CASES ADJUDGED
IN THE
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
AT
OCTOBER TERM, 1991
Syllabus
HUDSON
v. McMILLIAN ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH
CIRCUIT
No.90-6531. Argued November 13, 1991-Decided February
25,1992
Petitioner Hudson, a Louisiana prison inmate, testified that
minor bruises, facial swelling, loosened teeth, and a cracked
dental plate he had suffered resulted from a beating by respondent
prison guards McMillian and Woods while he was handcuffed and
shackled following an argument with McMillian, and that respondent
Mezo, a supervisor on duty, watched the beating but merely told the
officers "not to have too much fun." The Magistrate trying Hudson's
District Court suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 found that the
officers used force when there was no need to do so and that Mezo
expressly condoned their actions, ruled that respondents had
violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual
punishments, and awarded Hudson damages. The Court of Appeals
reversed, holding,
inter alia, that inmates alleging use of
excessive force in violation of the Amendment must prove
"significant injury" and that Hudson could not prevail because his
injuries were "minor" and required no medical attention.
Held: The use of excessive physical force against a
prisoner may constitute cruel and unusual punishment even though
the inmate does not suffer serious injury. Pp. 5-12.
(a) Whenever prison officials stand accused of using excessive
physical force constituting "the unnecessary and wanton infliction
of pain" violative of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, the
core judicial inquiry is that set out in
Whitley v.
Albers, 475 U.
S. 312, 320-321: whether force was applied in a good-faith
effort to maintain or restore
2
Syllabus
discipline, or maliciously and sadistically to cause harm.
Extending
Whitley's application of the "unnecessary and
wanton infliction of pain" standard to all allegations of force,
whether the prison disturbance is a riot or a lesser disruption,
works no innovation. See,
e. g., Johnson v.
Glick,
481 F.2d
1028, cert. denied, 414 U. S. 1033. Pp. 5-7.
(b) Since, under the
Whitley approach, the extent of
injury suffered by an inmate is one of the factors to be considered
in determining whether the use of force is wanton and unnecessary,
475 U. S., at 321, the absence of serious injury is relevant to,
but does not end, the Eighth Amendment inquiry. There is no merit
to respondents' assertion that a significant injury requirement is
mandated by what this Court termed, in
Wilson v.
Seiter, 501 U.
S. 294, 298, the "objective component" of Eighth Amendment
analysis: whether the alleged wrongdoing is objectively "harmful
enough" to establish a constitutional violation,
id., at
303. That component is contextual and responsive to "contemporary
standards of decency."
Estelle v.
Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 103. In the
excessive force context, such standards always are violated when
prison officials maliciously and sadistically use force to cause
harm, see
Whitley, 475 U. S., at 327, whether or not
significant injury is evident. Moreover, although the Amendment
does not reach
de minimis uses ofphysical force, provided
that such use is not of a sort repugnant to the conscience of
mankind,
ibid., the blows directed at Hudson are not
de
minimis, and the extent of his injuries thus provides no basis
for dismissal of his § 1983 claim. Pp. 7-10.
(c) The dissent's theory that
Wilson requires an inmate
who alleges excessive force to show significant injury
in
addition to the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain
misapplies
Wilson and ignores the body of this Court's
Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.
Wilson did not involve an
allegation of excessive force and, with respect to the "objective
component" of an Eighth Amendment claim, suggested no departure
from
Estelle and its progeny. The dissent's argument that
excessive force claims and conditions-of-confinement claims are no
different in kind is likewise unfounded. To deny the difference
between punching a prisoner in the face and serving him
unappetizing food is to ignore the concepts of dignity, civilized
standards, humanity, and decency that animate the Eighth Amendment.
See
Estelle, supra, at 102. Pp. 10-11.
(d) This Court takes no position on respondents' legal argument
that their conduct was isolated, unauthorized, and against prison
policy and therefore beyond the scope of "punishment" prohibited by
the Eighth Amendment. That argument is inapposite on the record,
since the Court of Appeals left intact the Magistrate's
determination that the violence at issue was not an isolated
assault, and ignores the Magistrate's finding that supervisor Mezo
expressly condoned the use of force. Moreover, to the extent that
respondents rely on the unauthorized na-
3
ture of their acts, they make a claim not addressed by the Court
of Appeals, not presented by the question on which this Court
granted certiorari, and, accordingly, not before this Court. Pp.
