OCTOBER TERM, 1993
Syllabus
FARMER v. BRENNAN, WARDEN, ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH
CIRCUIT
No. 92-7247. Argued January 12, 1994-Decided June 6, 1994
Petitioner, a preoperative transsexual who projects feminine
characteristics, has been incarcerated with other males in the
federal prison system, sometimes in the general prison population
but more often in segregation. Petitioner claims to have been
beaten and raped by another inmate after being transferred by
respondent federal prison officials from a correctional institute
to a penitentiary-typically a higher security facility with more
troublesome prisoners-and placed in its general population. Filing
an action under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents,
403 U. S. 388,
petitioner sought damages and an injunction barring future
confinement in any penitentiary, and alleged that respondents had
acted with "deliberate indifference" to petitioner's safety in
violation of the Eighth Amendment because they knew that the
penitentiary had a violent environment and a history of inmate
assaults and that petitioner would be particularly vulnerable to
sexual attack. The District Court granted summary judgment to
respondents, denying petitioner's motion under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 56(f) to delay its ruling until respondents
complied with a discovery request. It concluded that failure to
prevent inmate assaults violates the Eighth Amendment only if
prison officials were "reckless in a criminal sense," i. e., had
"actual knowledge" of a potential danger, and that respondents
lacked such knowledge because petitioner never expressed any safety
concerns to them. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held:
1. A prison official may be held liable under the Eighth
Amendment for acting with "deliberate indifference" to inmate
health or safety only if he knows that inmates face a substantial
risk of serious harm and disregards that risk by failing to take
reasonable measures to abate it. Pp.832-851.
(a) Prison officials have a duty under the Eighth Amendment to
provide humane conditions of confinement. They must ensure that
inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care,
and must protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other
prisoners. However, a constitutional violation occurs only where
the deprivation alleged is, objectively, "sufficiently serious,"
Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U. S.
826
Syllabus
294, 298, and the official has acted with "deliberate
indifference" to inmate health or safety. Pp. 832-834.
(b) Deliberate indifference entails something more than
negligence, but is satisfied by something less than acts or
omissions for the very purpose of causing harm or with knowledge
that harm will result. Thus, it is the equivalent of acting
recklessly. However, this does not establish the level of
culpability deliberate indifference entails, for the term
recklessness is not self-defining, and can take subjective or
objective forms. Pp.835-837.
(c) Subjective recklessness, as used in the criminal law, is the
appropriate test for "deliberate indifference." Permitting a
finding of recklessness only when a person has disregarded a risk
of harm of which he was aware is a familiar and workable standard
that is consistent with the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause as
interpreted in this Court's cases. The Eighth Amendment outlaws
cruel and unusual "punishments," not "conditions," and the failure
to alleviate a significant risk that an official should have
perceived but did not, while no cause for commendation, cannot be
condemned as the infliction of punishment under the Court's cases.
Petitioner's invitation to adopt a purely objective test for
determining liability-whether the risk is known or should have been
known-is rejected. This Court's cases "mandate inquiry into a
prison official's state of mind,"
id., at 299, and it is no
accident that the Court has repeatedly said that the Eighth
Amendment has a "subjective component." Pp.837-840.
(d) The subjective test does not permit liability to be premised
on obviousness or constructive notice. Canton v. Harris,
489 U. S. 378,
distinguished. However, this does not mean that prison officials
will be free to ignore obvious dangers to inmates. Whether an
official had the requisite knowledge is a question of fact subject
to demonstration in the usual ways, and a factfinder may conclude
that the official knew of a substantial risk from the very fact
that it was obvious. Nor may an official escape liability by
showing that he knew of the risk but did not think that the
complainant was especially likely to be assaulted by the prisoner
who committed the act. It does not matter whether the risk came
from a particular source or whether a prisoner faced the risk for
reasons personal to him or because all prisoners in his situation
faced the risk. But prison officials may not be held liable if they
prove that they were unaware of even an obvious risk or if they
responded reasonably to a known risk, even if the harm ultimately
was not averted. Pp.840-845.
(e) Use of a subjective test will not foreclose prospective
injunctive relief, nor require a prisoner to suffer physical injury
before obtaining
827
prospective relief. The subjective test adopted today is
consistent with the principle that "[o]ne does not have to await
the consummation of threatened injury to obtain preventive relief."
Pennsylvania v. West Virginia,
262 U. S. 553. In a suit
for prospective relief, the subjective factor, deliberate
indifference, "should be determined in light of the prison
authorities' current attitudes and conduct," Helling v. McKinney,
509 U. S. 25, 36:
their attitudes and conduct at the time suit is brought and
persisting thereafter. In making the requisite showing of
subjective culpability, the prisoner may rely on developments that
postdate the pleadings and pretrial motions, as prison officials
may rely on such developments to show that the prisoner is not
entitled to an injunction. A court that finds the Eighth
Amendment's objective and subjective requirements satisfied may
grant appropriate injunctive relief, though it should approach
issuance of injunctions with the usual caution. A court need not
ignore a prisoner's failure to take advantage of adequate prison
procedures to resolve inmate grievances, and may compel a prisoner
to pursue them. Pp.845-847.
2. On remand, the District Court must reconsider its denial of
petitioner's Rule 56(f) discovery motion and apply the Eighth
Amendment principles explained herein. The court may have erred in
placing decisive weight on petitioner's failure to notify
respondents of a danger, and such error may have affected the
court's ruling on the discovery motion, so that additional evidence
may be available to petitioner. Neither of two of respondents'
contentions-that some of the officials had no knowledge about the
confinement conditions and thus were alleged to be liable only for
the transfer, and that there is no present threat that petitioner
will be placed in a penitentiary-is so clearly correct as to
justify affirmance. Pp.848-851.
Vacated and remanded.
SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C. J., and BLACKMUN, STEVENS, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY,
and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., post, p. 851, and STEVENS,
J., post, p. 858, filed concurring opinions. THOMAS, J., filed an
opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 858.
Elizabeth Alexander argued the cause for petitioner.
With her on the briefs were Alvin
J. Bronstein, by
appointment of the Court, 510 U. S. 941, and Steven R. Shapiro.
Deputy Solicitor General Bender argued the cause for
respondents. With him on the brief were Solicitor General
828
Days, Assistant Attorney General Hunger, Amy L. Wax, Barbara L.
Herwig, and Robert M. Loeb.
*
JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
A prison official's "deliberate indifference" to a substantial
risk of serious harm to an inmate violates the Eighth Amendment.
See Helling v. McKinney
509 U. S. 25 (1993);
Wilson v. Seiter,
501
U. S. 294 (1991); Estelle v. Gamble, 429
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the
Montana Defender Project by Jeffrey T. Renz; for the D. C.
Prisoners' Legal Services Project, Inc., by Alan A. Pemberton and
Jonathan M. Smith; and for Stop Prisoner Rape by Frank M.
Dunbaugh.
J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, and
Andrew H.
Baida, Assistant Attorney General, filed a brief for the State
of Maryland et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance, joined by the
Attorneys General and other officials for their respective States
as follows: Jimmy Evans, Attorney General of Alabama, Charles E.
Cole, Attorney General of Alaska, Grant Woods, Attorney General of
Arizona, Winston Bryant, Attorney General of Arkansas, Daniel E.
Lungren, Attorney General of California, Charles M. Oberly III,
Attorney General of Delaware, Michael
J. Bowers, Attorney
General of Georgia, Robert A. Marks, Attorney General of Hawaii,
Pamela Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Robert T. Stephan,
Attorney General of Kansas, Chris Gorman, Attorney General of
Kentucky, Scott Harshbarger, Attorney General of Massachusetts,
Frank
J. Kelley, Attorney General of Michigan, Hubert H.
Humphrey III, Attorney General of Minnesota, Mike Moore, Attorney
General of Mississippi, Jay Nixon, Attorney General of Missouri,
Don Stenberg, Attorney General of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa,
Attorney General of Nevada, Jeffrey R. Howard, Attorney General of
New Hampshire, Fred DeVesa, Acting Attorney General of New Jersey,
Michael F. Easley, Attorney General of North Carolina, Heidi
Heitkamp, Attorney General of North Dakota, Lee Fisher, Attorney
General of Ohio, Susan B. Loving, Attorney General of Oklahoma,
Theodore R. Kulongoski, Attorney General of Oregon, Ernest D.
