In a 7-1 ruling today, the Supreme overturned a lower court's decision that granted qualified immunity to corrections officers in Texas.
According to an article in The Hill, the Supreme Court Justices said "the horrific conditions described by Trent Taylor, a prison inmate in Texas serving an 11-year sentence for robbery, were so egregious that corrections officers would not be covered by qualified immunity."
"Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to dissent from the decision, but he did not issue an opinion. Justice Samuel Alito concurred with the decision to overturn the 5th Circuit's ruling but said the procedural posture of the case did not make it fit for Supreme Court review. Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in Monday's ruling."
ReplyDeleteNot too surprising when you read the facts:
Taylor alleges that,
for six full days in September 2013, correctional officers
confined him in a pair of shockingly unsanitary cells.1 The
first cell was covered, nearly floor to ceiling, in “‘massive
amounts’ of feces”: all over the floor, the ceiling, the window, the walls, and even “‘packed inside the water faucet.’”
Taylor v. Stevens, 946 F. 3d 211, 218 (CA5 2019). Fearing
that his food and water would be contaminated, Taylor did
not eat or drink for nearly four days. Correctional officers
then moved Taylor to a second, frigidly cold cell, which was
equipped with only a clogged drain in the floor to dispose of
bodily wastes. Taylor held his bladder for over 24 hours,
but he eventually (and involuntarily) relieved himself,
causing the drain to overflow and raw sewage to spill across
the floor. Because the cell lacked a bunk, and because Taylor was confined without clothing, he was left to sleep naked
in sewage.
Facts the lower court chose to ignore.
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