Opposition Brief — John Wetzel, et al., Petitioners v. Roy L. Williams

No. 24-1067

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

___________________________________________

JOHN E. WETZEL, ET AL.,

Petitioners,

v.

ROY LEE WILLIAMS,

Respondent.

___________________________________________

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

___________________________________________

BRIEF IN OPPOSITION TO PETITION FOR A

WRIT OF CERTIORARI

___________________________________________

MATTHEW A. FELDMAN

PENNSYLVANIA

INSTITUTIONAL LAW

PROJECT

718 Arch St., Suite 304S

Philadelphia, PA 19106

(215) 925-2966

mfeldman@pilp.org

DEVI M. RAO

Counsel of Record

RODERICK & SOLANGE

MACARTHUR JUSTICE CENTER

501 H Street NE, Suite 275

Washington, DC 20002

(202) 869-3434

devi.rao@macarthurjustice.org

Attorneys for Respondent

QUESTION PRESENTED

Did the Third Circuit correctly conclude that it was

clearly established under judicial precedent that a

person “with a known history of serious mental illness

ha[s] a clearly established right not to be subjected to

prolonged, indefinite solitary confinement—without

penological justification—by an official who was

aware of that history and the risks that solitary

confinement pose to someone with those health

conditions”? Pet. App. 36a.

(i)

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUESTION PRESENTED ................................................... i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...............................................iii

STATEMENT OF THE CASE ............................................ 1

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND .......................................... 1

II. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND ................................. 4

REASONS FOR DENYING THE PETITION .................... 9

I. THE THIRD CIRCUIT CORRECTLY LOOKED TO

JUDICIAL DECISIONS AS THE SOURCE OF

CLEARLY ESTABLISHED LAW. ................................ 9

II. THE THIRD CIRCUIT CORRECTLY INTERPRETED

ITS OWN LAW ............................................................ 16

III. THIS ISSUE IS NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO

WARRANT THIS COURT’S REVIEW, AND THIS

CASE IS A POOR VEHICLE. ..................................... 21

CONCLUSION .................................................................. 27

iii

Cases

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

Baxter v. Bracey,

140 S. Ct. 1862 (2020) .......................................... 25

Boyd v. McNamara,

74 F.4th 662 (5th Cir. 2023), cert.

denied sub nom. Johnson v. Boyd,

144 S. Ct. 562 (2024) ............................................ 26

Brosseau v. Haugen,

543 U.S. 194 (2004) (per curiam) ........................ 21

Busanet v. Wetzel,

No. 2:21-cv-4286, 2023 WL 5003573

(E.D. Pa. Aug. 4, 2023)......................................... 24

Carroll v. Carman,

574 U.S. 13 (2014) (per curiam) .......................... 26

City of Escondido v. Emmons,

586 U.S. 38 (2019) (per curiam) .......................... 27

City of Houston v. Hill,

482 U.S. 451 (1987) .............................................. 15

City of Tahlequah v. Bond,

595 U.S. 9 (2021) (per curiam) ............................ 27

Clark v. Coupe,

55 F.4th 167 (3d Cir. 2022) ................ 10, 13, 18, 21

Crittindon v. LeBlanc,

37 F.4th 177 (5th Cir. 2022), cert.

denied, 144 S. Ct. 90 (2023) ................................. 26

iv

Farmer v. Brennan,

511 U.S. 825 (1994) .............................................. 11

Green v. Thomas,

734 F. Supp. 3d 532 (S.D. Miss. 2024) ................ 25

Hoggard v. Rhodes,

141 S. Ct. 2421 (2021) .......................................... 25

Hope v. Pelzer,

536 U.S. 730 (2002) .................................... 7, 12, 14

Hutto v. Finney,

437 U.S. 678 (1978) .............................................. 20

Kisela v. Hughes,

584 U.S. 100 (2018) ........................................ 25, 27

Marbury v. Madison,

1 Cranch 137 (1803) ......................................... 9, 13

McMurray v. Weaver,

__ F.4th __, 2025 WL 1778670

(5th Cir. 2025) ...................................................... 25

Mullenix v. Luna,

577 U.S. 7 (2015) (per curiam) ............................ 26

Nelson v. Tompkins,

89 F.4th 1289 (11th Cir. 2024), cert.

denied sub nom. Sellers v. Nelson,

145 S. Ct. 178 (2024) ............................................ 26

Palakovic v. Wetzel,

854 F.3d 209 (3d Cir. 2017) ..................... 10, 17, 18

v

Paugh v. Uintah Cnty.,

47 F.4th 1139 (10th Cir. 2022), cert.

denied sub nom. Anderson v. Calder,

143 S. Ct. 2658 (2023) .......................................... 26

People of the V.I. v. Velasquez,

60 V.I. 22 (Super. Ct. 2014) ................................. 23

Peterkin v. Jeffes,

855 F.2d 1021 (3d Cir. 1988) ............................... 20

Polanco v. Diaz,

76 F.4th 918 (9th Cir. 2023), cert.

denied, 144 S. Ct. 2520 (2024); ............................ 26

Porter v. Penn. Dept. of Corr.,

874 F.3d 341 (3d Cir. 2020) ................................. 19

Price v. Montgomery County,

144 S. Ct. 2499 (2024) .......................................... 25

Smith v. Linthicum,

No. 21-20232, 2022 WL 7284285

(5th Cir. Oct. 12, 2022), cert. denied,

144 S. Ct. 70 (2023) .............................................. 26

Taylor v. Barkes,

575 U.S. 822 (2015) .............................................. 27

Taylor v. Riojas,

592 U.S. 7 (2020) ............................................ 26, 27

Welters v. Minnesota Dep’t of Corr.,

982 N.W.2d 457 (Minn. 2022), cert.

denied sub nom. Emily v. Welters,

144 S. Ct. 74 (2023) .............................................. 26

vi

White v. Pauly,

580 U.S. 73 (2017) (per curiam) .......................... 27

Williams v. Secretary Penn. Dept. of

Corr.,

848 F.3d 549 (3d Cir. 2017) ................................. 17

Young v. Quinlan,

960 F.2d 351 (3d Cir. 1992) ..................... 10, 16, 20

Statutes

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

Title II (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §12131 ........................... 4

Other Authorities

Bell, et al. v. Penn. Dept. of Corr., et. al.,

No. 2:22-cv-1516, Amended Complaint,

ECF 75 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 29, 2023) ....................... 23

DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION

CENTER: STATE BY STATE ............................. 23

Walker v. Harry, et al., No. 1:25-cv-50,

Complaint, ECF 1

(E.D. Pa. May 29, 2024) ....................................... 23

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

I.