Preate, Jr., Attorney General of Pennsylvania, T. Travis Medlock,
Attorney General of South Carolina, Mark Barnett, Attorney General
of South Dakota, Charles W Burson, Attorney General of Tennessee,
Jan Graham, Attorney General of Utah, Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney
General of Vermont, Stephen D. Rosenthal, Attorney General of
Virginia, James E. Doyle, Attorney General of Wisconsin, and Joseph
B. Meyer, Attorney General of Wyoming.
829
u. S. 97 (1976). This case requires us to define the term
"deliberate indifference," as we do by requiring a showing that the
official was subjectively aware of the risk.
I
The dispute before us stems from a civil suit brought by
petitioner, Dee Farmer, alleging that respondents, federal prison
officials, violated the Eighth Amendment by their deliberate
indifference to petitioner's safety. Petitioner, who is serving a
federal sentence for credit card fraud, has been diagnosed by
medical personnel of the Bureau of Prisons as a transsexual, one
who has "[a] rare psychiatric disorder in which a person feels
persistently uncomfortable about his or her anatomical sex," and
who typically seeks medical treatment, including hormonal therapy
and surgery, to bring about a permanent sex change. American
Medical Association, Encyclopedia of Medicine 1006 (1989); see also
American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders 74-75 (3d rev. ed. 1987). For several years
before being convicted and sentenced in 1986 at the age of 18,
petitioner, who is biologically male, wore women's clothing (as
petitioner did at the 1986 trial), underwent estrogen therapy,
received silicone breast implants, and submitted to unsuccessful
"black market" testicle-removal surgery. See Farmer v. Haas,
990 F.2d
319, 320 (CA7 1993). Petitioner's precise appearance in prison
is unclear from the record before us, but petitioner claims to have
continued hormonal treatment while incarcerated by using drugs
smuggled into prison, and apparently wears clothing in a feminine
manner, as by displaying a shirt "off one shoulder," App. 112. The
parties agree that petitioner "projects feminine characteristics."
Id., at 51, 74.
The practice of federal prison authorities is to incarcerate
preoperative transsexuals with prisoners of like biological sex,
see Farmer v. Haas, supra, at 320, and over time authorities housed
petitioner in several federal facilities, sometimes
830
in the general male prison population but more often in
segregation. While there is no dispute that petitioner was
segregated at least several times because of violations of prison
rules, neither is it disputed that in at least one penitentiary
petitioner was segregated because of safety concerns. See Farmer v.
Carlson, 685 F. Supp. 1335, 1342 (MD Pa. 1988).
On March 9, 1989, petitioner was transferred for disciplinary
reasons from the Federal Correctional Institute in Oxford,
Wisconsin (FCI-Oxford), to the United States Penitentiary in Terre
Haute, Indiana (USP-Terre Haute). Though the record before us is
unclear about the security designations of the two prisons in 1989,
penitentiaries are typically higher security facilities that house
more troublesome prisoners than federal correctional institutes.
See generally Federal Bureau of Prisons, Facilities 1990. After an
initial stay in administrative segregation, petitioner was placed
in the USP-Terre Haute general population. Petitioner voiced no
objection to any prison official about the transfer to the
penitentiary or to placement in its general population. Within two
weeks, according to petitioner's allegations, petitioner was beaten
and raped by another inmate in petitioner's cell. Several days
later, after petitioner claims to have reported the incident,
officials returned petitioner to segregation to await, according to
respondents, a hearing about petitioner's HIV-positive status.
Acting without counsel, petitioner then filed a Bivens
complaint, alleging a violation of the Eighth Amendment. See Bivens
v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents,
403 U. S. 388 (1971);
Carlson v. Green,
446
U. S. 14 (1980). As defendants, petitioner named respondents:
the warden of USP-Terre Haute and the Director of the Bureau of
Prisons (sued only in their official capacities); the warden of
FCI-Oxford and a case manager there; and the Director of the Bureau
of Prisons North Central Region Office and an official in that
office (sued in their official and personal capacities). As later
amended, the complaint alleged that respondents either
831
transferred petitioner to USP-Terre Haute or placed petitioner
in its general population despite knowledge that the penitentiary
had a violent environment and a history of inmate assaults, and
despite knowledge that petitioner, as a transsexual who "projects
feminine characteristics," would be particularly vulnerable to
sexual attack by some USPTerre Haute inmates. This allegedly
amounted to a deliberately indifferent failure to protect
petitioner's safety, and thus to a violation of petitioner's Eighth
Amendment rights. Petitioner sought compensatory and punitive
damages, and an injunction barring future confinement in any
penitentiary, including USP-Terre Haute.1
Respondents filed a motion for summary judgment supported by
several affidavits, to which petitioner responded with an opposing
affidavit and a cross-motion for summary judgment; petitioner also
invoked Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f), asking the court to
delay its ruling until respondents had complied with petitioner's
pending request for production of documents. Respondents then moved
for a protective order staying discovery until resolution of the
issue of qualified immunity, raised in respondents' summary
judgment motion.
Without ruling on respondents' request to stay discovery, the
District Court denied petitioner's Rule 56(f) motion and granted
summary judgment to respondents, concluding that there had been no
deliberate indifference to petitioner's safety. The failure of
prison officials to prevent inmate assaults violates the Eighth
Amendment, the court stated, only if prison officials were
"reckless in a criminal sense," meaning that they had "actual
knowledge" of a potential danger. App. 124. Respondents, however,
lacked the requisite
1 Petitioner also sought an order requiring the Bureau of
Prisons to place petitioner in a "co-correctional facility" (i. e.,
one separately housing male and female prisoners but allowing
coeducational programming). Petitioner tells us, however, that the
Bureau no longer operates such facilities, and petitioner
apparently no longer seeks this relief.
832
knowledge, the court found. "[Petitioner] never expressed any
concern for his safety to any of [respondents]. Since [respondents]
had no knowledge of any potential danger to [petitioner], they were
not deliberately indifferent to his safety." Ibid.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
summarily affirmed without opinion. We granted certiorari, 510 U.
S. 811 (1993), because Courts of Appeals had adopted inconsistent
tests for "deliberate indifference." Compare, for example, McGill
v. Duckworth,
944 F.2d
344, 348 (CA7 1991) (holding that "deliberate indifference"
requires a "subjective standard of recklessness"), cert. denied,
503 U. S. 907 (1992), with Young v. Quinlan,
960
F.2d 351, 360-361 (CA3 1992) ("[A] prison official is
deliberately indifferent when he knows or should have known of a
sufficiently serious danger to an inmate").
II A
The Constitution "does not mandate comfortable prisons," Rhodes
v. Chapman,
452 U. S.
337, 349 (1981), but neither does it permit inhumane ones, and
it is now settled that "the treatment a prisoner receives in prison
and the conditions under which he is confined are subject to
scrutiny under the Eighth Amendment," Helling, 509 U. S., at 31. In
its prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishments," the Eighth
Amendment places restraints on prison officials, who may not, for
example, use excessive physical force against prisoners. See Hudson
v. McMillian,
503 U. S.
1 (1992). The Amendment also imposes duties on these officials,
who must provide humane conditions of confinement; prison officials
must ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter,
and medical care, and must "take reasonable measures to guarantee
the safety of the inmates," Hudson v. Palmer,
468 U. S. 517, 526-527
(1984). See Helling, supra,
833
at 31-32; Washington v. Harper,
494 U. S. 210, 225
(1990); Estelle, 429 U. S., at 103. Cf. DeShaney v. Winnebago
County Dept. of Social Servs.,
489 U. S. 189, 198-199
(1989).
In particular, as the lower courts have uniformly held, and as
we have assumed, "prison officials have a duty ... to protect
prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners."
Cortes-Quinones v. Jimenez-Nettleship,
842 F.2d
556, 558 (CA1) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted),
cert. denied, 488 U. S. 823 (1988); 2 see also Wilson v. Seiter,
501 U. S., at 303 (describing "the protection [an inmate] is
afforded against other inmates" as a "conditio[n] of confinement"
subject to the strictures of the Eighth Amendment). Having
incarcerated "persons [with] demonstrated pro clivit[ies] for
antisocial criminal, and often violent, conduct," Hudson v. Palmer,
supra, at 526, having stripped them of virtually every means of
self-protection and foreclosed their access to outside aid, the
government and its officials are not free to let the state of
nature take its course. Cf. DeShaney, supra, at 199-200; Estelle,
supra, at 103-104. Prison conditions may be "restrictive and even
harsh," Rhodes, supra, at 347, but gratuitously allowing the
beating or rape of one prisoner by another serves no "legitimate
penological objectiv[e]," Hudson v. Palmer, supra, at 548 (STEVENS,
J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), any more than it
squares with "'evolving standards of decency,'" Estelle,
2 Other Court of Appeals decisions to the same effect include
Villante v. Department of Corrections,
786 F.2d
516, 519 (CA2 1986); Young v. Quinlan,
960
F.2d 351, 361-362 (CA3 1992); Pressly v. Hutto,
816 F.2d
977, 979 (CA4 1987); Alberti v. Klevenhagen,
790 F.2d
1220, 1224 (CA5 1986); Roland v. Johnson,
856
F.2d 764, 769 (CA6 1988); Goka v. Bobbitt,
862 F.2d
646, 649-650 (CA7 1988); Martin v. White,
742
F.2d 469, 474 (CA8 1984); Berg v. Kincheloe,
794 F.2d
457, 459 (CA9 1986); Ramos v. Lamm,
639 F.2d
559, 572 (CAW 1980); LaMarca v. Turner,
995
F.2d 1526, 1535 (CAll 1993); and Morgan v. District of
Columbia,
824 F.2d
1049, 1057 (CADC 1987).
