
evidence supports that Everett “[was] aware that [her] conduct
might cause the [attempted suicide] result, though it [was] not sub-
stantially certain to happen.” Id. at 1261 (emphasis omitted) (quot-
ing Wayne LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 5.4(f ), at 507 (2018))
(citation modified). That is all “subjective recklessness as used in
the criminal law” requires.
In Wade, we also added the caveat that, if the defendant “‘ac-
tually knew of a substantial risk to inmate health or safety,’ he ‘can-
not be found liable . . .’ if he ‘responded reasonably to th[at] risk.’”
Id. at 1262 (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 844–45). There are several
reasonable responses that Everett could have taken in light of
Gantt’s suicide risk, including, as the majority notes, “ensur[ing]
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24-12167 Kidd, J., Dissenting 3
that another deputy was in the A Block before unlocking Gantt’s
cell.” That would have allowed Everett to respond reasonably both
to Gantt’s head injury and to her suicide risk.
What was not a reasonable response to Gantt’s suicide risk
was simply unlocking the cell door remotely and providing the op-
portunity for Gantt to do what Everett knew was possible: a suicide
attempt. The majority accurately notes that, after unlocking
Gantt’s cell door, Everett walked back to the cell block and then
chased Gantt up the stairs. But that was not a response to Gantt’s
suicide risk. That was Everett’s response to her own misjudgment.
Perhaps that response would be persuasive to a jury at trial, but it
should not entirely absolve her of liability at this stage through
qualified immunity.
We must bear in mind that this case is currently before us on
summary judgment. “Where the nonmoving party [here, Gantt]
bears the burden of proof at trial, the moving party [here, Everett]
may discharge this initial responsibility by showing that there is an
absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party’s case. If [Ev-
erett] makes that showing, [Gantt] must come forward with evi-
dence sufficient to withstand a directed verdict motion.” Bayse v.
Ward, 147 F.4th 1304, 1312 (11th Cir. 2025) (citation modified).
In my view, Gantt has put forth enough evidence for a rea-
sonable jury to find that Everett violated Gantt’s constitutional
rights under the Wade standard. I would therefore affirm the district
court, deny Everett qualified immunity, and allow a jury to decide
whether Everett should be liable to Gantt.
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4 Kidd, J., Dissenting 24-12167
I respectfully dissent.