Factual Background

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

(DOC) held Respondent Roy Lee Williams “on death

row in solitary confinement from 1993 to 2019—

twenty-six years.” Pet. App. 4a. The DOC held him in

near continuous solitary confinement despite his welldocumented mental health history before entering

DOC custody, his continuing struggles with mental

illness while in DOC custody, and knowledge of these

facts by Petitioner, the former DOC Secretary, sued in

his personal capacity. See Pet. App. 4a. 1

So, for nearly half his life, Mr. Williams was held

in a cell no larger than seven by twelve feet—smaller

than a standard parking space. Pet. App. 10a. He was

kept alone in his cell twenty-two to twenty-three

hours a day, Monday through Friday, 2 and the full

twenty-four hours on the weekends. Pet. App. 10a;

Pet. 4. He ate his meals alone in his cell; he exercised

alone in another cage that was, at most, twice the size

of his cell; and he was prohibited from participating in

educational programming, vocational training, or

group religious services. Pet. App. 10a. In short, Mr.

1 The petition is captioned as also brought by Laurel Harry, in

her official capacity as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Corrections.

Pet. ii. But Harry is a defendant only as to Mr. Williams’s ADA

claim, and the petition relates only to the denial of qualified

immunity to Petitioner Wetzel, sued in his personal capacity, on

Mr. Williams’s Eighth Amendment claim. This brief therefore

refers throughout to only “Petitioner,” singular.

2 Petitioner asserts that the time-in-cell for death row prisoners

was twenty-two hours a day, Pet. 4, but until 2013 it was

regularly twenty-three hours a day, see Pet. App. 60a.

(1)

2

Williams was kept continuously isolated for a quarter

century.

This was despite his lengthy history of preexisting

serious mental illness. Indeed, by the time Mr.

Williams entered DOC custody in 1993, he had

already amassed a significant mental health history.

See Pet. App. 5a. Mr. Williams’s father—emotionally

absent and physically abusive—beat Mr. Williams’s

mother while she was pregnant with him, and beat

him as well throughout his childhood. JA59. Mr.

Williams suffered from significant brain damage as a

result of both the abuse he received from his parents,

and from boxing when he was young. JA51-53; JA59.

At fourteen, Mr. Williams was involuntarily

committed to a psychiatric hospital for making

suicidal threats. Pet. App. 5a. There, he was

diagnosed with depression and suicidal ideation, Pet.

App. 5a, and records show that he had been suffering

from mental health issues for years before that, JA5758. A few months later, Mr. Williams voluntarily

returned to the psychiatric hospital for inpatient

treatment. Pet. App. 5a n.6.

Petitioner was aware of Mr. Williams’s mental

health history and continued mental health struggles

while in solitary. See Pet. App. 4a. After about three

months in solitary in DOC custody, in 1994, Mr.

Williams sought help from the Psychological Services

Department because his mental health was

deteriorating. Pet. App. 5a. He informed a DOC

psychologist that he had a history of suicidal ideation

and involuntary commitment as a teenager. Pet. App.

5a n.7. And a psychiatrist diagnosed Mr. Williams

with a psychiatric disability and placed him on the

DOC’s Mental Health Roster. Pet. App. 5a.

3

In December 1995, Mr. Williams was referred to a

DOC psychiatrist due to depression and anxiety. Pet.

App. 6a. During the resulting evaluation, he again

described his

psychiatric history, including

involuntary commitment. Pet. App. 6a.

In 1996, two outside doctors—one neuropsychologist and one psychiatrist—evaluated Mr.

Williams for his state post-conviction petition. Pet.

App. 6a. “Both doctors provided information about

[Mr.] Williams’ traumatic childhood and struggles

with mental illness, including his psychiatric

hospitalization.” Pet. App. 6a; see also Pet. App. 7a

(detailing diagnoses and conclusions). Mr. Williams’s

post-conviction attorneys shared these conclusions—

including copies of the declarations—with the DOC.

Pet. App. 6a & n.13; Pet. App. 7a. 3

That same year, Mr. Williams reported to

correctional officials that he was hearing voices telling

him to kill himself and that he had fashioned a noose

out of a sheet in order to commit suicide. Pet. App. 7a.

DOC officials placed him in a “psychiatric observation

cell,” which was like an “isolation cell where they

[took] all [his] clothes.” Id.; JA114. He subsequently

told DOC officials that he had faked his suicide

attempt, but later testified under oath that he had in

fact attempted suicide and only reported “faking” to

3 In the district court, Mr. Williams, then uncounseled, was not

allowed to seek discovery. See Pet. App. 14a n.52 (“[T]he district

Court permitted the defendants to depose [Mr.] Williams, but did

not allow for other discovery.”). He testified in his deposition that

he did not have access to his DOC medical records “to see what

[he] was diagnosed with from their doctors, from the

department’s doctors.” JA125. He stated that “[t]hey won’t let me

see the mental health records.” Id.

4

DOC staff so that he could be released from isolation.

Pet. App. 7a-8a; JA114.

Although he was released from the isolation cell

after a few days, the DOC then placed Mr. Williams

in disciplinary confinement for six months as

punishment for manufacturing a noose. Pet. App. 8a;

JA115-16. Disciplinary confinement not only entailed

near-continuous solitary confinement, but also the

confiscation of all Mr. Williams’s personal belongings

from his solitary cell. Pet. App. 8a; JA115-16. It was,

as Mr. Williams described, like being “isolated on top

of being isolated.” Pet. App. 8a; JA115-16. After that

incident—where he was punished for an aspect of his

mental illness—Mr. Williams “no longer sought

assistance from the mental health staff” at the DOC.

Pet. App. 8a; JA116.

Mr. Williams remained in indefinite solitary

confinement until the end of 2019 when, in response

to a class-action lawsuit, the DOC revised its policies

and effectively ended indefinite, mandatory solitary

confinement for death-sentenced prisoners not under

an active death warrant. Pet. App. 9a.

II.