834
supra, at 102 (quoting Trop v. Dulles,
356 U. S. 86, 101 (1958)
(plurality opinion)). Being violently assaulted in prison is simply
not "part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their
offenses against society." Rhodes, supra, at 347.
It is not, however, every injury suffered by one prisoner at the
hands of another that translates into constitutional liability for
prison officials responsible for the victim's safety. Our cases
have held that a prison official violates the Eighth Amendment only
when two requirements are met. First, the deprivation alleged must
be, objectively, "sufficiently serious," Wilson, supra, at 298; see
also Hudson v. McMillian, supra, at 5; a prison official's act or
omission must result in the denial of "the minimal civilized
measure of life's necessities," Rhodes, supra, at 347. For a claim
(like the one here) based on a failure to prevent harm, the inmate
must show that he is incarcerated under conditions posing a
substantial risk of serious harm. See Helling, supra, at 35.3
The second requirement follows from the principle that "only the
unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain implicates the Eighth
Amendment." Wilson, 501 U. S., at 297 (internal quotation marks,
emphasis, and citations omitted). To violate the Cruel and Unusual
Punishments Clause, a prison official must have a "sufficiently
culpable state of mind." Ibid.; see also id., at 302-303; Hudson v.
McMillian, supra, at 8. In prison-conditions cases that state of
mind is one of "deliberate indifference" to inmate health or
safety, Wilson, supra, at 302-303; see also Helling, supra, at
34-35; Hudson v. McMillian, supra, at 5; Estelle, supra, at 106, a
standard the parties agree governs the claim in this case. The
parties disagree, however, on the proper test for deliberate
indifference, which we must therefore undertake to define.
3 At what point a risk of inmate assault becomes sufficiently
substantial for Eighth Amendment purposes is a question this case
does not present, and we do not address it.
835
B 1
Although we have never paused to explain the meaning of the term
"deliberate indifference," the case law is instructive. The term
first appeared in the United States Reports in Estelle v. Gamble,
429 U. S., at 104, and its use there shows that deliberate
indifference describes a state of mind more blameworthy than
negligence. In considering the inmate's claim in Estelle that
inadequate prison medical care violated the Cruel and Unusual
Punishments Clause, we distinguished "deliberate indifference to
serious medical needs of prisoners," ibid., from "negligen[ce] in
diagnosing or treating a medical condition,"
id., at 106,
holding that only the former violates the Clause. We have since
read Estelle for the proposition that Eighth Amendment liability
requires "more than ordinary lack of due care for the prisoner's
interests or safety." Whitley v. Albers,
475 U. S. 312, 319
(1986).
While Estelle establishes that deliberate indifference entails
something more than mere negligence, the cases are also clear that
it is satisfied by something less than acts or omissions for the
very purpose of causing harm or with knowledge that harm will
result. That point underlies the ruling that "application of the
deliberate indifference standard is inappropriate" in one class of
prison cases: when "officials stand accused of using excessive
physical force." Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U. S., at 6-7; see also
Whitley, supra, at 320. In such situations, where the decisions of
prison officials are typically made " 'in haste, under pressure,
and frequently without the luxury of a second chance,'" Hudson v.
McMillian, supra, at 6 (quoting Whitley, supra, at 320), an Eighth
Amendment claimant must show more than "indifference," deliberate
or otherwise. The claimant must show that officials applied force
"maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing
harm," 503 U. S., at 6 (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted), or, as the Court also
836
put it, that officials used force with "a knowing willingness
that [harm] occur,"
id., at 7 (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted). This standard of purposeful or knowing conduct
is not, however, necessary to satisfy the mens rea requirement of
deliberate indifference for claims challenging conditions of
confinement; "the very high state of mind prescribed by Whitley
does not apply to prison conditions cases." Wilson, supra, at
302-303.
With deliberate indifference lying somewhere between the poles
of negligence at one end and purpose or knowledge at the other, the
Courts of Appeals have routinely equated deliberate indifference
with recklessness.4 See, e.
g., LaMarca v. Turner,
995 F.2d
1526, 1535 (CA111993); Manarite v. Springfield,
957 F.2d
953, 957 (CA1 1992); Redman v. County of San Diego,
942 F.2d
1435, 1443 (CA9 1991); McGill v. Duckworth, 944 F. 2d, at 347;
Miltier v. Beorn,
896 F.2d
848, 851-852 (CA4 1990); Martin v. White,
742
F.2d 469, 474 (CA8 1984); see also Springfield v. Kibbe,
480 U. S. 257,
269 (1987) (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting). It is, indeed, fair to say
that acting or failing to act with deliberate indifference to a
substantial risk of serious harm to a prisoner is the equivalent of
recklessly disregarding that risk.
That does not, however, fully answer the pending question about
the level of culpability deliberate indifference entails, for the
term recklessness is not self-defining. The civil law generally
calls a person reckless who acts or (if the person has a duty to
act) fails to act in the face of an unjustifiably high risk of harm
that is either known or so obvious that it should be known. See
Prosser and Keeton § 34, pp. 213-214; Restatement (Second) of Torts
§ 500 (1965). The criminal
4 Between the poles lies "gross negligence" too, but the term is
a "nebulous" one, in practice typically meaning little different
from recklessness as generally understood in the civil law (which
we discuss later in the text). See W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton,
& D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts § 34, p. 212 (5th
ed. 1984) (hereinafter Prosser and Keeton).
837
law, however, generally permits a finding of recklessness only
when a person disregards a risk of harm of which he is aware. See
R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law 850-851 (3d ed. 1982); J.
Hall, General Principles of Criminal Law 115-116, 120, 128 (2d ed.
1960) (hereinafter Hall); American Law Institute, Model Penal Code
§ 2.02(2)(c), and Comment 3 (1985); but see Commonwealth v. Pierce,
138 Mass. 165, 175-178 (1884) (Holmes, J.) (adopting an objective
approach to criminal recklessness). The standards proposed by the
parties in this case track the two approaches (though the parties
do not put it that way): petitioner asks us to define deliberate
indifference as what we have called civil-law recklessness,5 and
respondents urge us to adopt an approach consistent with
recklessness in the criminal law. 6
We reject petitioner's invitation to adopt an objective test for
deliberate indifference. We hold instead that a prison official
cannot be found liable under the Eighth Amendment for denying an
inmate humane conditions of confinement unless the official knows
of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the
official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could
be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he
must also draw the inference. This approach comports best with the
text of the Amendment as our cases have interpreted it. The Eighth
Amendment does not outlaw cruel and unusual "conditions"; it
outlaws cruel and unusual "punishments." An act or omission
unaccompanied by knowledge of a significant risk of harm might well
be something society wishes to dis-
5 See Reply Brief for Petitioner 5 (suggesting that a prison
official is deliberately indifferent if he "knew facts which
rendered an unreasonable risk obvious; under such circumstances,
the defendant should have known of the risk and will be charged
with such knowledge as a matter of law"); see also Brief for
Petitioner 20-21.
6 See Brief for Respondents 16 (asserting that deliberate
indifference requires that a prison "official must know of the risk
of harm to which an inmate is exposed").
838
courage, and if harm does result society might well wish to
assure compensation. The common law reflects such concerns when it
imposes tort liability on a purely objective basis. See Prosser and
Keeton §§ 2, 34, pp. 6, 213-214; see also Federal Tort Claims Act,
28 U. S. C. §§ 2671-2680; United States v. Muniz,
374 U. S. 150 (1963). But
an official's failure to alleviate a significant risk that he
should have perceived but did not, while no cause for commendation,
cannot under our cases be condemned as the infliction of
punishment.
