Krysten Garner v. Warren Baltes

USCA11 Case: 23-10130 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 08/02/2023 Page: 1 of 8

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-10130

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

KRYSTEN GARNER,

on behalf of minor R.C. and the ESTATE

OF ANDREW CAMPBELL,

on behalf of

MINOR CHILD

deceased

ANDREW CAMPBELL,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

ANTONIA JAMERSON

Defendant,

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2 Opinion of the Court 23-10130

WARREN BALTES,

JUSTIN MOCK,

LOWELL CLARK,

DOUGLAS PERNELL,

RUTLEDGE SP WARDEN, et al.,

Defendants-Appellants.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Georgia

D.C. Docket No. 4:22-cv-00094-CDL

____________________

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and ROSENBAUM and JILL

PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Cadet Warren Baltes and six supervisory officials of the

Georgia Department of Corrections—Lieutenants Justin Mock,

Lowell Clark, and Douglas Pernell, Warden Reagan Black, Re-

gional Director Scott Crickmar, and Commissioner Timothy

Ward—appeal the denial of their motion to dismiss a complaint by

Krysten Garner on behalf of the estate and minor child of Andrew

Campbell, a disabled veteran who committed suicide while incar-

cerated at Rutledge State Prison. The officials argue that the district

court erred by denying them qualified immunity. We affirm.

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23-10130 Opinion of the Court 3

At this stage, we accept the allegations in the complaint as

true and construe them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.

See Bailey v. Wheeler, 843 F.3d 473, 480 (11th Cir. 2016). Campbell,

a former Marine, became disabled while deployed in Afghanistan

and suffered from mental illness. He was placed in a single-inmate

solitary confinement cell in the “G-Building.” On April 2, 2020, cor-

rections officer Antonia Jamerson, who is not a party to this appeal,

and Baltes, who was in training, were the only officers staffing the

G-Building. That evening, Jamerson found Campbell dead from

hanging himself with a sheet tied to the bars on his cell door win-

dow.

Garner alleges that Jamerson and Baltes knew that Campbell

suffered from severe mental health conditions and that he was on

a suicide safety protocol that required observation every 15

minutes. Jamerson and Baltes knowingly failed to observe Camp-

bell on the night of his death, failed to discover him until “long after

he was already dead,” and were deliberately indifferent to his safety

and well-being. The department investigated Campbell’s death,

and Warden Black stated that the video surveillance revealed that

“rounds had been made outside required time and wrong staff” and

recommended adverse action against Jamerson and Baltes. Jamer-

son falsified observation logs to cover up his failure to conduct

safety checks that night and was terminated for “failure to perform

assigned duties, falsification of documents, and untimely report-

ing/documentation.”

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4 Opinion of the Court 23-10130

Garner alleges that Mock, Clark, and Pernell were responsi-

ble for staffing the G-Building and knew that staffing the building

with only an officer and a trainee would make it impossible to per-

form the suicide safety protocol. Because of severe understaffing,

the prison had no on-duty captain the night of Campbell’s death,

so Pernell, a lieutenant, had to serve as “Acting Captain.” Mock,

Clark, and Pernell also knew that the G-building officers failed to

conduct adequate safety observations of high-risk inmates but

never corrected the officers. And they knew that the overuse of sol-

itary confinement and lack of safety observations was part of a his-

tory of widespread abuse but failed to correct these problems.

Garner alleges that Black, Crickmar, and Ward established

customs and policies that caused the prison to be grossly under-

staffed and to overuse and abuse solitary confinement. They knew

that officers lacked necessary supervision, failed to conduct re-

quired rounds and safety observations, and lacked necessary train-

ing in inmate supervision and suicide prevention, but they failed to

correct these problems.

After Baltes, Jamerson, and the supervisors moved to dis-

miss based on qualified immunity, Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), the dis-

trict court denied their motion. The district court ruled that the

complaint sufficiently alleges that Jamerson and Baltes had subjec-

tive knowledge of a strong likelihood that Campbell would commit

suicide and deliberately took no action to prevent his suicide,

which violated clearly established law. It ruled that the complaint

alleges plausible facts to support the reasonable inference that the

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23-10130 Opinion of the Court 5

supervisors knew that officers routinely failed to conduct safety

checks on high-risk inmates, which was part of a widespread pat-

tern of abuse due to severe understaffing, and the supervisors failed

to make the necessary staffing adjustments despite the obvious

risks. And it ruled that it was clearly established that failing to act

despite having knowledge of a serious risk of harm to an inmate

amounted to deliberate indifference, so the supervisors were not

entitled to qualified immunity.

We review an order denying qualified immunity at the mo-

tion-to-dismiss stage de novo. Id. We accept the allegations of the

complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in the plain-

tiff’s favor. Id.

Qualified immunity shields officials acting within their dis-

cretionary authority from liability when their conduct does not vi-

olate a federal right that was clearly established when it occurred.

Williams v. Aguirre, 965 F.3d 1147, 1156 (11th Cir. 2020). If an official

acted within the scope of his discretionary authority, a plaintiff

must prove “that qualified immunity is not appropriate.” Penley v.