Procedural Background

Mr. Williams filed a pro se complaint against DOC

Secretary John Wetzel, in his individual and official

capacities, based on Mr. Williams’s twenty-six-year

continued placement in solitary confinement despite

his previous and ongoing history of serious mental

illness. Pet. 6; Pet. App. 14a. He raised claims under

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

(ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131 et seq., and an Eighth

Amendment claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and

5

requested nominal, compensatory, and punitive

damages. Id. 4

At summary judgment, as to the ADA claim, the

district court concluded that, although there was a

factual dispute as to whether Mr. Williams had a

disability under the ADA, he was unable to establish

intentional discrimination for damages. Pet. App.

14a-15a. As for Mr. Williams’s Eighth Amendment

claim, Petitioner did not move for summary judgment

on the merits, and only raised issues of administrative

exhaustion, the statute of limitations, and qualified

immunity. Pet. App. 125a. The district court held that

Petitioner did not meet his burden of showing Mr.

Williams failed to exhaust his administrative

remedies, Pet. App. 131a, and that there were genuine

factual disputes regarding the timing of the changes

made by the DOC to the solitary conditions for deathsentenced prisoners, Pet. App. 134a. But ultimately

the district court granted summary judgment to

Petitioner, holding that it was not clearly established

that a death-row prisoner had an Eighth Amendment

right not to be held in solitary confinement and the

Secretary was therefore entitled to qualified

immunity. Pet. App. 136a.

The Third Circuit disagreed. In addressing the

Secretary’s claimed entitlement to qualified immunity

on Mr. Williams’s Eighth Amendment claim, the court

of appeals first concluded that, for the purposes of the

qualified immunity analysis, the district court had

framed the right at too high a level of generality,

which this Court has cautioned against. Pet. App. 20a.

The Third Circuit noted that the district court had

Mr. Williams also brought a claim under the Fourteenth

Amendment, which is not at issue here. Pet. 6 nn. 2-3.

4

6

“defined the right at issue here as a death row

prisoner’s Eighth Amendment right not to be held in

solitary confinement,” and in so doing “ignored the

relevance of Williams’ preexisting serious mental

illness and the Secretary’s knowledge of it, along with

the lack of penological justification for placing and

continuing to hold Williams in solitary confinement.”

Pet. App. 20a. The court pointed to the evidence in the

record that Mr. Williams had been diagnosed with

depression and suicidal ideation before entry into the

DOC; that he had communicated to a DOC

psychiatrist this diagnosis as well as his history of

suicidal ideation and prior involuntary commitment

to a psychiatric hospital; that he had been scored by

DOC’s own psychologists as “requiring psychiatric

treatment”; and that his own doctors’ written

conclusions as to his mental health had been provided

directly to DOC mental health staff. Id. Therefore, the

court of appeals held, the more appropriate question

was whether it was clearly established that “a death

row prisoner, with a known preexisting serious

mental illness” had an Eighth Amendment right “not

to be placed and held in prolonged solitary

confinement—without penological justification.” Pet.

App. 21a. And the Third Circuit concluded that it was.

Id.

In doing so, the court of appeals noted that its “own

precedents leave no room for doubt that individuals

with a known history of serious mental illness have a

clearly established right not to be subjected to

prolonged solitary confinement without penological

justification, regardless of their sentence.” Pet. App.

22a.

The court of appeals reached that conclusion by

relying principally on its own relevant caselaw, see

7

Pet. App. 21a-26a (citing Young v. Quinlan, 960 F.2d

351 (3d Cir. 1992); Palakovic v. Wetzel, 854 F.3d 209

(3d Cir. 2017); Clark v. Coupe, 55 F.4th 167 (3d Cir.

2022)). For example, the court of appeals noted that in

Clark, analyzing constitutional violations that began

in January 2016, it had recognized that the same

constitutional right was “long protected by Eighth

Amendment jurisprudence.” Pet. App. 25a (emphasis

in original) (quoting Clark, 55 F.4th at 181).

Further, the Third Circuit noted, this conclusion

was “buttressed”—just as the Supreme Court’s

holding in Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730 (2002), had

been—by a report prepared by the Department of

Justice. Pet. App. 26a. This report, sent to the

Secretary in 2014, directly “warned [Petitioner] that

the DOC’s practices of knowingly holding seriously

mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement for

extended periods of time was cruel and unusual,” Pet.

App. 26a, under then-existing “controlling precedent,”

Pet. App. 29a.

Ultimately, the court of appeals held that

“individuals with a known history of serious mental

illness have a clearly established right not to be

subjected to prolonged, indefinite solitary confinement—without penological justification—by an

official who was aware of that history and the risks

that solitary confinement pose to someone with those

serious health conditions.” Pet. App. 37a. That

holding, the Third Circuit further noted, was “nearly

identical” to the court’s holding in Clark v. Coupe and

was “hardly a novel or surprising position.” Pet. App.

37a-38a.

The court of appeals also explained that “the

dissent’s criticisms about [its] use of the 2014 DOJ

8

report”—reasserted by Petitioner before this Court—

“have little force.” Pet. App. 38a. The dissent “misse[d]

the point” when “disparaging the relevance of the DOJ

report to [the panel’s] analysis.” Pet. App. 38a. The

report “is not important because it had the force of

legal precedent.” Pet. App. 38a. Indeed, the panel

“agree[d] that it obviously did not and could not have

had th[at] force.” Pet. App. 38a-39a. Instead, the

Third Circuit explained, “it is important because” it

served as “personal notice” to Secretary Wetzel “of the

constitutional violation” under “binding precedent.”

Pet. App. 39a. “And that personal notice simply

buttresse[d]” the court of appeals’ “conclusion that

controlling precedent clearly established that the

conditions of [Mr.] Williams’s confinement violated

the Eighth Amendment.” Pet. App. 39a. This use of

the DOJ report, the Third Circuit explained, simply

bolstered its conclusion that “a reasonable person” in

the Secretary’s position “would have known” of the

Eighth Amendment violation. Pet. App. 39a.

The court of appeals also vacated the district

court’s grant of summary judgment on Mr. Williams’s

ADA claim (on which Petitioner does not seek

certiorari). Pet. App. 43a. Viewing the facts in the

light most favorable to Mr. Williams, the Third Circuit

explained that it was required to assume the

Secretary was aware of Mr. Williams’s mental health

struggles. Pet. App. 43a. As a result, the DOC “had an

obligation to modify its practices to ameliorate the

harms of prolonged solitary confinement on [Mr.]