In Wilson v. Seiter, we rejected a reading of the Eighth
Amendment that would allow liability to be imposed on prison
officials solely because of the presence of objectively inhumane
prison conditions. See 501 U. S., at 299-302. As we explained
there, our "cases mandate inquiry into a prison official's state of
mind when it is claimed that the official has inflicted cruel and
unusual punishment." Id., at 299. Although "state of mind," like
"intent," is an ambiguous term that can encompass objectively
defined levels of blameworthiness, see 1 W. LaFave & A. Scott,
Substantive Criminal Law §§ 3.4, 3.5, pp. 296-300, 313-314 (1986)
(hereinafter LaFave & Scott); United States v. Bailey,
444 U. S. 394, 404
(1980), it was no accident that we said in Wilson and repeated in
later cases that Eighth Amendment suits against prison officials
must satisfy a "subjective" requirement. See Wilson, supra, at 298;
see also Helling, 509 U. S., at 35; Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U. S.,
at 8. It is true, as petitioner points out, that Wilson cited with
approval Court of Appeals decisions applying an objective test for
deliberate indifference to claims based on prison officials'
failure to prevent inmate assaults. See 501 U. S., at 303 (citing
CortesQuinones v. Jimenez-Nettleship, 842 F. 2d, at 560; and Morgan
v. District of Columbia,
824 F.2d
1049, 1057-1058 (CADC 1987)). But Wilson cited those cases for
the proposition that the deliberate indifference standard applies
to all prison-conditions claims, not to undo its holding that
the
839
Eighth Amendment has a "subjective component." 501 U. S., at
298. Petitioner's purely objective test for deliberate indifference
is simply incompatible with Wilson's holding.
To be sure, the reasons for focusing on what a defendant's
mental attitude actually was (or is), rather than what it should
have been (or should be), differ in the Eighth Amendment context
from that of the criminal law. Here, a subjective approach isolates
those who inflict punishment; there, it isolates those against whom
punishment should be inflicted. But the result is the same: to act
recklessly in either setting a person must "consciously
disregar[d]" a substantial risk of serious harm. Model Penal Code §
2.02(2)(c).
At oral argument, the Deputy Solicitor General advised against
frank adoption of a criminal-law mens rea requirement, contending
that it could encourage triers of fact to find Eighth Amendment
liability only if they concluded that prison officials acted like
criminals. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 3940. We think this concern is
misdirected. Bivens actions against federal prison officials (and
their 42 U. S. C. § 1983 counterparts against state officials) are
civil in character, and a court should no more allude to the
criminal law when enforcing the Cruel and Unusual Punishments
Clause than when applying the Free Speech and Press Clauses, where
we have also adopted a subjective approach to recklessness. See
Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v. Connaughton,
491 U. S. 657, 688 (1989)
(holding that the standard for "reckless disregard" for the truth
in a defamation action by a public figure "is a subjective one,"
requiring that "the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as
to the truth of his publication," or that "the defendant actually
had a high degree of awareness of ... probable falsity") (internal
quotation marks and citations omitted).7 That said, subjective
recklessness as used in the criminal law is a familiar and workable
stand-
7 Appropriate allusions to the criminal law would, of course, be
proper during criminal prosecutions under, for example, 18 U. S. C.
§ 242, which sets criminal penalties for deprivations of rights
under color of law.
840
ard that is consistent with the Cruel and Unusual Punishments
Clause as interpreted in our cases, and we adopt it as the test for
"deliberate indifference" under the Eighth Amendment.
2
Our decision that Eighth Amendment liability requires
consciousness of a risk is thus based on the Constitution and our
cases, not merely on a parsing of the phrase "deliberate
indifference." And we do not reject petitioner's arguments for a
thoroughly objective approach to deliberate indifference without
recognizing that on the crucial point (whether a prison official
must know of a risk, or whether it suffices that he should know)
the term does not speak with certainty. Use of "deliberate," for
example, arguably requires nothing more than an act (or omission)
of indifference to a serious risk that is voluntary, not
accidental. Cf. Estelle, 429 U. S., at 105 (distinguishing
"deliberate indifference" from "accident" or "inadverten[ce]"). And
even if "deliberate" is better read as implying knowledge of a
risk, the concept of constructive knowledge is familiar enough that
the term "deliberate indifference" would not, of its own force,
preclude a scheme that conclusively presumed awareness from a
risk's obviousness.
Because "deliberate indifference" is a judicial gloss, appearing
neither in the Constitution nor in a statute, we could not accept
petitioner's argument that the test for "deliberate indifference"
described in Canton v. Harris,
489 U. S. 378 (1989),
must necessarily govern here. In Canton, interpreting Rev. Stat. §
1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, we held that a municipality can be liable
for failure to train its employees when the municipality's failure
shows "a deliberate indifference to the rights of its inhabitants."
489 U. S., at 389 (internal quotation marks omitted). In speaking
to the meaning of the term, we said that "it may happen that in
light of the duties assigned to specific officers or employees the
need for
841
more or different training is so obvious, and the inadequacy so
likely to result in the violation of constitutional rights, that
the policymakers of the city can reasonably be said to have been
deliberately indifferent to the need." Id., at 390; see also
id., at 390, n. 10 (elaborating). JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S
separate opinion for three Justices agreed with the Court's
"obvious[nessJ" test and observed that liability is appropriate
when policymakers are "on actual or constructive notice" of the
need to train,
id., at 396 (opinion concurring in part and
dissenting in part). It would be hard to describe the Canton
understanding of deliberate indifference, permitting liability to
be premised on obviousness or constructive notice, as anything but
objective.
Canton's objective standard, however, is not an appropriate test
for determining the liability of prison officials under the Eighth
Amendment as interpreted in our cases. Section 1983, which merely
provides a cause of action, "contains no state-of-mind requirement
independent of that necessary to state a violation of the
underlying constitutional right." Daniels v. Williams,
474 U. S. 327, 330
(1986). And while deliberate indifference serves under the Eighth
Amendment to ensure that only inflictions of punishment carry
liability, see Wilson, 501 U. S., at 299-300, the "term was used in
the Canton case for the quite different purpose of identifying the
threshold for holding a city responsible for the constitutional
torts committed by its inadequately trained agents," Collins v.
Harker Heights,
503
U. S. 115, 124 (1992), a purpose the Canton Court found
satisfied by a test permitting liability when a municipality
disregards "obvious" needs. Needless to say, moreover, considerable
conceptual difficulty would attend any search for the subjective
state of mind of a governmental entity, as distinct from that of a
governmental official. For these reasons, we cannot accept
petitioner's argument that Canton compels the conclu-
842
sion here that a prison official who was unaware of a
substantial risk of harm to an inmate may nevertheless be held
liable under the Eighth Amendment if the risk was obvious and a
reasonable prison official would have noticed it.
We are no more persuaded by petitioner's argument that, without
an objective test for deliberate indifference, prison officials
will be free to ignore obvious dangers to inmates. Under the test
we adopt today, an Eighth Amendment claimant need not show that a
prison official acted or failed to act believing that harm actually
would befall an inmate; it is enough that the official acted or
failed to act despite his knowledge of a substantial risk of
serious harm. Cf. 1 C. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law § 27, p. 141
(14th ed. 1978); Hall 115. We doubt that a subjective approach will
present prison officials with any serious motivation "to take
refuge in the zone between 'ignorance of obvious risks' and 'actual
knowledge of risks.'" Brief for Petitioner 27. Whether a prison
official had the requisite knowledge of a substantial risk is a
question of fact subject to demonstration in the usual ways,
including inference from circumstantial evidence, cf. Hall 118
(cautioning against "confusing a mental state with the proof of its
existence"), and a factfinder may conclude that a prison official
knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was
obvious. Cf. LaFave & Scott § 3.7, p. 335 ("[I]f the risk is
obvious, so that a reasonable man would realize it, we might well
infer that [the defendant] did in fact realize it; but the
inference cannot be conclusive, for we know that people are not
always conscious of what reasonable people would be conscious of").
For example, if an Eighth Amendment plaintiff presents evidence
showing that a substantial risk of inmate attacks was
"longstanding, pervasive, well-documented, or expressly noted by
prison officials in the past, and the circumstances suggest that
the defendant-official being sued had been exposed to information
concerning the risk and thus 'must have known' about it, then such
evidence could be sufficient to permit a trier of
843
fact to find that the defendant-official had actual knowledge of
the risk." Brief for Respondents 22.8
Nor may a prison official escape liability for deliberate
indifference by showing that, while he was aware of an obvious,
substantial risk to inmate safety, he did not know that the
complainant was especially likely to be assaulted by the specific
prisoner who eventually committed the assault. The question under
the Eighth Amendment is whether prison officials, acting with
deliberate indifference, exposed a prisoner to a sufficiently
substantial "risk of serious damage to his future health," Helling,
509 U. S., at 35, and it does not matter whether the risk comes
from a single source or multiple sources, any more than it matters
whether a prisoner faces an excessive risk of attack for reasons
personal to him or because all prisoners in his situation face such
a risk. See Brief for Respondents 15 (stating that a prisoner can
establish exposure to a sufficiently serious risk of harm "by
showing that he belongs to an identifiable group of prisoners who
are frequently singled out for violent attack by other inmates").