11-12.
929 F.2d
1014, reversed.
O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C. J., and WHITE, KENNEDY, and SOUTER, JJ., joined, and
in which STEVENS, J., joined as to Parts I, II-A, II-B, and II-C.
STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in
the judgment,
post, p. 12. BLACKMUN, J., filed an opinion
concurring in the judgment,
post, p. 13. THOMAS, J., filed a
dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined,
post, p.
17.
Alvin J. Bronstein, by appointment of the
Court, 500 U. S. 903, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on
the briefs were
John A. Powell, Steven R. Shapiro, Mark
J. Lopez, and
Elizabeth Alexander.
Deputy Solicitor General Roberts argued the cause for the United
States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were
Solicitor General Starr, Assistant Attorneys General Dunne and
Mueller, Acting Deputy Solicitor General Wright, and Ronald
J. Mann.
Harry McCall, Jr., Special Assistant Attorney General of
Louisiana, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief
were
William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General,
Jonathan C.
McCall, Special Assistant Attorney
General, and
Jenifer Schaye, Clifton O.
Bingham, Jr.,
Houston C.
Gascon III, and
Joseph Erwin
Kopsa, Assistant Attorneys General.*
*Briefs of
amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., by
Daniel B.
Hales, Emory A. Plitt, Jr., Wayne W Schmidt, and
James P.
Manak; for the D. C. Prisoners' Legal Services Project, Inc.,
by
Theodore A. Howard and
Richard J.
Arsenault; for Human Rights Watch by
Cameron Clark;
and for the Prisoners' Legal Service of New York by
John A.
Gresham and
Stephen M. Latimer.
A brief of
amici curiae urging affirmance was filed for
the State of Texas et al. by
Dan Morales, Attorney General
of Texas,
Will Pryor, First Assistant Attorney General,
Mary F.
Keller, Deputy Attorney General, and
Michael P. Hodge, Charles A. Palmer, Sharon Felfe, and
Adrian L. Young, Assistant Attorneys General, joined by the
Attorneys General for their respective States as follows:
Warren
Price III of Hawaii,
Joseph B. Meyer of Wyoming,
Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, and
Robert A.
Butterworth of Florida.
4
JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. This case
requires us to decide whether the use of excessive physical force
against a prisoner may constitute cruel and unusual punishment when
the inmate does not suffer serious injury. We answer that question
in the affirmative.
I
At the time of the incident that is the subject of this suit,
petitioner Keith Hudson was an inmate at the state penitentiary in
Angola, Louisiana. Respondents Jack McMillian, Marvin Woods, and
Arthur Mezo served as corrections security officers at the Angola
facility. During the early morning hours of October 30,1983, Hudson
and McMillian argued. Assisted by Woods, McMillian then placed
Hudson in handcuffs and shackles, took the prisoner out of his
cell, and walked him toward the penitentiary's "administrative
lockdown" area. Hudson testified that, on the way there, McMillian
punched Hudson in the mouth, eyes, chest, and stomach while Woods
held the inmate in place and kicked and punched him from behind. He
further testified that Mezo, the supervisor on duty, watched the
beating but merely told the officers "not to have too much fun."
App. 23. As a result of this episode, Hudson suffered minor bruises
and swelling of his face, mouth, and lip. The blows also loosened
Hudson's teeth and cracked his partial dental plate, rendering it
unusable for several months.
Hudson sued the three corrections officers in Federal District
Court under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging a
violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and
unusual punishments and seeking compensatory damages. The parties
consented to disposition of the case before a Magistrate, who found
that McMillian and Woods used force when there was no need to do so
and that Mezo expressly condoned their actions. App. 26. The
Magistrate awarded Hudson damages of $800.
Id., at 29.
5
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed.