Williams.” Pet. App. 46a. The DOC could avoid this

responsibility if doing so would require a fundamental

alteration of its services, programs, or activities, but

“[t]he record is devoid of [such] evidence.” Pet. App.

46a.

9

Petitioner filed a petition for panel rehearing or

rehearing en banc, which the court of appeals denied

without any written dissents. Pet. App. 143a-144a.

Petitioner now seeks certiorari.

REASONS FOR DENYING THE PETITION

The petition does not—and cannot—attempt to

draw this Court’s attention to a circuit split, since this

case simply represents a question of how to interpret

Third Circuit law. So, instead, the petition takes

another tack, and dramatically alleges that the

decision below threatens to undermine none other

than Marbury v. Madison, as if the Third Circuit

somehow eschewed its “emphatic[]. . . duty . . . to say

what the law is.” 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). It did

nothing of the sort. The Third Circuit applied its own

precedent—not the DOJ report—to determine that

the applicable law was clearly established. And it did

so faithfully—and correctly.

The Court should deny the petition.

I.

The Third Circuit correctly looked to

judicial decisions as the source of clearly

established law.

Petitioner requests that this Court “clarify” that

“only the judiciary can clearly establish the law” for

qualified immunity purposes. Pet. 8. But no

clarification is necessary. As the decision below amply

illustrates, the Third Circuit understands that

judicial precedent is required to clearly establish the

law.

1. When the Third Circuit asked whether the right

in question was clearly established, it looked to

binding precedent. See, e.g., Pet. App. 4a (referencing

“[o]ur prior precedents and the record before us”); Pet.

10

App. 22a (concluding “Supreme Court and Third

Circuit cases gave [Petitioner] fair notice”); id. (“Our

precedents leave no room for doubt . . . .”); Pet. App.

33a (“Our precedents have made clear . . . .”); Pet.

App. 36a-37a (“To hold otherwise would fail in the face

of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.”); Pet. App. 38a

(“Relying on much of the same binding precedent

Clark did . . . .”).

Indeed, the Third Circuit devoted several Federal

Reporter pages to discussing its own decisions which

“leave no room for doubt that individuals with a

known history of serious mental illness have a clearly

established right not to be subjected to prolonged

solitary confinement without penological justification,

regardless of their sentence.” Pet. App. 22a. These

cases include Young v. Quinlan, 960 F.2d 351, 364-65

(3d Cir. 1992), in which the court of appeals reversed

a grant of summary judgment on an Eighth

Amendment conditions of confinement claim, holding

that prisons may not punish “in a manner that

threatens the physical and mental health of

prisoners,” and Palakovic v. Wetzel, 854 F.3d 209, 225

(3d Cir. 2017), holding that the parents of an

individual who died by suicide in solitary confinement

sufficiently stated an Eighth Amendment claim,

acknowledging the “robust body of legal and scientific

authority recognizing the devastating mental health

consequences caused by long-term isolation in solitary

confinement.”

The Third Circuit also looked to its decision in

Clark v. Coupe, 55 F.4th 167, 181 (3d Cir. 2022), in

which it denied qualified immunity to prison officials

and held that “someone with a known preexisting

serious mental illness has a clearly established right

since at least 2016 not to be held in prolonged solitary

11

confinement.” Pet. App. 23a. The court of appeals in

Clark described the right at issue as already “long

protected by Eighth Amendment jurisprudence,”

including Young and Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S.

825, 847 (1994). See Pet. App. 25a-26a.

The court of appeals below noted it was “rely[ing]

on much of the same law” as Clark to “determine that

the Secretary had fair notice that [Mr.] Williams’s

conditions of confinement violated the Eighth

Amendment because controlling precedent clearly

established the right of a death row prisoner with a

known preexisting serious mental illness not to be

held in prolonged solitary confinement without

penological justification.” Pet. App. 26a.

2. After examining the relevant judicial precedent,

the Third Circuit turned to a 2014 DOJ report that

“warned [Petitioner Wetzel] that the DOC’s practices

of knowingly holding seriously mentally ill prisoners

in solitary confinement for extended periods of time

was cruel and unusual.” Pet. App. 26a. The report,

citing many of the same cases the Third Circuit relied

on below, “easily buttressed” the court’s conclusion

that the right was clearly established. Pet. App. 26a;

see also Pet. App. 32a (DOJ report “buttresse[d]”

holding that “a reasonable person in [Petitioner

Wetzel’s] shoes would have known that [the

conditions of Mr. Williams’s confinement] clearly

violated basic principles of Eighth Amendment law”);

Pet. App. 39a (report “simply buttresse[d] . . . conclusion that controlling precedent clearly established

that the conditions of [Mr.] Williams’s confinement

violated the Eighth Amendment”).

Referencing a DOJ report in this manner—in

addition to binding precedent—is exactly what this

12

Court did in Hope. Examining a 1994 DOJ report, this

Court taught in Hope that “DOJ reports like this one

should not be ignored when determining whether

officials had fair notice that they were violating

clearly established law.” Pet. App. 27a (citing 536 U.S.

at 744-46) (emphasis added). As the Third Circuit

noted, this Court in Hope held that prison officials

violated a clearly established right “in light of binding

Eleventh Circuit precedent, an Alabama Department

of Corrections (ADOC) regulation, and a DOJ report

informing the ADOC of the constitutional infirmity.”

Id. at 741-42 (emphasis added). The court of appeals

recognized that the 2014 DOJ report “serves the same

function and provides the same notice as [the 1994

report] did in Hope.” Pet. App. 29a. 5

And the concept of citing to a DOJ report,

alongside relevant precedent, was not even

questioned by the dissent in Hope on separation-ofpowers terms. See generally Hope, 536 U.S. at 759-64

(Thomas, J., dissenting). In fact, the dissent’s main

concern regarding the report was that it “was [n]ever

communicated to respondents.” Id. at 759. Here, of

course, there is no such objection. See, e.g., Pet. App.

31a (“The significance of the 2014 DOJ report simply

cannot be ignored. The Secretary was directly

informed. . . .”).

In short, the Third Circuit’s analysis was both

correct and unremarkable. Relying on precedent to

establish the law, and referencing the DOJ report to

5 Indeed, the DOJ report in this case was even more powerful

than the one at issue in Hope because it was a thorough, factually

detailed, and citation-rich report, as compared to the

substantially shorter letter in Hope. See Pet. App. 28a (citing and

linking to 1994 DOJ letter).

