Prolonged Solitary Confinement of a Pretrial Detainee

Facts of the Case

In August 2013, 17-year-old Dustin Williamson was arrested for murder and armed robbery in Barnwell County, South Carolina. After being denied bail, he was assigned to the county detention center's maximum security unit based on the seriousness of his charges. He received three rule infractions during his three months there, including one fight with another inmate. On November 22, 2013, he gave officers a letter in which he confessed to a murder and threatened to harm ten law enforcement officers and Judge Early of the state's Second Judicial Circuit. When interviewed later that day, Mr. Williamson became combative, repeated his threats, and struck an officer. After a series of phone calls between various officials, including Judge Early, the decision was made to place Mr. Williamson on safekeeper status, a program that allows a pretrial detainee to be transferred to the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) by an executive order from the Governor if the detainee is a high escape risk, exhibits extremely violent and uncontrollable behavior, or must be removed from the county facility for their own protection. The order is valid for 120 days and may be subsequently renewed every 90 days with a showing of good cause and no material change in circumstances. Chief Deputy David Deering submitted an affidavit on behalf of Sheriff Ed Carroll detailing Mr. Williamson's threats and behavior. Deputy Circuit Solicitor David Miller certified that he notified Mr. Williamson's defense attorney. The application also included medical and mental health screening forms. SCDC Director Bryan Stirling recommended approval of the application to Governor Haley, who signed the executive order.

Mr. Williamson entered SCDC custody at the Maximum Security Unit at Kirkland Correctional Institution on November 25, 2013. Mr. Williamson remained in solitary confinement, was not allowed time outside, had little access to reading materials, and only left his cell twice weekly to shower. His defense requested transfer to a less restrictive environment, and he transferred to the Restricted Housing Unit at Lee Correctional Institution in August 2015. He remained in similarly restrictive conditions, however, until his transfer to the county detention facility in June 2017 for trial. He had no infractions while in SCDC custody. The record lacked all of the renewal orders necessary to maintain Mr. Williamson's safekeeper status, containing only memoranda from Director Stirling recommending renewals and several of the Governor's approval orders. His status was renewed about 13 times every 90 days for three-and-a-half years. Mr. Williamson's SCDC treatment records indicated that he received treatment for depression, grief, nightmares, and psychosis, beginning in May 2015 through at least November 2016, including antipsychotic medications which he had not previously taken. On June 15, 2017, Mr. Williamson was acquitted of murder and pled guilty to armed robbery, receiving a sentence of time served with five years' probation.

In November 2015, Mr. Williamson filed a pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C. §1983 (2012) in the District of South Carolina against Director Stirling, Sheriff Carroll, jail administrator Deloris Charlton, and other unnamed officials. He amended the complaint in May 2016 to add Deputy Circuit Solicitors Miller and Jack Hammack. He asserted that the defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights by not holding a hearing, not providing him notice before transferring him to SCDC, not providing him information justifying his safekeeper status, and subjecting him to punitive conditions as a pretrial detainee. The defendants moved for summary judgment in September 2016, and the district court referred the motions to a magistrate judge who recommended awarding the summary judgments, asserting that Mr. Williamson's conditions were not unconstitutionally punitive because the defendants justified them for security purposes with no express intent to punish and that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. The district court accepted the recommendations and awarded summary judgment to the defendants. Additional amended complaints resulted in subsequent summary judgments or dismissals. Mr. Williamson appealed with legal counsel.

Ruling and Reasoning

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the summary judgment awards to Director Stirling and SheriffCarroll and affirmed the summary judgment awards to Ms. Charlton and Solicitor Miller. The court remanded the case for the lower court to determine whether Mr. Williamson's solitary confinement was disciplinary or administrative and whether the defendants violated his due process rights. Under 42 U.S.C. §1983 (2012), suits alleging violations offederal constitutional rights can be brought when the official depriving the plaintiff of constitutional rights does so while acting “under color of” state law, but the plaintiffmust demonstrate “that the official charged acted personally in the deprivation of the plaintiff's rights” (Wright v. Collins, 766 F.2d 841 (4th Cir. 1985), p 850).

Although the defendants argued that they were not personally responsible for Mr. Williamson's solitary confinement, the court ruled that Director Stirling and Sheriff Carroll played key roles in Mr. Williamson's confinement. The court noted their involvement with the initial application to place Mr. Williamson on safekeeper status and with the renewals for the three-and-a-halfyears that he remained in solitary confinement. The court ruled that Mr. Williamson did not sufficiently establish that Ms. Charlton and Deputy Solicitor Miller were personally involved in his placement in or continuation ofsolitary confinement.

The Fourth Circuit ruled that the lower court erred in awarding Director Stirling and SheriffCarroll summary judgment by asserting that they possessed qualified immunity. Citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982), the court found that claims of qualified immunity are overcome when officials violate constitutional rights. While Mr. Williamson's complaint claimed substantive and procedural due process violations, the Fourth Circuit determined that the lower court did not properly analyze those claims. Citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979), the Fourth Circuit noted that pretrial detainees have a right to be free from punishment. To show substantive due process violations, according to Slade v. Hampton Roads Regional Jail, 407 F.3d 243 (4th Cir. 2005), a detainee must dem onstrate that the conditions were imposed with an expressed intent to punish or that the conditions were not reasonably related to a nonpunitive, legitimate governmental objective, inferring punishment. The court found that Mr. Williamson's three-and-a- half years in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day with minimal access to human contact, phones, or books for a single threat could have been found to be excessive relating to the state's interest in preventing Mr. Williamson from carrying out that threat, and thus may be found by a jury to be punitive. The Fourth District found that the decision-making process for the continued renewals of Mr. Williamson's confinement status was arbitrary and lacked documentation to support the renewals, especially without considering his good behavior or his worsening mental health symptoms.

Concerning Mr. Williamson's procedural due process claims, the Fourth Circuit found that ifa jury were to find that Mr. Williamson's solitary confinement was for disciplinary purposes, then his liberty interest ofbeing free from punishment would be intruded upon, and he would be owed the procedural protections outlined in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974), including a notice, a hearing, and a written explanation of the decision, providing a floor for the procedural rights of a pretrial detainee. Ifa jury were to find Mr. Williamson's confinement was for administrative purposes, then Mr. Williamson would be entitled to a nonadversarial, informal review of the supporting information within a reasonable time frame after being placed in solitary confinement as outlined in Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460 (1983). The Fourth Circuit thought this provided a balance between procedural safeguards, the state's interests, and the pretrial detainee's interests. In addition, evolving case law provided the defendants clear notice ofthe necessity to extend to pretrial detainees some level ofprocedural protections ofliberty interests against solitary confinement.

Discussion

This case highlights the processes owed to pretrial detainees if they are subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, and it clarifies the degree of an official's involvement in placing and continuing solitary confinement for a pretrial detainee to bring suit under 42 U.S.C. §1983 (2012). Officials who applied for Mr. Williamson's initial and continued confinement were not entitled to qualified immunity without proper analysis of substantive and procedural due process claims of the detainee. Substantive due process is violated if the solitary confinement is deemed punitive or excessive, which could be determined by a jury. Whether the confinement of pretrial detainees is deemed disciplinary or administrative, procedural safeguards are required to protect their due process rights.