First Circuit Revives Rhode Island Prisoner’s Excessive Force Claim Against Guard
On September 23, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment to a Rhode Island Department of Corrections (DOC) guard who pepper-sprayed a restrained prisoner and then delayed decontamination for nearly a half-hour. The Court’s ruling revived both federal and state-law claims based on the alleged excessive use of force against the prisoner, Joseph Segrain.
His federal civil rights complaint recalled events that ocurred on June 28, 2018, at Rhode Island’s Adult Correctional Instituition (ACI). Segrain, who was housed in ACI’s Disciplinary Confinement Unit, was escorted to an area know as the “flats” for shower and recreation time. There a guard issued Segrain shower supplies that included a brush, mirror, and razor.
About five minutes after Segrain arrived at the flats, guard Ronald Meleo informed him that he would have only 15 minutes out-of-cell time. A debate ensued as to whether Segrain was entitled to more time and whether he could file a grievance. Based on Segrain’s alleged failure to leave the flats, Meleo called for assistance.
Five other guards, including Walter Duffy and James Glendinning, responded to the call. At Duffy’s direction, Glendinning handcuffed Segrain, who complied without incident. When handcuffed, Segrain was still holding the mirror and razor. Normally, the issuing guard collects shower supplies before a prisoner is handcuffed and escorted from the flats to his cell. But no one asked Segrain to return his issued supplies, nor was he afforded an opportunity to do so.
Surveillance video further showed that Segrain made no attempt to hide the mirror and razor, as both were plainly in his hand. As the six guards escorted Segrain from the flats, Glendinning noticed the mirror and swatted it out of Segrain’s hand. A few minutes later, he noticed the razor. According to Segrain, Glendinning instructed him to drop the razor; then, before the prisoner could react, Glendinning applied a leg sweep that caused Segrain to fall to the floor. The video showed that as he fell, Segrain dropped the razor.
Shortly after Segrain hit the floor, Duffy hit him with a burst of pepper spray. Glendinning then reached down and tossed the razor out of Segrain’s reach. “Yet, after Glendinning picked up the razor, Duffy sprayed a second burst of pepper spray into Segrain’s face,” noted the First Circuit. The handcuffed Segrain was then placed in a holding cell and forced to wait “25 minutes or longer . . . after (he) got sprayed” before he was taken to a shower for decontamination.
With assistance of counsel, Segrain filed his complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, making federal constitutional and state law claims of excessive use of force based upon Glendinning’s leg sweep and Duffy’s use of pepper spray. When the district court granted the Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, Segrain appealed.
The First Circuit first found that Glendinning was entitled to qualified immunity (QI) on the Eighth Amendment claim relating to the leg sweep. Case law from the Sixth Circuit that Segrain offered was insufficient, the Court found, to show that the law was clearly established at the time that a leg sweep might constitute an unconstitutional excessive use of force. Therefore, it didn’t need to decide that question on appeal, since the absence of clear notice was sufficient to grant the guard QI.
However, the Court found that a reasonable jury could find Duffy’s use of pepper spray amounted to an unconstitutional use of force. The First Circuit said that “excessive use of tear gas by prison officials can amount to an Eighth Amendment violation,” citing Torres-Viera v. Laboy-Alvarado, 311 F.3d 105 (1st Cir. 2002). Here the evidence was clear that Segrain did not pose a serious threat to himself or others, since he dropped the razor as he fell and Glendinning then moved it from Segrain’s reach. Additionally, “Segrain did not intentionally retain the razor after leaving the shower area or intend to use it for any nefarious purpose,” the Court wrote.
Those factors, when combined with the delay in decontamination, could support a jury finding that Duffy’s use of pepper spray failed the five-factor test for a permissible use of force laid out in Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312 (1986). The first three factors, regarding the extent of the perceived threat, the need for a forceful response and its proportionality to the threat, were undermined when Segrain was restrained and disarmed. The facts also cut against the last two factors, regarding the extent of the prisoner’s injuries and efforts made to temper their severity, so a jury could find that force was used “maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.”
Duffy was also not entitled to QI because the law was clearly established that his actions could constitute excessive use of force. But QI was appropriate for the Defendants on Segrain’s claim regarding the delay in decontamination because the Court found no “robust consensus” on the issue. The district court’s order was thus affirmed in part and reversed in part and the case remanded. Before the Court, Segrain was represented by attorney Jared A. Goldstein of the Prisoners’ Civil Rights Litigation Clinic at Roger Williams University School of Law. See: Segrain v. Duffy, 118 F.4th 45 (1st Cir. 2024).
Related legal case
Segrain v. Duffy
| Year | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 118 F.4th 45 (1st Cir. 2024) |
| Level | Court of Appeals |
| Appeals Court Edition | F.4th |