If, for example, prison officials were aware that inmate "rape was
so common and uncontrolled that some potential victims dared not
sleep [but] instead ... would leave
8 While the obviousness of a risk is not conclusive and a prison
official may show that the obvious escaped him, see infra, at 844,
he would not escape liability if the evidence showed that he merely
refused to verify underlying facts that he strongly suspected to be
true, or declined to confirm inferences of risk that he strongly
suspected to exist (as when a prison official is aware of a high
probability of facts indicating that one prisoner has planned an
attack on another but resists opportunities to obtain final
confirmation; or when a prison official knows that some diseases
are communicable and that a single needle is being used to
administer flu shots to prisoners but refuses to listen to a
subordinate who he strongly suspects will attempt to explain the
associated risk of transmitting disease). When instructing juries
in deliberate indifference cases with such issues of proof, courts
should be careful to ensure that the requirement of subjective
culpability is not lost. It is not enough merely to find that a
reasonable person would have known, or that the defendant should
have known, and juries should be instructed accordingly.
844
their beds and spend the night clinging to the bars nearest the
guards' station," Hutto v. Finney,
437 U. S. 678, 681-682,
n. 3 (1978), it would obviously be irrelevant to liability that the
officials could not guess beforehand precisely who would attack
whom. Cf. Helling, supra, at 33 (observing that the Eighth
Amendment requires a remedy for exposure of inmates to "infectious
maladies" such as hepatitis and venereal disease "even though the
possible infection might not affect all of those exposed");
Commonwealth v. Welansky, 316 Mass. 383, 55 N. E. 2d 902 (1944)
(affirming conviction for manslaughter under a law requiring
reckless or wanton conduct of a nightclub owner who failed to
protect patrons from a fire, even though the owner did not know in
advance who would light the match that ignited the fire or which
patrons would lose their lives); State v. Julius, 185 W. Va. 422,
431432, 408 S. E. 2d 1, 10-11 (1991) (holding that a defendant may
be held criminally liable for injury to an unanticipated
victim).
Because, however, prison officials who lacked knowledge of a
risk cannot be said to have inflicted punishment, it remains open
to the officials to prove that they were unaware even of an obvious
risk to inmate health or safety. That a trier of fact may infer
knowledge from the obvious, in other words, does not mean that it
must do so. Prison officials charged with deliberate indifference
might show, for example, that they did not know of the underlying
facts indicating a sufficiently substantial danger and that they
were therefore unaware of a danger, or that they knew the
underlying facts but believed (albeit unsoundly) that the risk to
which the facts gave rise was insubstantial or nonexistent.
In addition, prison officials who actually knew of a substantial
risk to inmate health or safety may be found free from liability if
they responded reasonably to the risk, even if the harm ultimately
was not averted. A prison official's duty under the Eighth
Amendment is to ensure "'reasonable safety,'" Helling, supra, at
33; see also Washington v. Har-
845
per, 494 U. S., at 225; Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S., at 526527,
a standard that incorporates due regard for prison officials'
"unenviable task of keeping dangerous men in safe custody under
humane conditions," Spain v. Procunier,
600 F.2d
189, 193 (CA9 1979) (Kennedy, J.); see also Bell v. Wolfish,
441 U. S. 520,
547-548, 562 (1979). Whether one puts it in terms of duty or
deliberate indifference, prison officials who act reasonably cannot
be found liable under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause.
We address, finally, petitioner's argument that a subjective
deliberate indifference test will unjustly require prisoners to
suffer physical injury before obtaining court-ordered correction of
objectively inhumane prison conditions. "It would," indeed, "be odd
to deny an injunction to inmates who plainly proved an unsafe,
life-threatening condition in their prison on the ground that
nothing yet had happened to them." Helling, supra, at 33. But
nothing in the test we adopt today clashes with that common sense.
Petitioner's argument is flawed for the simple reason that "[o]ne
does not have to await the consummation of threatened injury to
obtain preventive relief." Pennsylvania v. West Virginia,
262 U. S. 553, 593
(1923). Consistently with this principle, a subjective approach to
deliberate indifference does not require a prisoner seeking "a
remedy for unsafe conditions [to] await a tragic event [such as an]
actua[l] assaul[t] before obtaining relief." Helling, supra, at
33-34.
In a suit such as petitioner's, insofar as it seeks injunctive
relief to prevent a substantial risk of serious injury from
ripening into actual harm, "the subjective factor, deliberate
indifference, should be determined in light of the prison
authorities' current attitudes and conduct," Helling, supra, at 36:
their attitudes and conduct at the time suit is brought and
persisting thereafter. An inmate seeking an injunction on the
ground that there is "a contemporary violation of a nature likely
to continue," United States v. Oregon State Medical Soc.,
343 U. S. 326, 333
(1952), must adequately
846
plead such a violation; to survive summary judgment, he must
come forward with evidence from which it can be inferred that the
defendant-officials were at the time suit was filed, and are at the
time of summary judgment, knowingly and unreasonably disregarding
an objectively intolerable risk of harm, and that they will
continue to do so; and finally to establish eligibility for an
injunction, the inmate must demonstrate the continuance of that
disregard during the remainder of the litigation and into the
future. In so doing, the inmate may rely, in the district court's
discretion, on developments that postdate the pleadings and
pretrial motions, as the defendants may rely on such developments
to establish that the inmate is not entitled to an injunction.9 See
Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15(d); 6A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane,
Federal Practice and Procedure §§ 1504-1510, pp. 177211 (2d ed.
1990). If the court finds the Eighth Amendment's subjective and
objective requirements satisfied, it may grant appropriate
injunctive relief. See
Hutto v.
Finney, 437 U. S., at
685-688, and n. 9 (upholding order designed to halt "an ongoing
violation" in prison conditions that included extreme overcrowding,
rampant violence, insufficient food, and unsanitary conditions). Of
course, a district court should approach issuance of injunctive
orders with the usual
9 If, for example, the evidence before a district court
establishes that an inmate faces an objectively intolerable risk of
serious injury, the defendants could not plausibly persist in
claiming lack of awareness, any more than prison officials who
state during the litigation that they will not take reasonable
measures to abate an intolerable risk of which they are aware could
claim to be subjectively blameless for purposes of the Eighth
Amendment, and in deciding whether an inmate has established a
continuing constitutional violation a district court may take such
developments into account. At the same time, even prison officials
who had a subjectively culpable state of mind when the lawsuit was
filed could prevent issuance of an injunction by proving, during
the litigation, that they were no longer unreasonably disregarding
an objectively intolerable risk of harm and that they would not
revert to their obduracy upon cessation of the litigation.
847
caution, see Bell v. Wolfish, supra, at 562 (warning courts
against becoming "enmeshed in the minutiae of prison operations"),
and may, for example, exercise its discretion if appropriate by
giving prison officials time to rectify the situation before
issuing an injunction.
That prison officials' "current attitudes and conduct,"
Hell
ing, 509 U. S., at 36, must be assessed in an action for
injunctive relief does not mean, of course, that inmates are free
to bypass adequate internal prison procedures and bring their
health and safety concerns directly to court. "An appeal to the
equity jurisdiction conferred on federal district courts is an
appeal to the sound discretion which guides the determinations of
courts of equity," Meredith v. Winter Haven,
320 U. S. 228, 235
(1943), and any litigant making such an appeal must show that the
intervention of equity is required. When a prison inmate seeks
injunctive relief, a court need not ignore the inmate's failure to
take advantage of adequate prison procedures, and an inmate who
needlessly bypasses such procedures may properly be compelled to
pursue them. Cf. 42 U. S. C. § 1997e (authorizing district courts
in § 1983 actions to require inmates to exhaust "such plain,
speedy, and effective administrative remedies as are available").
Even apart from the demands of equity, an inmate would be well
advised to take advantage of internal prison procedures for
resolving inmate grievances. When those procedures produce results,
they will typically do so faster than judicial processes can. And
even when they do not bring constitutionally required changes, the
inmate's task in court will obviously be much easier.
Accordingly, we reject petitioner's arguments and hold that a
prison official may be held liable under the Eighth Amendment for
denying humane conditions of confinement only if he knows that
inmates face a substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that
risk by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it.
848
III A
Against this backdrop, we consider whether the District Court's
disposition of petitioner's complaint, summarily affirmed without
briefing by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, comports
with Eighth Amendment principles. We conclude that the appropriate
course is to remand.