929 F.2d
1014 (1990). It held that inmates alleging use of excessive
force in violation of the Eighth Amendment must prove: (1)
significant injury; (2) resulting "directly and only from the use
of force that was clearly excessive to the need"; (3) the
excessiveness of which was objectively unreasonable; and (4) that
the action constituted an unnecessary and wanton infliction of
pain.
Id., at 1015. The court determined that respondents'
use of force was objectively unreasonable because no force was
required. Furthermore, "[t]he conduct of McMillian and Woods
qualified as clearly excessive and occasioned unnecessary and
wanton infliction of pain."
Ibid. However, Hudson could not
prevail on his Eighth Amendment claim because his injuries were
"minor" and required no medical attention.
Ibid.
We granted certiorari, 499 U. S. 958 (1991), to determine
whether the "significant injury" requirement applied by the Court
of Appeals accords with the Constitution's dictate that cruel and
unusual punishment shall not be inflicted.
II
In
Whitley v.
Albers, 475 U. S. 312 (1986), the
principal question before us was what legal standard should govern
the Eighth Amendment claim of an inmate shot by a guard during a
prison riot. We based our answer on the settled rule that" 'the
unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain ... constitutes cruel and
unusual punishment forbidden by the Eighth Amendment.'''
Id., at 319 (quoting
Ingraham v.
Wright,
430 U. S. 651,
670 (1977)) (internal quotation marks omitted).
What is necessary to establish an "unnecessary and wanton
infliction of pain," we said, varies according to the nature of the
alleged constitutional violation. 475 U. S., at 320. For example,
the appropriate inquiry when an inmate alleges that prison
officials failed to attend to serious medical needs is whether the
officials exhibited "deliberate indifference."
6
See
Estelle v.
Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 104 (1976).
This standard is appropriate because the State's responsibility to
provide inmates with medical care ordinarily does not conflict with
competing administrative concerns.
Whitley, supra, at
320.
By contrast, officials confronted with a prison disturbance must
balance the threat unrest poses to inmates, prison workers,
administrators, and visitors against the harm inmates may suffer if
guards use force. Despite the weight of these competing concerns,
corrections officials must make their decisions "in haste, under
pressure, and frequently without the luxury of a second chance."
475 U. S., at 320. We accordingly concluded in
Whitley that
application of the deliberate indifference standard is
inappropriate when authorities use force to put down a prison
disturbance. Instead, "the question whether the measure taken
inflicted unnecessary and wanton pain and suffering ultimately
turns on 'whether force was applied in a good faith effort to
maintain or restore discipline or maliciously and sadistically for
the very purpose of causing harm.'''
Id., at 320-321
(quoting
Johnson v.
Glick, 481
F.2d 1028, 1033 (CA2), cert. denied
sub nom. John v.
Johnson, 414 U. S. 1033 (1973)).
Many of the concerns underlying our holding in
Whitley
arise whenever guards use force to keep order. Whether the prison
disturbance is a riot or a lesser disruption, corrections officers
must balance the need "to maintain or restore discipline" through
force against the risk of injury to inmates. Both situations may
require prison officials to act quickly and decisively. Likewise,
both implicate the principle that" '[p]rison administrators ...
should be accorded wide-ranging deference in the adoption and
execution of policies and practices that in their judgment are
needed to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain
institutional security.''' 475 U. S., at 321-322 (quoting
Bell v.
Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 547
(1979)). In recognition of these similarities, we hold that
whenever prison officials stand ac-
7
cused of using excessive physical force in violation of the
Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, the core judicial inquiry is
that set out in
Whitley: whether force was applied in a
good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously
and sadistically to cause harm.
Extending
Whitley's application of the "unnecessary and
wanton infliction of pain" standard to all allegations of excessive
force works no innovation. This Court derived the
Whitley
test from one articulated by Judge Friendly in
Johnson v.
Glick, supra, a case arising out of a prisoner's claim to
have been beaten and harassed by a guard. Moreover, many Courts of
Appeals already apply the
Whitley standard to allegations of
excessive force outside of the riot situation. See
Corselli
v.