13

bolster its conclusion just as this Court did in Hope,

the Third Circuit narrowly held that “individuals with

a known history of serious mental illness have a

clearly established right not to be subjected to

prolonged, indefinite solitary confinement—without

penological justification—by an official who was

aware of that history and the risks that solitary

confinement pose to someone with those health

conditions.” Pet. App. 36a. This is not a “novel or

surprising proposition” given the nearly identical

holding in Clark—the court merely clarified that

Clark also applies to individuals on death row. Pet.

App. 38a; see Clark, 55 F.4th at 182-83 (holding “the

right of a prisoner known to be seriously mentally ill

to not be placed in solitary confinement for an

extended period of time by prison officials who were

aware of, but disregarded, the risk of lasting harm

posed by such conditions” was clearly established at

least as early as 2016).

3. Petitioner’s attempt to make a mountain out of

a molehill is unavailing. He grasps at the Third

Circuit’s reference to the DOJ report in order to gin up

a contrived argument about the separation of powers

and a phantom contravention of this Court’s

foundational holding in Marbury v. Madison. See, e.g.,

Pet. 9. Nonsense.

Indeed, the court of appeals repeatedly dispatched

these concerns, explaining that “[t]he DOJ letter

addressed to Secretary Wetzel is not important

because it had the force of legal precedent. We agree

that it obviously did not and could not have had the

force of legal precedent.” Pet. App. 38a-39a (emphasis

added). The Third Circuit went on to emphasize that

its use of the DOJ report was “no more in tension”

with Marbury than this Court’s use of the analogous

14

report in Hope, noting that “[i]n both cases, the DOJ

report buttresse[d] the conclusion that ‘a reasonable

person would have known’ of the Eighth Amendment

violation.” Pet. App. 39a. Again, it bears repeating

that the Third Circuit did not rely on the report to

establish the law, but merely to emphasize that the

report “concisely packaged much of the relevant and

binding law and delivered it to the defendant’s

doorstep.” Pet. App. 38a. 6

In addition to Petitioner’s argument being

incorrect, this gambit also comes tellingly late in the

game. Mr. Williams, proceeding pro se, raised the DOJ

report in his opposition to Petitioner’s request for

summary judgment on the basis of qualified

immunity. Dist. Ct. ECF No. 27, at 2. Petitioner did

not reply. Next, Mr. Williams explicitly raised the

relevance of the DOJ report in his opening brief in the

court of appeals. See, e.g., Br. for Appellant 9 (“Any

reasonable prison official who had read the DOJ’s

letter would have understood that continuing to hold

Mr. Williams in solitary confinement violated the

Eighth Amendment.”); id. at 27 (“[T]he DOJ’s

conclusions signal to prison officials the state of the

law.”); id. at 29 (“[N]o reasonable prison official who,

like Secretary Wetzel, had read the DOJ findings

6 Petitioner would distinguish the DOJ report here from that in

Hope, claiming, without citation, that there the Court used the

DOJ report “to illustrate that the challenged practice had always

been cruel and unusual.” Pet. 12. But nowhere in Hope does the

Court state, or even suggest, this theory. And it is refuted by the

Hope Court’s discussion of binding precedent that informed the

Hope defendants that corporal punishment “offend[s] contemporary concepts of decency.” Hope, 536 U.S. at 742 (emphasis

added).

15

letter and was aware of Mr. Williams’s history of

mental illness and suicidality could have believed

keeping him in solitary confinement for twenty-six

years conformed with the Eighth Amendment.”).

Petitioner did not even mention the DOJ report in the

qualified immunity section of his response brief, let

alone raise the argument he is now asserting. 7 It was

not until his petition for rehearing that Petitioner

took issue with the use of the report. Petitioner’s

decision to only raise the issue once he “had lost on the

merits before the panel” after his years-long

acquiescence to the notion that the DOJ report is

relevant to the qualified immunity inquiry

meaningfully “undercut[s] the force of [his] argument”

now. City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 467 n.16

(1987).

In short, despite Petitioner’s protestations, this

case raises no existential questions about the role of

the judiciary, nor begs any clarification on how

qualified immunity works. Following well-settled

qualified immunity jurisprudence, the Third Circuit

looked to binding precedent to establish the law. And

following this Court’s own process in Hope, the Third

Circuit bolstered its finding with a DOJ report that

came to the same conclusion using much of the same

case law. Petitioner’s attempt to paint this

unremarkable analytical process as a constitutional

“anomaly” is meritless. Pet. 10.

7 Petitioner mentioned the DOJ report exactly once, and only in

the ADA section of his brief. See Br. for Appellee 34.

16

II.

The Third Circuit correctly interpreted

its own law.

1. Not only does this case present no split and no

conflict with this Court’s precedents, but the court of

appeals correctly concluded that “[its] precedents

leave no room for doubt that individuals with a known

history of serious mental illness have a clearly

established right not to be subjected to prolonged

solitary

confinement

without

penological

justification.” Pet. App. 22a. 8

To start, the Court discussed its decision in Young

v. Quinlan, 960 F.2d 351 (3d Cir. 1992), in which it

reversed the district court’s grant of summary

judgment on an Eighth Amendment claim arising out

of the plaintiff’s conditions in solitary confinement.

Pet. App. 22a. In Young, the court “clarified that when

evaluating Eighth Amendment allegations concerning

segregated housing units, ‘[t]he touchstone is the

health of the inmate.’” Pet. App. 22a (quoting Young,

960 F.2d at 364). “Highly relevant to this analysis,”

the Third Circuit explained, “is that prisons may not

punish in a way that ‘threatens the physical and

8 In places, the petition appears to mischaracterize the Third

Circuit’s holding as broader than it truly is. See, e.g., Pet. 7 (“The

Third Circuit concluded . . . it was ‘clearly established’ that the

Eighth Amendment prohibited him from continuing to house

mentally ill death-row inmates in solitary confinement.”); Pet. 8

(“[T]he majority failed to identify any prior judicial decision

holding that mentally-ill death-row inmates could not be housed

in solitary confinement on a long-term basis.”). But the holding

was in fact far narrower: that individuals with a known history

of preexisting serious mental illness, including those on death

row, have a clearly established right not to be subjected to

prolonged, indefinite solitary confinement—without penological

justification. See Pet. App. 37a.