In granting summary judgment to respondents on the ground that
petitioner had failed to satisfy the Eighth Amendment's subjective
requirement, the District Court may have placed decisive weight on
petitioner's failure to notify respondents of a risk of harm. That
petitioner "never expressed any concern for his safety to any of
[respondents]," App. 124, was the only evidence the District Court
cited for its conclusion that there was no genuine dispute about
respondents' assertion that they "had no knowledge of any potential
danger to [petitioner],"
ibid. But with respect to each of
petitioner's claims, for damages and for injunctive relief, the
failure to give advance notice is not dispositive. Petitioner may
establish respondents' awareness by reliance on any relevant
evidence. See supra, at 842.
The summary judgment record does not so clearly establish
respondents' entitlement to judgment as a matter of law on the
issue of subjective knowledge that we can simply assume the absence
of error below. For example, in papers filed in opposition to
respondents' summary-judgment motion, petitioner pointed to
respondents' admission that petitioner is a "non-violent"
transsexual who, because of petitioner's "youth and feminine
appearance" is "likely to experience a great deal of sexual
pressure" in prison. App. 50-51, 73-74. And petitioner recounted a
statement by one of the respondents, then warden of the
penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, who told petitioner that
there was "a high probability that [petitioner] could not safely
function at USP-Lewisburg,"
id., at 109, an incident
confirmed in a
849
published District Court opinion. See Farmer v. Carlson, 685 F.
Supp., at 1342; see also
ibid. ("Clearly, placing plaintiff,
a twenty-one year old transsexual, into the general population at
[USP- ]Lewisburg, a [high- ]security institution, could pose a
significant threat to internal security in general and to plaintiff
in particular").
We cannot, moreover, be certain that additional evidence is
unavailable to petitioner because in denying petitioner's Rule
56(f) motion for additional discovery the District Court may have
acted on a mistaken belief that petitioner's failure to notify was
dispositive. Petitioner asserted in papers accompanying the Rule
56(f) motion that the requested documents would show that "each
defendant had knowledge that USP-Terre Haute was and is, a violent
institution with a history of sexual assault, stabbings, etc., [and
that] each defendant showed reckless disregard for my safety by
designating me to said institution knowing that I would be sexually
assaulted." App. 105-106. But in denying the Rule 56(f) motion, the
District Court stated that the requested documents were "not shown
by plaintiff to be necessary to oppose defendants' motion for
summary judgment,"
id., at 121, a statement consistent with
the erroneous view that failure to notify was fatal to petitioner's
complaint.
Because the District Court may have mistakenly thought that
advance notification was a necessary element of an Eighth Amendment
failure-to-protect claim, we think it proper to remand for
reconsideration of petitioner's Rule 56(f) motion and, whether
additional discovery is permitted or not, for application of the
Eighth Amendment principles explained above.10
10 The District Court's opinion is open to the reading that it
required not only advance notification of a substantial risk of
assault, but also advance notification of a substantial risk of
assault posed by a particular fellow prisoner. See App. 124
(referring to "a specific threat to [a prisoner's] safety"). The
Eighth Amendment, however, imposes no such requirement. See
supra, at 842-844.
850
B
Respondents urge us to affirm for reasons not relied on below,
but neither of their contentions is so clearly correct as to
justify affirmance.
With respect to petitioner's damages claim, respondents argue
that the officials sued in their individual capacities (officials
at FCI-Oxford and the Bureau of Prisons North Central Region
office) were alleged to be liable only for their transfer of
petitioner from FCI-Oxford to USP-Terre Haute, whereas petitioner
"nowhere alleges any reason for believing that these officials, who
had no direct responsibility for administering the Terre Haute
institution, would have had knowledge of conditions within that
institution regarding danger to transsexual inmates." Brief for
Respondents 2728. But petitioner's Rule 56(f) motion alleged just
that. Though respondents suggest here that petitioner offered no
factual basis for that assertion, that is not a ground on which
they chose to oppose petitioner's Rule 56(f) motion below and, in
any event, is a matter for the exercise of the District Court's
judgment, not ours. Finally, to the extent respondents seek
affirmance here on the ground that officials at FCI -Oxford and the
Bureau of Prisons regional office had no power to control prisoner
placement at Terre Haute, the record gives at least a suggestion to
the contrary; the affidavit of one respondent, the warden of
USP-Terre Haute, states that after having been at USP-Terre Haute
for about a month petitioner was placed in administrative
segregation "pursuant to directive from the North Central Regional
Office" and a "request ... by staff at FCI-Oxford." App. 9495.
Accordingly, though we do not reject respondents' arguments about
petitioner's claim for damages, the record does not permit us to
accept them as a basis for affirmance when they were not relied
upon below. Respondents are free to develop this line of argument
on remand.
With respect to petitioner's claim for injunctive relief,
respondents argued in their merits brief that the claim was
851
"foreclosed by [petitioner's] assignment to administrative
detention status because of his high-risk HIV-positive condition,
... as well as by the absence of any allegation ... that
administrative detention status poses any continuing threat of
physical injury to him." Brief for Respondents 28-29. At oral
argument, however, the Deputy Solicitor General informed us that
petitioner was no longer in administrative detention, having been
placed in the general prison population of a medium-security
prison. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25-26. He suggested that affirmance was
nevertheless proper because "there is no present threat" that
petitioner will be placed in a setting where he would face a
"continuing threat of physical injury,"
id., at 26, but this
argument turns on facts about the likelihood of a transfer that the
District Court is far better placed to evaluate than we are. We
leave it to respondents to present this point on remand.
IV
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is
remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring.
I agree with JUSTICE STEVENS that inhumane prison conditions
violate the Eighth Amendment even if no prison official has an
improper, subjective state of mind. This Court's holding in Wilson
v. Seiter,
501 U. S.
294 (1991), to the effect that barbaric prison conditions may
be beyond the reach of the Eighth Amendment if no prison official
can be deemed individually culpable, in my view is insupportable in
principle and is inconsistent with our precedents interpreting the
Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause. Whether the Constitution has
been violated "should turn on the character of the punishment
rather than the motivation of the individual who inflicted it."
Estelle v. Gamble,
429
U. S. 97, 116
852
(1976) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). Wilson v. Seiter should be
overruled.
Although I do not go along with the Court's reliance on Wilson
in defining the "deliberate indifference" standard, I join the
Court's opinion, because it creates no new obstacles for prison
inmates to overcome, and it sends a clear message to prison
officials that their affirmative duty under the Constitution to
provide for the safety of inmates is not to be taken lightly. Under
the Court's decision today, prison officials may be held liable for
failure to remedy a risk so obvious and substantial that the
officials must have known about it, see ante, at 842-843, and
prisoners need not "'await a tragic event [such as an] actua[l]
assaul[t] before obtaining relief,'" ante, at 845.
I
Petitioner is a transsexual who is currently serving a 20year
sentence in an all-male federal prison for credit card fraud.
Although a biological male, petitioner has undergone treatment for
silicone breast implants and unsuccessful surgery to have his
testicles removed. Despite his overtly feminine characteristics,
and his previous segregation at a different federal prison because
of safety concerns, see Farmer v. Carlson, 685 F. Supp. 1335, 1342
(MD Pa. 1988), prison officials at the United States Penitentiary
in Terre Haute, Indiana, housed him in the general population of
that maximumsecurity prison. Less than two weeks later, petitioner
was brutally beaten and raped by another inmate in petitioner's
cell.
Homosexual rape or other violence among prison inmates serves
absolutely no penological purpose. See Rhodes v. Chapman,
452 U. S. 337, 345-346
(1981), citing Gregg v. Georgia,
428 U. S. 153, 183 (1976)
(joint opinion) (the Eighth Amendment prohibits all punishment,
physical and mental, which is "totally without penological
justification"). "Such brutality is the equivalent of torture, and
is offensive to any modern standard of human dignity." United
States v. Bai-
853
ley,
444 U. S.
394, 423 (1980) (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting). The horrors
experienced by many young inmates, particularly those who, like
petitioner, are convicted of nonviolent offenses, border on the
unimaginable. Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who
fall prey to their aggressors, but is potentially devastating to
the human spirit. Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of
self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter
must endure. See Note, Rape in Prison and AIDS: A Challenge for the
Eighth Amendment Framework of Wilson v. Seiter, 44 Stan. L. Rev.
