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Civil Rights — pretrial detainees

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//August 21, 2013//

Civil Rights — pretrial detainees

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//August 21, 2013//

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Rights — pretrial detainees — deliberate indifference

Deliberate indifference to the medical needs of prisoners who have not had a probable cause hearing is governed by the Fourth Amendment.

“During the (ordinarily brief) time between a warrantless arrest and a judicial determination of probable cause, before the state’s interest in continued detention has been established, greater solicitude to presumptively innocent arrestees is warranted. Indeed, this concern prompted Justice Scalia to dissent in Riverside, because he thought that 48 hours was too long to satisfy the requirement of a prompt hearing—a requirement, he pointed out, that ‘had as its primary beneficiaries the innocent … those so blameless that there was not even good reason to arrest them.’ 500 U.S. at 71 (Scalia, J., dissenting). The Riverside majority was also concerned about the problem of ‘prolonged detention based on incorrect or unfounded suspicion.’ 500 U.S. at 52. (Okoro, unfortunately, was experiencing prolonged detention, and no one will ever know if the suspicion that led to his arrest was well-founded.) The relevant legal standard for arrestees who have been seized but who have not yet had their probable cause hearing, we conclude, comes from the Fourth Amendment, not the Fourteenth, and certainly not the Eighth. The issue is whether the state actor’s ‘response to [the arrestee]’s medical needs was objectively unreasonable’ and ‘caused the harm of which [the arrestee] complains.’ Ortiz, 656 F.3d at 530 (discussing factors that inform Fourth Amendment analysis). If jail officials fear that this framework might impose too onerous a burden on them or their agents, there is an obvious solution: the responsible officials can ensure that arrestees receive a prompt determination of probable cause, as the Fourth Amendment already requires. See Cnty. of Riverside, 500 U.S. at 56; see also Struve, The Conditions of Pretrial Detention, supra, 161 U. PENN. L. REV. at 1013.”

Affirmed.

12-2709 Currie v. Chhabra

 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Reagan, J., Wood, J.

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