Coughlin, 842 F.2d
23, 26 (CA2 1988);
Miller v.
Leathers, 913 F.2d
1085, 1087 (CA4 1990) (en bane), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 1109
(1991);
Haynes v.
Marshall, 887
F.2d 700, 703 (CA6 1989);
Stenzel v.
Ellis,
916 F.2d
423, 427 (CA8
1990); Brown v.
Smith, 813 F.2d
1187, 1188 (CAll 1987). But see
Unwin v.
Campbell, 863 F.2d
124, 130 (CA1 1988) (rejecting application of
Whitley
standard absent "an actual disturbance").
A
Under the
Whitley approach, the extent of injury suffered
by an inmate is one factor that may suggest "whether the use of
force could plausibly have been thought necessary" in a particular
situation, "or instead evinced such wantonness with respect to the
unjustified infliction of harm as is tantamount to a knowing
willingness that it occur." 475 U. S., at 321. In determining
whether the use of force was wanton and unnecessary, it may also be
proper to evaluate the need for application of force, the
relationship between that need and the amount of force used, the
threat "reasonably perceived by the responsible officials," and
"any efforts made to temper the severity of a forceful response."
Ibid. The absence of serious injury is therefore relevant to
the Eighth Amendment inquiry, but does not end it.
8
Respondents nonetheless assert that a significant injury
requirement of the sort imposed by the Fifth Circuit is mandated by
what we have termed the "objective component" of Eighth Amendment
analysis. See
Wilson v.
Seiter, 501 U. S. 294, 298
(1991).
Wilson extended the deliberate indifference standard
applied to Eighth Amendment claims involving medical care to claims
about conditions of confinement. In taking this step, we suggested
that the subjective aspect of an Eighth Amendment claim (with which
the Court was concerned) can be distinguished from the objective
facet of the same claim. Thus, courts considering a prisoner's
claim must ask both if "the officials act[ed] with a sufficiently
culpable state of mind" and if the alleged wrongdoing was
objectively "harmful enough" to establish a constitutional
violation.
Id., at 298, 303.
With respect to the objective component of an Eighth Amendment
violation,
Wilson announced no new rule. Instead, that
decision suggested a relationship between the requirements
applicable to different types of Eighth Amendment claims. What is
necessary to show sufficient harm for purposes of the Cruel and
Unusual Punishments Clause depends upon the claim at issue, for two
reasons. First, "[t]he general requirement that an Eighth Amendment
claimant allege and prove the unnecessary and wanton infliction of
pain should ... be applied with due regard for differences in the
kind of conduct against which an Eighth Amendment objection is
lodged."
Whitley, supra, at 320. Second, the Eighth
Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments "'draw[s]
its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the
progress of a maturing society,'" and so admits of few absolute
limitations.
Rhodes v.
Chapman, 452 U. S. 337, 346 (1981)
(quoting
Trop v.
Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 101 (1958)
(plurality opinion)).
The objective component of an Eighth Amendment claim is
therefore contextual and responsive to "contemporary standards of
decency."
Estelle, supra, at 103. For in-
9
stance, extreme deprivations are required to make out a
conditions-of-confinement claim. Because routine discomfort is
"part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses
against society,"
Rhodes, supra, at 347, "only those
deprivations denying 'the minimal civilized measure of life's
necessities' are sufficiently grave to form the basis of an Eighth
Amendment violation."
Wilson, supra, at 298 (quoting
Rhodes, supra, at 347) (citation omitted). A similar
analysis applies to medical needs. Because society does not expect
that prisoners will have unqualified access to health care,
deliberate indifference to medical needs amounts to an Eighth
Amendment violation only if those needs are "serious." See
Estelle v.
Gamble, 429 U. S., at 103-104.
In the excessive force context, society's expectations are
different. When prison officials maliciously and sadistically use
force to cause harm, contemporary standards of decency always are
violated. See
Whitley, supra, at 327. This is true whether
or not significant injury is evident. Otherwise, the Eighth
Amendment would permit any physical punishment, no matter how
diabolic or inhuman, inflicting less than some arbitrary quantity
of injury. Such a result would have been as unacceptable to the
drafters of the Eighth Amendment as it is today. See
Estelle,
supra, at 102 (proscribing torture and barbarous punishment was
"the primary concern of the drafters" of the Eighth Amendment);
Wilkerson v.