1541, 1545 (1992). Unable to fend for himself without the
protection of prison officials, the victim finds himself at the
mercy of larger, stronger, and ruthless inmates. Although formally
sentenced to a term of incarceration, many inmates discover that
their punishment, even for nonviolent offenses like credit card
fraud or tax evasion, degenerates into a reign of terror
unmitigated by the protection supposedly afforded by prison
officials. *
The fact that our prisons are badly overcrowded and understaffed
may well explain many of the shortcomings of our penal systems. But
our Constitution sets minimal standards governing the
administration of punishment in this country, see Rhodes, 452 U.
S., at 347, and thus it is no answer to the complaints of the
brutalized inmate that the re-
*Numerous court opinions document the pervasive violence among
inmates in our state and federal prisons. See, e. g., United States
v. Bailey,
444 U. S.
394, 421 (1980) (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting); McGill v.
Duckworth,
944 F.2d
344, 348 (CA7 1991), cert. denied, 503 U. S. 907 (1992); Redman
v. County of San Diego,
942 F.2d
1435 (CA9 1991) (en bane), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 1074 (1992);
Hassine v. Jeffes,
846 F.2d
169, 172 (CA3 1988); Alberti v. Klevenhagen,
790 F.2d
1220, 1222 (CA5), clarified,
799 F.2d
992 (CA5 1986); Jones v. Diamond,
636 F.2d
1364, 1372 (CA5 1981), overruled on other grounds,
790 F.2d
1174 (CA5 1986); Withers v. Levine,
615 F.2d
158, 161 (CA4), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 849 (1980); Little v.
Walker,
552 F.2d
193, 194 (CA7 1977), cert. denied, 435 U. S. 932 (1978); Holt
v. Sarver,
442 F.2d
304, 308 (CA8 1971), later proceeding sub nom. Hutto v. Finney,
437 U. S. 678
(1978).
854
sources are unavailable to protect him from what, in reality, is
nothing less than torture. I stated in dissent in United States v.
Bailey:
"It is society's responsibility to protect the life and health
of its prisoners. '[W]hen a sheriff or a marshall [sic] takes a man
from the courthouse in a prison van and transports him to
confinement for two or three or ten years, this is our act. We have
tolled the bell for him. And whether we like it or not, we have
made him our collective responsibility. We are free to do something
about him; he is not' (emphasis in original). Address by THE CHIEF
JUSTICE, 25 Record of the Assn. of the Bar of the City of New York
14, 17 (Mar. 1970 Supp.)." 444 U. S., at 423.
The Court in Wilson v. Seiter,
501 U. S. 294 (1991),
held that any pain and suffering endured by a prisoner that is not
formally a part of his sentence-no matter how severe or
unnecessary-will not be held violative of the Cruel and Unusual
Punishments Clause unless the prisoner establishes that some prison
official intended the harm. The Court justified this remarkable
conclusion by asserting that only pain that is intended by a state
actor to be punishment is punishment. See
id., at 300 ("The
source of the intent requirement is not the predilections of this
Court, but the Eighth Amendment itself, which bans only cruel and
unusual punishment. If the pain inflicted is not formally meted out
as punishment by the statute or the sentencing judge, some mental
element must be attributed to the inflicting officer before it can
qualify") (emphasis in original).
The Court's analysis is fundamentally misguided; indeed it
defies common sense. "Punishment" does not necessarily imply a
culpable state of mind on the part of an identifiable punisher. A
prisoner may experience punishment when he suffers "severe, rough,
or disastrous treatment," see, e.
g., Webster's Third New
International Dictionary 1843 (1961),
855
regardless of whether a state actor intended the cruel treatment
to chastise or deter. See also Webster's New International
Dictionary of the English Language 1736 (1923) (defining punishment
as "[a]ny pain, suffering, or loss inflicted on or suffered by a
person because of a crime or evil-doing") (emphasis added); cf.
Wilson, 501 U. S., at 300, citing Duckworth v. Franzen,
780 F.2d
645, 652 (CA7 1985) (" 'The infliction of punishment is a
deliberate act intended to chastise or deter"'), cert. denied, 479
U. S. 816 (1986).
The Court's unduly narrow definition of punishment blinds it to
the reality of prison life. Consider, for example, a situation in
which one individual is sentenced to a period of confinement at a
relatively safe, well-managed prison, complete with tennis courts
and cable television, while another is sentenced to a prison
characterized by rampant violence and terror. Under such
circumstances, it is natural to say that the latter individual was
subjected to a more extreme punishment. It matters little that the
sentencing judge did not specify to which prison the individuals
would be sent; nor is it relevant that the prison officials did not
intend either individual to suffer any attack. The conditions of
confinement, whatever the reason for them, resulted in differing
punishment for the two convicts.
Wilson's myopic focus on the intentions of prison officials is
also mistaken. Where a legislature refuses to fund a prison
adequately, the resulting barbaric conditions should not be immune
from constitutional scrutiny simply because no prison official
acted culpably. Wilson failed to recognize that "state-sanctioned
punishment consists not so much of specific acts attributable to
individual state officials, but more of a cumulative agglomeration
of action (and inaction) on an institutional level." The Supreme
Court-Leading Cases, 105 Harv. L. Rev. 177, 243 (1991). The
responsibility for subminimal conditions in any prison inevitably
is diffuse, and often borne, at least in part, by the legislature.
Yet, regardless of what state actor or institution caused the
harm
856
and with what intent, the experience of the inmate is the same.
A punishment is simply no less cruel or unusual because its harm is
unintended. In view of this obvious fact, there is no reason to
believe that, in adopting the Eighth Amendment, the Framers
intended to prohibit cruel and unusual punishments only when they
were inflicted intentionally. As Judge Noonan has observed:
"The Framers were familiar from their wartime experience of
British prisons with the kind of cruel punishment administered by a
warden with the mentality of a Captain Bligh. But they were also
familiar with the cruelty that came from bureaucratic indifference
to the conditions of confinement. The Framers understood that cruel
and unusual punishment can be administered by the failure of those
in charge to give heed to the impact of their actions on those
within their care." Jordan v. Gardner, 986 F.2d
1521, 1544 (CA9 1993) (concurring opinion) (citations omitted)
(emphasis added).
Before Wilson, it was assumed, if not established, that the
conditions of confinement are themselves part of the punishment,
even if not specifically "meted out" by a statute or judge. See
Wilson, 501 U. S., 306-309 (White, J., concurring in judgment),
citing Hutto v. Finney,
437 U. S. 678 (1978);
Rhodes v. Chapman,
452 U. S. 337 (1981). We
examined only the objective severity of the conditions of
confinement in the pre-Wilson cases, not the subjective intent of
government officials, as we found that "[a]n express intent to
inflict unnecessary pain is not required, ... and harsh 'conditions
of confinement' may constitute cruel and unusual punishment unless
such conditions 'are part of the penalty that criminal offenders
pay for their offenses against society.'" Whitley v. Albers,
475 U. S. 312,
319 (1986), quoting Rhodes, 452 U. S., at 347 (emphasis added).
This initial approach, which employed an objective standard to
chart the boundaries of the Eighth Amendment, reflected the
practical real-
857
ity that "intent simply is not very meaningful when considering
a challenge to an institution, such as a prison system," Wilson,
501 U. S., at 310 (White, J., concurring in judgment). It also,
however, demonstrated a commitment to the principles underlying the
Eighth Amendment. The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause was not
adopted to protect prison officials with arguably benign intentions
from lawsuits. The Eighth Amendment guarantees each prisoner that
reasonable measures will be taken to ensure his safety. Where a
prisoner can prove that no such reasonable steps were taken and, as
a result, he experienced severe pain or suffering without any
penological justification, the Eighth Amendment is violated
regardless of whether there is an easily identifiable wrongdoer
with poor intentions.
II
Though I believe Wilson v. Seiter should be overruled, and
disagree with the Court's reliance upon that case in defining the
"deliberate indifference" standard, I nonetheless join the Court's
opinion. Petitioner never challenged this Court's holding in Wilson
or sought reconsideration of the theory upon which that decision is
based. More importantly, the Court's opinion does not extend Wilson
beyond its illconceived boundaries or erect any new obstacles for
prison inmates to overcome in seeking to remedy cruel and unusual
conditions of confinement. The Court specifically recognizes that
"[h]aving incarcerated 'persons [with] demonstrated proclivities
for criminally antisocial and, in many cases, violent conduct,'
[and] having stripped them of virtually every means of
self-protection and foreclosed their access to outside aid, the
government and its officials are not free to let the state of
nature take its course." Ante, at 833. The Court further
acknowledges that prison rape is not constitutionally tolerable,
see ante, at 834 ("Being violently assaulted in prison is simply
not 'part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their
offenses against society' "), and it
858
THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment
clearly states that prisoners can obtain relief before being
victimized, see ante, at 845 ("[A] subjective approach to
deliberate indifference does not require a prisoner seeking 'a
remedy for unsafe conditions [to] await a tragic event [such as an]
actua[l] assaul[t] before obtaining relief' "). Finally, under the
Court's holding, prison officials may be held liable for failure to
remedy a risk of harm so obvious and substantial that the prison
officials must have known about it, see ante, at 842-843. The
opinion's clear message is that prison officials must fulfill their
affirmative duty under the Constitution to prevent inmate assault,
including prison rape, or otherwise face a serious risk of being
held liable for damages, see ante, at 842-844, or being required by
a court to rectify the hazardous conditions, see ante, at 845-847.