Eslinger, 605 F.3d 843, 849 (11th Cir. 2010) (citation omitted). Be-

cause it is undisputed that the officials were acting within the scope

of their discretionary duties when the alleged constitutional viola-

tions occurred, we ask whether Garner’s allegations, accepted as

true, “show that [each] official committed a constitutional viola-

tion and, if so, (2) that the law, at the time of the official’s act,

clearly established the unconstitutionality of that conduct.” Sin-

gletary v. Vargas, 804 F.3d 1174, 1180 (11th Cir. 2015).

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“In a prisoner suicide case, to prevail under section 1983 for

violation of substantive rights, under either the eighth or four-

teenth amendment, the plaintiff must show that the jail official dis-

played deliberate indifference to the prisoner’s taking of his own life.”

Jackson v. West, 787 F.3d 1345, 1353 (11th Cir. 2015). To be deliber-

ately indifferent, an official must have subjective knowledge of a

risk of serious harm and “deliberately disregard a strong likelihood

rather than a mere possibility that the self-infliction of harm will

occur.” Snow ex rel. Snow v. City of Citronelle, Alabama, 420 F.3d 1262,

1268 (11th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted); see Gish v. Thomas,

516 F.3d 952, 954–55 (11th Cir. 2008). “Where prison personnel di-

rectly responsible for inmate care have knowledge that an inmate

has . . . threatened . . . suicide, their failure to take steps to prevent

that inmate from committing suicide can amount to deliberate in-

difference.” Greason v. Kemp, 891 F.2d 829, 835–36 (11th Cir. 1990);

see Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 836 (1994) (“[A]cting or failing

to act with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious

harm to a prisoner is the equivalent of recklessly disregarding that

risk.”).

The district court did not err in determining that Baltes and

the supervisors were not entitled to qualified immunity. The com-

plaint alleges that Baltes had subjective knowledge of a high risk

that Campbell would attempt suicide but deliberately failed to act

to prevent his suicide. It alleges that Baltes knew that Campbell suf-

fered from severe mental health conditions that warranted place-

ment on a suicide safety protocol, but Baltes’s deliberate disregard

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23-10130 Opinion of the Court 7

for these serious medical needs caused Campbell to experience

pain and suffering and to take his life. See Snow, 420 F.3d at 1268.

Baltes argues that it was not clearly established that his al-

leged failure to conduct timely safety checks violated Campbell’s

constitutional rights. But we disagree. Taking Garner’s allegations

as true, Baltes was deliberately indifferent toward Campbell’s

safety because, although he knew that Campbell had severe mental

health needs and posed a high risk of self-harm, Baltes did not per-

form even cursory supervision on the night of Campbell’s death.

Campbell’s body was not discovered until “long after he was al-

ready dead.” Our caselaw clearly established when the suicide oc-

curred that, when an officer fails to protect an inmate who poses a

serious risk of suicide and that failure amounts to deliberate indif-

ference, the officer violates the prisoner’s constitutional right. See

Belcher v. City of Foley, Ala., 30 F.3d 1390, 1396 (11th Cir. 1994);

Greason, 891 F.2d at 835–36. Baltes was not entitled to qualified im-

munity.

The district court also did not err in denying the supervisors

qualified immunity. To plead supervisory liability for deliberate in-

difference, Garner must allege either that the supervisors “person-

ally participated” in the alleged unconstitutional conduct or that

there was a “causal connection” between their actions and the al-

leged constitutional deprivation. Christmas v. Harris Cnty., 51 F.4th

1348, 1355 (11th Cir. 2022). A “causal connection” can be estab-

lished by a history of widespread abuse that put the supervisor on

notice of the need to correct the alleged deprivation, which he

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failed to do; a custom or policy of deliberate indifference to a con-

stitutional violation; or facts that support an inference that the su-

pervisor directed his subordinates to act unlawfully, or knew they

would act unlawfully, and failed to stop them. Id.

Garner’s complaint alleges a causal connection between the

supervisors’ conduct and Jamerson and Baltes’s deliberate indiffer-

ence. It alleges that the inmate suicide rate in Georgia prisons—

involving at least 125 suicides since 2017—was double the national

average due to severe understaffing, high turnover, poor training,

lack of supervision, abuse of solitary confinement, and failure to

discipline officers. The supervisors allegedly knew about but failed

to correct these widespread abuses. They allegedly adopted a cus-

tom of allowing officers to disregard required suicide safety proto-

col without consequence, to the point that it was “widely known”

that officers routinely falsified door charts and observation logs.

Mock, Clark, and Pernell allegedly had actual knowledge that

G-Building was understaffed on the night of Campbell’s suicide.

Because the complaint adequately alleges a causal connection be-

tween the supervisors’ conduct and a clearly-established constitu-

tional violation, see id., the district court did not err by denying

them qualified immunity at this stage.

We AFFIRM the order denying the motion to dismiss Gar-

ner’s complaint based on qualified immunity.