Utah, 99 U. S. 130, 136 (1879)
("[I]t is safe to affirm that punishments of torture ... and all
others in the same line of unnecessary cruelty, are forbidden by
[the Eighth Amendment]").
That is not to say that every malevolent touch by a prison guard
gives rise to a federal cause of action. See
Johnson v.
Glick, 481 F. 2d, at 1033 ("Not every push or shove, even if
it may later seem unnecessary in the peace of a judge's chambers,
violates a prisoner's constitutional rights"). The Eighth
Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishments
necessarily excludes from constitutional recognition
10
de minimis uses of physical force, provided that the use
of force is not of a sort" 'repugnant to the conscience of
mankind.'"
Whitley, 475 U. S., at 327 (quoting
Estelle,
supra, at 106) (internal quotation marks omitted).
In this case, the Fifth Circuit found Hudson's claim untenable
because his injuries were "minor." 929 F. 2d, at 1015. Yet the
blows directed at Hudson, which caused bruises, swelling, loosened
teeth, and a cracked dental plate, are not
de minimis for
Eighth Amendment purposes. The extent of Hudson's injuries thus
provides no basis for dismissal of his § 1983 claim.
B
The dissent's theory that
Wilson requires an inmate who
alleges excessive use of force to show serious injury
in
addition to the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain
misapplies
Wilson and ignores the body of our Eighth
Amendment jurisprudence. As we have already suggested, the question
before the Court in
Wilson was "[w]hether a prisoner
claiming that conditions of confinement constitute cruel and
unusual punishment must show a culpable state of mind on the part
of prison officials, and, if so, what state of mind is required."
Wilson, supra, at 296.
Wilson presented neither an
allegation of excessive force nor any issue relating to what was
dubbed the "objective component" of an Eighth Amendment claim.
Wilson did touch on these matters in the course of
summarizing our prior holdings, beginning with
Estelle v.
Gamble, supra. Estelle, we noted, first applied the Cruel
and Unusual Punishments Clause to deprivations that were not
specifically part of the prisoner's sentence.
Wilson, supra,
at 297. As might be expected from this primacy,
Estelle
stated the principle underlying the cases discussed in
Wilson: Punishments "incompatible with the evolving
standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society"
or "involv[ing] the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain" are
"repugnant to the Eighth Amendment."
Estelle, supra,
11
at 102-103 (internal quotation marks omitted). This is the same
rule the dissent would reject. With respect to the objective
component of an Eighth Amendment claim, however,
Wilson
suggested no departure from
Estelle and its progeny.
The dissent's argument that claims based on excessive force and
claims based on conditions of confinement are no different in kind,
post, at 24-25, and n. 4, is likewise unfounded. Far from
rejecting
Whitley's insight that the unnecessary and wanton
infliction of pain standard must be applied with regard for the
nature of the alleged Eighth Amendment violation, the
Wilson
Court adopted it. See
Wilson, 501 U. S., at 302-303. How
could it be otherwise when the constitutional touchstone is whether
punishment is cruel and unusual? To deny, as the dissent does, the
difference between punching a prisoner in the face and serving him
unappetizing food is to ignore the "'concepts of dignity, civilized
standards, humanity, and decency'" that animate the Eighth
Amendment.
Estelle, supra, at 102 (quoting
Jackson v.
Bishop, 404 F.2d
571, 579 (CA8 1968)).
C
Respondents argue that, aside from the significant injury test
applied by the Fifth Circuit, their conduct cannot constitute an
Eighth Amendment violation because it was "isolated and
unauthorized." Brief for Respondents 28. The beating of Hudson,
they contend, arose from "a personal dispute between correctional
security officers and a prisoner," and was against prison policy.