17

mental health of prisoners.’” Pet. App. 22a-23a

(quoting Young, 960 F.2d at 364). And in Young, the

court concluded that the plaintiff’s “preexisting

physical illness made his solitary confinement even

more inhumane, just as [Mr.] Williams’ preexisting

mental illness did here.” Pet. App. 23a (citing Young,

960 F.2d at 365).

Next, in Palakovic v. Wetzel, 854 F.3d 209 (3d Cir.

2017), the Third Circuit held that the district court

erred in dismissing claims arising out of the 2011

placement in solitary confinement of a suicidal

prisoner with a number of known serious mental

disorders. Id. at 226. The court of appeals concluded

that the defendants knew that the conditions there

“were inhumane for [the prisoner-decedent] in light of

his mental illness,” Pet. App. 25a (quoting Palakovic,

854 F.3d at 225), in part due to “the robust body of

legal and scientific authority recognizing the

devastating mental health consequences caused by

long-term isolation in solitary confinement,”

Palakovic, 854 F.3d at 225. The Palakovic court

explained that in Williams v. Secretary Pennsylvania

Department of Corrections, 848 F.3d 549 (3d Cir.

2017), a procedural due process case, it had “observed

a growing consensus—with roots going back a

century—” that solitary confinement “can cause

severe and traumatic psychological damage.”

Palakovic, 854 F.3d at 225. 9 So the court of appeals in

Palakovic had no problem holding that the plaintiffs

The Third Circuit below observed that its “precedents have

made clear that solitary confinement can ‘cause cognitive

disturbances’ after ‘even a few days.’” Pet. App. 33a (quoting

Williams, 848 F.3d at 562).

9

18

stated a claim related to the decedent’s “multiple 30day stints in solitary confinement.” Id. at 217.

Following Young and Palakovic, the Third Circuit

in Clark v. Coupe, 55 F.4th 167 (3d Cir. 2022),

addressed qualified immunity in a case very similar

to this one. In Clark, the court of appeals held “that

someone with a known preexisting serious mental

illness has a clearly established right” by 2016, when

the events in that case occurred, “not to be held in

prolonged solitary confinement.” Pet. App. 23a (citing

Clark, 55 F.4th at 179, 181-82, 184-85). Drawing on

prior Third Circuit and Supreme Court precedent, the

court in Clark concluded that the constitutional right

in question was “long protected by Eighth

Amendment jurisprudence.” Pet. App. 25a (quoting

Clark, 55 F.4th at 181). Notably, the plaintiff in Clark

spent seven months in solitary, as compared to Mr.

Williams’s twenty-six years. Pet. App. 23a-24a (citing

Clark, 55 F.4th at 180-81).

These same decisions were among those that the

DOJ report used to conclude that subjecting prisoners

with serious mental illness to prolonged periods of

solitary confinement “exposes them to an excessive

and obvious risk of serious harm” in violation of the

Eighth Amendment. Pet. App. 29a (quoting DOJ

report). Through that report, “[t]he Secretary was

directly informed that under binding precedent,

placing someone with a known history of serious

mental illness in solitary confinement for a prolonged

period of time without penological justification clearly

was unlawful.” Pet. App. 31a.

After cataloging all of these sources of notice, the

Third Circuit correctly concluded that Petitioner

Wetzel was not entitled to qualified immunity because

19

Mr. “Williams’s conditions of confinement clearly

violated basic principles of [the] Eighth Amendment

established by controlling precedent.” Pet. App. 31a.

This conclusion was “buttresse[d]” by the fact that the

Secretary received “personal notice” of this conclusion,

with doctrinal support. Pet. App. 31a-32a. This

holding, the court of appeals explained, “merely

clarifies that the clearly established right in Clark

extends to individuals on death row.” Pet. App. 38a.

2. The petition asserts that Third Circuit law was

not clearly established, but its attempts to poke holes

in earlier circuit precedent are unavailing.

Petitioner’s central argument is that any Third

Circuit precedent that does involve solitary

confinement but does not involve a death-row plaintiff

is somehow irrelevant to the clearly-established

inquiry. Pet. 16-18. This, conveniently, describes

Young, Palakovic, and Clark. See id. But the Third

Circuit already rejected this view of its own caselaw.

See Pet. App. 32a. In the court of appeals, as here,

Petitioner argued that Porter v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, 874 F.3d 341 (3d Cir. 2020),

meant that this death-row/non-death-row distinction

entitled him to qualified immunity. Pet. App. 32a.

“[T]hat argument fail[ed]” because Porter “only

concerned people of sound mind when first placed in

solitary confinement” and the Porter court explicitly

“distinguishe[d] Palakovic from Porter’s case” on that

basis. Pet. App. 32a; see also Porter, 974 F.3d at 450

(noting Palakovic “had specific known mental health

issues pre-assignment to solitary confinement”). And

Porter did not purport to overrule prior circuit

precedent that “the health of the inmate,” not his

sentence, is the touchstone of the Eighth Amendment

20

inquiry. Pet. App. 33a (quoting Young, 960 F.2d at

364).

In a similar vein, Petitioner says Peterkin v. Jeffes,

855 F.2d 1021 (3d Cir. 1988), “provided Secretary

Wetzel with valid reasons to believe that the general

principles articulated in” prior decisions, including

Young, Palakovic, Farmer, and Hope, “did not apply

with equal force . . . to inmates on death row.” Pet. 17.

But Peterkin does no such thing—for several reasons.

First, Peterkin was a class action bringing a facial

challenge to death-row conditions generally, whereas

Mr. Williams’s claim is an as-applied challenge to his

particular confinement. Peterkin, 855 F.2d at 1022.

Second, unlike Mr. Williams’s claim, the claim in

Peterkin was not based on prisoners’ preexisting

mental illness or other vulnerabilities to the harms of

solitary confinement. See Peterkin, 855 F.2d at 102223. Third, Mr. Williams spent much more time in

solitary confinement than the plaintiffs in Peterkin—

26 years versus 4, at most. Id. at 1029. And duration

is a crucial factor in determining whether solitary

confinement withstands Eighth Amendment scrutiny.

See Young, 960 F.2d at 364; Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S.