As much as is possible within the constraints of Wilson v. Seiter,
the Court seeks to ensure that the conditions in our N ation's
prisons in fact comport with the "contemporary standard of decency"
required by the Eighth Amendment. See DeShaney v. Winnebago County
Dept. of Social Servs.,
489 U. S. 189, 198-200
(1989). Short of overruling Wilson v. Seiter, the Court could do no
better.
JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring.
While I continue to believe that a state official may inflict
cruel and unusual punishment without any improper subjective
motivation, see Estelle v. Gamble,
429 U. S. 97, 116-117
(1976) (dissenting opinion); Wilson v. Seiter,
501 U. S. 294, 306-307
(1991) (White, J., concurring in judgment), I join JUSTICE SOUTER'S
thoughtful opinion because it is faithful to our precedents.
JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring in the judgment.
Prisons are necessarily dangerous places; they house society's
most antisocial and violent people in close proximity with one
another. Regrettably, "[s]ome level of brutality and sexual
aggression among [prisoners] is inevitable no
859
matter what the guards do ... unless all prisoners are locked in
their cells 24 hours a day and sedated." McGill v. Duckworth,
944 F.2d
344, 348 (CA7 1991). Today, in an attempt to rectify such
unfortunate conditions, the Court further refines the "National
Code of Prison Regulation," otherwise known as the Cruel and
Unusual Punishments Clause. Hudson v. McMillian,
503 U. S. 1, 28 (1992)
(THOMAS, J., dissenting).
I adhere to my belief, expressed in Hudson and Helling v.
McKinney,
509 U. S.
25 (1993) (THOMAS, J., dissenting), that "judges or juries-but
not jailers-impose 'punishment.''' Id., at 40. "[P]unishment," from
the time of the Founding through the present day, "has always meant
a 'fine, penalty, or confinement inflicted upon a person by the
authority of the law and the judgment and sentence of a court, for
some crime or offense committed by him.''' Id., at 38 (quoting
Black's Law Dictionary 1234 (6th ed. 1990)). See also 2 T.
Sheridan, A General Dictionary of the English Language (1780)
(defining "punishment" as "[a]ny infliction imposed in vengeance of
a crime"). Conditions of confinement are not punishment in any
recognized sense of the term, unless imposed as part of a sentence.
See Helling, supra, at 42 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). As an original
matter, therefore, this case would be an easy one for me: Because
the unfortunate attack that befell petitioner was not part of his
sentence, it did not constitute "punishment" under the Eighth
Amendment.
When approaching this case, however, we do not write on a clean
slate. Beginning with Estelle v. Gamble,
429 U. S. 97 (1976), the
Court's prison condition jurisprudence has been guided, not by the
text of the Constitution, but rather by "evolving standards of
decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." Id., at 102
(internal quotation marks omitted). See also ante, at 833-834;
Helling, supra; Hudson, supra. I continue to doubt the legitimacy
of that mode of constitutional decisionmaking, the logical result
of which,
860
THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment
in this context, is to transform federal judges into
superintendents of prison conditions nationwide. See Helling,
supra, at 40-41 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). Although Estelle loosed
the Eighth Amendment from its historical moorings, the Court is now
unwilling to accept the full consequences of its decision and
therefore resorts to the "subjective" (state of mind) component of
post-Estelle Eighth Amendment analysis in an attempt to contain
what might otherwise be unbounded liability for prison officials
under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause. Cf. McGill, supra,
at 348.
Although I disagree with the constitutional predicate of the
Court's analysis, I share the Court's view that petitioner's theory
of liability-that a prison official can be held liable for risks to
prisoner safety of which he was ignorant but should have
known-fails under even "a straightforward application of Estelle."
Helling, supra, at 42 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). In adopting the
"deliberate indifference" standard for challenges to prison
conditions, Estelle held that mere "inadverten[ce]" or
"negligen[ce]" does not violate the Eighth Amendment. 429 U. S., at
105-106. "From the outset, thus, we specified that the Eighth
Amendment does not apply to every deprivation, or even every
unnecessary deprivation, suffered by a prisoner, but only that
narrow class of deprivations involving 'serious' injury inflicted
by prison officials acting with a culpable state of mind." Hudson,
supra, at 20 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). We reiterated this
understanding in Wilson v. Seiter,
501 U. S. 294, 305
(1991), holding that "mere negligence" does not constitute
deliberate indifference under Estelle. See also, e. g., Whitley v.
Albers,
475 U. S.
312, 319 (1986). Petitioner's suggested "should have known"
standard is nothing but a negligence standard, as the Court's
discussion implicitly assumes. Ante, at 837839. Thus, even under
Estelle, petitioner's theory of liability necessarily fails.
The question remains, however, what state of mind is sufficient
to constitute deliberate indifference under Estelle.
861
Given my serious doubts concerning the correctness of Estelle in
extending the Eighth Amendment to cover challenges to conditions of
confinement, I believe the scope of the Estelle "right" should be
confined as narrowly as possible. Cf. Helling, supra, at 42
(THOMAS, J., dissenting). In Wilson, the Court has already held
that the highest subjective standard known to our Eighth Amendment
jurisprudence"maliciou[s] and sadisti[c]" action "for the very
purpose of causing harm," Whitley, supra, at 320-321 (internal
quotation marks omitted)-"does not apply to prison conditions
cases." Wilson, supra, at 303. The Court today adopts the next
highest level of subjective intent, actual knowledge of the type
sufficient to constitute recklessness in the criminal law, ante, at
837, 839-840, noting that "due regard" is appropriate "for prison
officials' 'unenviable task of keeping dangerous men in safe
custody under humane conditions.'" 1 Ante, at 845 (quoting Spain v.
Procunier,
600 F.2d
189, 193 (CA9 1979) (Kennedy, J.)).
Even though the Court takes a step in the right direction by
adopting a restrictive definition of deliberate indifference, I
cannot join the Court's opinion. For the reasons expressed more
fully in my dissenting opinions in Hudson and Helling, I remain
unwilling to subscribe to the view, adopted by ipse dixit in
Estelle, that the Eighth Amendment regulates prison conditions not
imposed as part of a sentence. Indeed, "[w]ere the issue squarely
presented, ... I might vote to overrule Estelle." Helling, 509 U.
S., at 42 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). Nonetheless, the issue is not
squarely presented
1 The facts of this case demonstrate how difficult that task can
be.
When petitioner was taken out of general prison population for
security reasons at United States Penitentiary-Lewisburg, he
asserted that he "d[id] not need extra security precautions" and
filed suit alleging that placing him in solitary confinement was
unconstitutional. See Farmer v. Carlson, 685 F. Supp. 1335, 1342
(MD Pa. 1988). Petitioner's present claim, oddly enough, is
essentially that leaving him in general prison population was
unconstitutional because it subjected him to a risk of sexual
assault.
862
THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment
in this case. Respondents have not asked us to revisit Estelle,
and no one has briefed or argued the question. In addition to these
prudential concerns, stare decisis counsels hesitation in
overruling dubious precedents. See 509 U. S., at 42. For these
reasons, I concur in the Court's judgment.2 In doing so, however, I
remain hopeful that in a proper case the Court will reconsider
Estelle in light of the constitutional text and history.
2 I do not read the remand portion of the Court's opinion to
intimate that the courts below reached the wrong result, especially
because the Seventh Circuit has long followed the rule of law the
Court lays down today. See McGill v. Duckworth,
944 F.2d
344 (CA7 1991); Duckworth v. Franzen,
780
F.2d 645 (CA7 1985). Rather, I regard it as a cautionary
measure undertaken merely to give the Court of Appeals an
opportunity to decide in the first instance whether the District
Court erroneously gave dispositive weight to petitioner's failure
to complain to prison officials that he believed himself at risk of
sexual assault in the general prison population. Ante, at 849. If,
on remand, the Seventh Circuit concludes that the District Court
did not, nothing in the Court's opinion precludes the Seventh
Circuit from summarily affirming the entry of summary judgment in
respondents' favoE
Comments
Be the first to comment
Leave a Comment