Ibid. Respondents invoke the reasoning of courts that have
held the use of force by prison officers under such circumstances
beyond the scope of "punishment" prohibited by the Eighth
Amendment. See
Johnson v.
Glick, supra, at 1032
("[A]lthough a spontaneous attack by a guard is 'cruel' and, we
hope, 'unusual,' it does not fit any ordinary concept of
'punishment' ");
George v.
Evans, 633 F.2d
413, 416 (CA5 1980) ("[A] single, unauthorized assault by a
guard does not constitute cruel and unusual pun-
12
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
ishment ... "). But see
Duckworth v.
Franzen,
780 F.2d
645, 652 (CA7 1985) ("If a guard decided to supplement a
prisoner's official punishment by beating him, this would be
punishment ... "), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 816 (1986).
We take no position on respondents' legal argument because we
find it inapposite on this record. The Court of Appeals left intact
the Magistrate's determination that the violence at issue in this
case was "not an isolated assault." App. 27, n. 1. Indeed, there
was testimony that McMillian and Woods beat another prisoner
shortly after they finished with Hudson.
Ibid. To the extent
that respondents rely on the unauthorized nature of their acts,
they make a claim not addressed by the Fifth Circuit, not presented
by the question on which we granted certiorari, and, accordingly,
not before this Court. Moreover, respondents ignore the
Magistrate's finding that Lieutenant Mezo, acting as a supervisor,
"expressly condoned the use of force in this instance." App.26.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in part and concurring in the
judgment.
In
Whitley v.
Albers, 475 U. S. 312 (1986), the
Court held that injuries to prisoners do not constitute cruel and
unusual punishment when they are inflicted during a prison
disturbance that "indisputably poses significant risks to the
safety of inmates and prison staff" unless force was applied"
'maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing
harm.'''
Id., at 320-321 (citation omitted). The Court's
opinion explained that the justification for that particularly high
standard of proof was required by the exigencies present during a
serious prison disturbance. "When the 'everpresent potential for
violent confrontation and conflagration' ripens into
actual
unrest and conflict,"
id., at 321 (citation omitted), then
prison officials must be permitted to "take
13
into account the very real threats the unrest presents to
inmates and prison officials alike."
Id., at 320.
Absent such special circumstances, however, the less demanding
standard of "'unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain'" should be
applied.
Estelle v.
Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 104 (1976)
(quoting
Gregg v.
Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 173 (1976)
(joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and STEVENS, JJ.)); see
Unwin v.
Campbell, 863 F.2d
124, 135 (CA1 1988) (opinion of Campbell, C. J.) ("[W]here
institutional security is not at stake, the officials' license to
use force is more limited; to succeed, a plaintiff need not prove
malicious and sadistic intent"); see also
Wyatt v.
Delaney, 818 F.2d
21, 23 (CA8 1987). This approach is consistent with the Court's
admonition in
Whitley that the standard to be used is one
that gives "due regard for differences in the kind of conduct
against which an Eighth Amendment objection is lodged." 475 U. S.,
at 320. In this case, because there was no prison disturbance and
"no need to use any force since the plaintiff was already in
restraints," App. 27, the prison guards' attack upon petitioner
resulted in the infliction of unnecessary and wanton pain.
Id., at 28.
Although I think that the Court's reliance on the malicious and
sadistic standard is misplaced, I agree with the Court that even
this more demanding standard was met here. Accordingly, I concur in
Parts I, II-A, II-B, and II-C of the Court's opinion and in its
judgment.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in the judgment.
The Court today appropriately puts to rest a seriously misguided
view that pain inflicted by an excessive use of force is actionable
under the Eighth Amendment only when coupled with "significant
injury,"
e. g., injury that requires medical
attention or leaves permanent marks. Indeed, were we to hold to the
contrary, we might place various kinds of state-sponsored torture
and abuse-of the kind ingeniously designed to cause pain but
without a telltale "significant
14
BLACKMUN, J., concurring in judgment
injury"-entirely beyond the pale of the Constitution. In other
words, the constitutional prohibition of "cruel and unusual
punishments" then might not constrain prison officials from lashing
prisoners with leather straps, whipping them with rubber hoses,
beating them with naked fists, shocking them with electric
currents, asphyxiating them short of death, intentionally exposing
them to undue heat or cold, or forcibly injecting them with
psychosis-inducing drugs. These techniques, commonly thought to be
practiced only outside this Nation's borders, are hardly unknown
within this Nation's prisons. See,
e. g., Campbell v.