678, 686-87 (1978)). Indeed, the Peterkin Court

acknowledged the death-row conditions under review

there might “become cruel and unusual” if they

continued to be imposed for “an inordinate” amount of

time. Peterkin, 855 F.2d at 1033. 10 What’s more,

Petitioner’s argument—on its face, just a dispute as to

the proper interpretation of Third Circuit law—was

rejected by the Third Circuit in denying Petitioner’s

For all these reasons, Petitioner’s claim that the court of

appeals somehow overrode Peterkin via the DOJ report rings

hollow. Pet. 19.

10

21

rehearing petition premised on this issue, without any

written dissent. Pet. App. 143a-144a.

Finally, as to Clark, Petitioner points out that

decision was issued after the events in question here.

Pet. 17. That’s accurate, but irrelevant. The Third

Circuit did not conclude that Clark itself (i.e., its

constitutional ruling, from 2022) provided the

requisite notice to Petitioner. Rather, the Third

Circuit looked to Clark because it was a precedential

opinion that spoke to what in-circuit precedent had

“long protected” by January 2016, when Clark’s

“months-long placement in solitary confinement”

began. Clark, 55 F.4th at 181; Pet. App. 25a-26a. 11

III.

This issue is not important enough to

warrant this Court’s review, and this case

is a poor vehicle.

In addition to not presenting a circuit split or

conflict with this Court’s precedent—or indeed any

error at all—the issue in this case does not warrant

this Court’s attention, and this is a poor vehicle.

1. This case is relatively unimportant—it presents

no question as to the proper interpretation of this

Court’s precedent. It involves only a question of the

court of appeals’ proper interpretation of its own

caselaw—which the Third Circuit definitively

11 The footnote in Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 200 n.4

(2004) (per curiam), cited by Petitioner, Pet. 17, is not to the

contrary. None of the decisions the Court characterized as “of no

use in the clearly established inquiry” held the law to be clearly

established by the time of the events in Brosseau.

22

resolved when it denied Petitioner’s request for

rehearing en banc. Pet. App. 143a. 12

Nor does this case raise questions about the proper

interpretation of constitutional law under Third

Circuit precedent. That is because Petitioner conceded

the merits, and “d[id] not dispute that [Mr.] Williams’

Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and

unusual punishment was violated.” Pet. App. 17a; see

also Pet. 13 n.5 (acknowledging “the DOC defendants

did not specifically argue that [Mr.] Williams’ Eighth

Amendment claim failed on the merits”). In other

words, the petition on its face only relates to the

narrow question of whether the law was clearly

established at a particular moment in time. See Pet. i

(Question Presented). What’s more, the petition

doesn’t even relate to the question of whether it is now

clearly established that keeping someone with

preexisting mental health issues in solitary

confinement for years on end without penological

justification is an Eighth Amendment problem; Clark

held that this was clearly established as of 2016. See

Pet. App. 23a (panel describing Clark as identifying

the clearly established right “since at least 2016”);

Pet. 17 (describing ruling in Clark). 13

This case’s relevance is limited even further due to

its narrow scope and the facts on the ground. Recall,

12 Only two judges dissented from this denial of rehearing, and

neither felt called to write a dissent from this decision. Pet. App.

143a. And the judge who dissented at the panel stage did not call

for en banc review or review by this Court. See generally Pet.

App. 107a-115a.

13 Petitioner has never contested that this is Clark’s holding; he

has only ever taken issue with whether Clark’s holding could

extend to the death-row context. See, e.g., Pet. 17.

23

all the Third Circuit did is “merely clarif[y] that the

clearly established right in Clark extends to

individuals on death row.” Pet. App. 38a. But

Pennsylvania no longer houses death row prisoners

without active death warrants in solitary confinement

indefinitely; the Commonwealth abandoned that

practice in 2019, pursuant to a settlement agreement,

Pet. App. 9a; Pet. 5, and the two-year statute of

limitations means there are no additional timely

claims not yet filed, see Pet. App. 132a (noting twoyear limitations period). And within the Third Circuit,

Pennsylvania is the only jurisdiction with the death

penalty. 14 So, notwithstanding the sky-is-falling

rhetoric in the petition, the number of individuals who

can possibly be impacted by this ruling is small and

finite, and the corresponding utility of any guidance

on this issue is low. 15

Indeed, were this issue truly mission-critical to the

Commonwealth, one would have expected an

14 See DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION CENTER: STATE BY

STATE, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-landing (last visited

July 17, 2025) (showing that New Jersey and Delaware do not

have the death penalty); People of the V.I. v. Velasquez, 60 V.I.

22, 37 (Super. Ct. 2014) (same, regarding the U.S. Virgin

Islands).

15 Petitioner’s claim that “[a]dditional inmates have begun using

the DOJ letter” is misleading. Pet. 19. This petition is all about

the clearly-established prong of the qualified immunity inquiry,

and in neither of the cited cases has the DOJ report been invoked

in that context. See Bell, et al. v. Penn. Dept. of Corr., et. al., No.

2:22-cv-1516, ECF 75 at 12 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 29, 2023) (citation of

report in Complaint, as evidence of the harmfulness of solitary

confinement for individuals with mental illness and defendants’

awareness thereof); Walker v. Harry, et al., No. 1:25-cv-50, ECF

1 at 10 (E.D. Pa. May 29, 2024) (same, in Complaint alleging

procedural due process violations).

24

interlocutory appeal to the Third Circuit in the lead

case on this issue—or at least a request for a stay

pending the outcome of the Third Circuit appeal in the

present case—when Secretary Wetzel was similarly

denied qualified immunity there. See Busanet v.

Wetzel, No. 2:21-cv-4286, 2023 WL 5003573 (E.D. Pa.

Aug. 4, 2023); see also Pet. App. 32a n.126 (court of

appeals below noting this decision). But that did not

occur.

2. Additionally, even if the petition presented an

issue theoretically worthy of this Court’s review (and

it does not), this would be a bad vehicle for addressing

it. To start, the denial of qualified immunity is not

make-or-break in this case; Mr. Williams has a live

ADA claim against the DOC (to which qualified

immunity does not apply) separate and apart from

any constitutional claim. See Pet. 7 n.4 (noting court

of appeals “held that Mr. Williams’ Title II claim could

proceed” and noting “that claim is not at issue here”);

Pet. App. 4a (summarizing opinion and noting vacatur

of district court’s grant of summary judgment on Mr.