Grammer, 889 F. 2d 797, 802 (CA8 1989) (use of high-powered
fire hoses);
Jackson v.
Bishop, 404
F.2d 571, 574-575 (CA8 1968) (use of the "Tucker Telephone," a
hand-cranked device that generated electric shocks to sensitive
body parts, and flogging with leather strap). See also
Hutto
v.
Finney, 437
U. S. 678, 682, n. 5 (1978).
Because I was in the dissent in
Whitley v.
Albers,
475 U. S. 312,
328 (1986), I do not join the Court's extension of
Whitley's
malicious-and-sadistic standard to all allegations of excessive
force, even outside the context of a prison riot. Nevertheless, I
otherwise join the Court's solid opinion and judgment that the
Eighth Amendment does not require a showing of "significant injury"
in the excessive-force context. I write separately to highlight two
concerns not addressed by the Court in its opinion.
I
Citing rising caseloads, respondents, represented by the
Attorney General of Louisiana, and joined by the States of Texas,
Hawaii, Nevada, Wyoming, and Florida as
amici curiae,
suggest that a "significant injury" requirement is necessary to
curb the number of court filings by prison inmates. We are informed
that the "significant injury requirement has been very effective in
the Fifth Circuit in helping to control its system-wide docket
management problems." Brief for Texas et al. as
Amici Curiae
15.
15
This audacious approach to the Eighth Amendment assumes that the
interpretation of an explicit constitutional protection is to be
guided by pure policy preferences for the paring down of prisoner
petitions. Perhaps judicial overload is an appropriate concern in
determining whether statutory standing to sue should be conferred
upon certain plaintiffs. See,
e. g., Associated General
Contractors of Cal., Inc. v.
Carpenters, 459 U. S. 519, 529-546
(1983) (identifying "judge-made rules" circumscribing persons
entitled to sue under §4 of the Clayton Act);
Blue Chip
Stamps v.
Manor Drug Stores, 421 U. S. 723, 737-749
(1975) (identifying judicial "policy" considerations limiting
standing under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934). But
this inherently self-interested concern has no appropriate role in
interpreting the contours of a substantive constitutional
right.
Since the burden on the courts is presumably worth bearing when
a prisoner's suit has merit, the States' "concern" is more aptly
termed a "conclusion" that such suits are simply without merit.
One's experience on the federal bench teaches the contrary.
Moreover, were particular classes of cases to be nominated for
exclusion from the federal courthouse, we might look first to cases
in which federal law is not sensitively at issue rather than to
those in which fundamental constitutional rights are at stake. The
right to file for legal redress in the courts is as valuable to a
prisoner as to any other citizen. Indeed, for the prisoner it is
more valuable. Inasmuch as one convicted of a serious crime and
imprisoned usually is divested of the franchise, the right to file
a court action stands, in the words of
Yick Wo v.
Hopkins, 118
U. S. 356, 370 (1886), as his most "fundamental political
right, because preservative of all rights."
Today's ruling, in any event, does not open the floodgates for
filings by prison inmates. By statute, prisoners-alone among all
other § 1983 claimants-are required to exhaust administrative
remedies. See 94 Stat. 352, 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a);
Patsy v.
Board of Regents of Florida, 457 U. S.
16
BLACKMUN, J., concurring in judgment
496, 507-512 (1982). Moreover, prison officials are entitled to
a determination before trial whether they acted in an objectively
reasonable manner, thereby entitling them to a qualified immunity
defense.
Procunier v.
Navarette, 434 U. S. 555,
561-562 (1978); see also
Harlow v.
Fitzgerald,
457 U. S. 800,
817-818 (1982) (unsubstantiated allegations of malice are
insufficient to overcome pretrial qualified immunity).