Williams’s ADA claim). And even as to the

constitutional claim specifically, it is not clear that

Petitioner will ultimately need qualified immunity to

defeat liability; there are material disputes of fact

regarding whether Mr. Williams’s claims were timely

filed. See Pet. 125a (district court noting defendants

moved for summary judgment on statute-oflimitations grounds); id. at 131a-134a (analyzing

issue and declining to grant summary judgment

because “there is a question of fact as to the date of

the last act evidencing a continuing practice”).

It also bears mentioning that the qualified

immunity question here arises in the context of

Petitioner’s considered decision to house Mr. Williams

25

in solitary confinement for twenty-six years, Pet. i

(noting policy); Pet. App. 9a (same), not a “split-second

judgment[]” in a “tense, uncertain, and rapidlyevolving” situation, where “specificity is especially

important,” Kisela v. Hughes, 584 U.S. 100, 103, 104

(2018). Putting aside the soundness of the doctrine as

a whole, 16 officials should be least entitled to qualified

immunity in a situation like this one—where

Petitioner had the luxury of time and deliberation and

still chose to house Mr. Williams in solitary

confinement for over a quarter century without

penological justification, despite knowing about his

preexisting mental health issues. See, e.g., Hoggard v.

Rhodes, 141 S. Ct. 2421, 2422 (2021) (Thomas, J.,

respecting denial of certiorari) (“[W]hy should

university officers, who have time to make calculated

choices about enacting or enforcing unconstitutional

policies, receive the same protection as a police officer

who makes a split-second decision to use force in a

dangerous setting?”); McMurray v. Weaver, __ F.4th

__, 2025 WL 1778670, *9-10 (5th Cir. 2025) (Ho, J.,

concurring) (observing “[i]t’s one thing to grant

See, e.g., Baxter v. Bracey, 140 S. Ct. 1862, 1865 (2020)

(Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (“I continue to

have strong doubts about our § 1983 qualified immunity

doctrine.”); Price v. Montgomery County, 144 S. Ct. 2499, 2500

n.2 (2024) (Sotomayor, J., respecting denial of certiorari) (citing

“recent scholarship [that] details that the 1871 Civil Rights Act

included language abrogating common-law immunities that was,

for unknown reasons, omitted from the first compilation of

federal law” that “reinforces why, at a minimum, this immunity

doctrine should be employed sparingly”); Green v. Thomas, 734

F. Supp. 3d 532, 543-48 (S.D. Miss. 2024) (compiling judicial and

scholarly critiques of qualified immunity and outlining the

textual, democratic, and policy problems with the doctrine), aff’d

in part, rev’d in part 129 F.4th 877 (5th Cir. 2023).

16

26

qualified immunity when it comes to police officers

who are forced to make split-second judgment calls in

life-and-death situations. It’s quite another thing to

immunize public officials who make a deliberate and

calculated decision to violate one’s constitutional

right,” and noting that “six members of [the Fifth

Circuit] embraced these principles” in earlier

writings); see also Taylor v. Riojas, 592 U.S. 7, 9 (2020)

(reversing grant of qualified immunity, where there

was “no evidence that the conditions of [plaintiff]’s

confinement were compelled by necessity or

exigency”).

3. This Court has often and recently denied

petitions for certiorari brought by correctional officials

who were denied qualified immunity in cases arising

in prisons and jails. 17 And, likewise, although this

Court receives dozens of requests annually for

summary reversals, it exercises this power only in the

rarest of cases. 18 This is not one of them. In fact, in

17 See Nelson v. Tompkins, 89 F.4th 1289 (11th Cir. 2024), cert.

denied sub nom. Sellers v. Nelson, 145 S. Ct. 178 (2024); Polanco

v. Diaz, 76 F.4th 918 (9th Cir. 2023), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 2520

(2024); Boyd v. McNamara, 74 F.4th 662 (5th Cir. 2023), cert.

denied sub nom. Johnson v. Boyd, 144 S. Ct. 562 (2024);

Crittindon v. LeBlanc, 37 F.4th 177 (5th Cir. 2022), cert. denied,

144 S. Ct. 90 (2023); Welters v. Minnesota Dep’t of Corr., 982

N.W.2d 457 (Minn. 2022), cert. denied sub nom. Emily v. Welters,

144 S. Ct. 74 (2023); Smith v. Linthicum, No. 21-20232, 2022 WL

7284285, (5th Cir. Oct. 12, 2022), cert. denied, 144 S. Ct. 70

(2023); Paugh v. Uintah Cnty., 47 F.4th 1139 (10th Cir. 2022),

cert. denied sub nom. Anderson v. Calder, 143 S. Ct. 2658 (2023).

18 Petitioner cites not a single Eighth Amendment conditions of

confinement summary reversal in favor of qualified immunity.

Pet. 21. The bulk of the summary reversals provided by

Petitioner arise in the Fourth Amendment context, and involve

27

recent years when this Court has summarily reversed

on qualified immunity issues in the prison context, it

has been to remove an officer’s entitlement to

immunity, not impose it. See, e.g., Taylor v. Riojas,

592 U.S. 7 (2020). Simply put, this case would not be

a worthy extension of this Court’s limited resources.

CONCLUSION

The Court should deny the petition.

Respectfully submitted,

MATTHEW A. FELDMAN

PENNSYLVANIA

INSTITUTIONAL LAW

PROJECT

718 Arch St., Suite 304S

Philadelphia, PA 19106

(215) 925-2966

mfeldman@pilp.org

DEVI M. RAO

Counsel of Record

RODERICK & SOLANGE

MACARTHUR JUSTICE CENTER

501 H Street NE, Suite 275

Washington, DC 20002

(202) 869-3434

devi.rao@macarthurjustice.org

Attorneys for Respondent

JULY 2025

the split-second judgments of police officers in the field. See

Carroll v. Carman, 574 U.S. 13 (2014) (per curiam); Mullenix v.

Luna, 577 U.S. 7 (2015) (per curiam); White v. Pauly, 580 U.S. 73

(2017) (per curiam); Kisela v. Hughes, 584 U.S. 100 (2018) (per

curiam); City of Escondido v. Emmons, 586 U.S. 38 (2019) (per

curiam); City of Tahlequah v. Bond, 595 U.S. 9 (2021) (per

curiam). The one Eighth Amendment case Petitioner cites is a

decade-old case involving a deliberate indifference claim against

supervisors for their failure to properly implement adequate

suicide prevention protocols—a distinguishable claim both

legally and factually. Taylor v. Barkes, 575 U.S. 822, 825 (2015).