Additionally, a federal district court is authorized to dismiss a
prisoner's complaint
in forma pauperis "if satisfied that
the action is frivolous or malicious." 28 U. S. C. § 1915(d). These
measures should be adequate to control any docketmanagement
problems that might result from meritless prisoner claims.
II
I do not read anything in the Court's opinion to limit injury
cognizable under the Eighth Amendment to physical injury. It is not
hard to imagine inflictions of psychological harm-without
corresponding physical harm-that might prove to be cruel and
unusual punishment. See,
e. g., Wisniewski v.
Kennard, 901 F.2d
1276, 1277 (CA5) (guard placing a revolver in inmate's mouth
and threatening to blow prisoner's head off), cert. denied, 498 U.
S. 926 (1990). The issue was not presented here, because Hudson did
not allege that he feared that the beating incident would be
repeated or that it had caused him anxiety and depression. See App.
29.
As the Court makes clear, the Eighth Amendment prohibits the
unnecessary and wanton infliction of "pain," rather than "injury."
Ante, at 5. "Pain" in its ordinary meaning surely includes a
notion of psychological harm. I am unaware of any precedent of this
Court to the effect that psychological pain is not cognizable for
constitutional purposes. If anything, our precedent is to the
contrary. See
Sierra Club v.
Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 734 (1972)
(recognizing Article III standing for "aesthetic" injury);
Brown v.
Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 494 (1954)
(identifying schoolchildren's
17
feelings of psychological inferiority from segregation in the
public schools).
To be sure, as the Court's opinion intimates,
ante, at 9,
de minimis or nonmeasurable pain is not actionable under the
Eighth Amendment. But psychological pain can be more than
de
minimis. Psychological pain often may be clinically diagnosed
and quantified through well-established methods, as in the ordinary
tort context where damages for pain and suffering are regularly
awarded. I have no doubt that to read a "physical pain" or
"physical injury" requirement into the Eighth Amendment would be no
less pernicious and without foundation than the "significant
injury" requirement we reject today.
JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA joins, dissenting.
We granted certiorari in this case "limited to the following
question," which we formulated for the parties:
"'Did the Fifth Circuit apply the correct legal test when
determining that petitioner's claim that his Eighth Amendment
rights under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause were not
violated as a result of a single incident of force by respondents
which did not cause a significant injury?'" 500 U. S. 903
(1991).
Guided by what it considers "the evolving standards of decency
that mark the progress of a maturing society,"
ante, at 8
(internal quotation marks omitted), the Court today answers that
question in the negative. I would answer it in the affirmative, and
would therefore affirm the judgment of the Fifth Circuit. I
respectfully dissent.
I
The Magistrate who found the facts in this case emphasized that
petitioner's injuries were "minor." App. 26, 28. The three judges
of the Fifth Circuit who heard the case on
18
appeal did not disturb that assessment, and it has not been
challenged here. The sole issue in this case, as it comes to us, is
a legal one: Must a prisoner who claims to have been subjected to
"cruel and unusual punishments" establish at a minimum that he has
suffered a significant injury? The Court today not only responds in
the negative, but broadly asserts that
any "unnecessary and
wanton" use of physical force against a prisoner
automatically amounts to cruel and unusual punishment,
whenever more than
de minimis force is involved. Even a
de minimis use of force, the Court goes on to declare,
inflicts cruel and unusual punishment where it is "repugnant to the
conscience of mankind."
Ante, at 10 (internal quotation
marks omitted).l The extent to which a prisoner is
injured
by the force-indeed, whether he is injured at all-is in the Court's
view irrelevant.
In my view, a use of force that causes only insignificant harm
to a prisoner may be immoral, it may be tortious, it may be
criminal, and it may even be remediable under other provisions of
the Federal Constitution, but it is not cruel and unusual
punishment. In concluding to the contrary, the Court today goes far
beyond our precedents.
A
Until recent years, the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause was
not deemed to apply at all to deprivations that were not inflicted
as part of the sentence for a crime. For generations, judges and
commentators regarded the Eighth Amendment as applying only to
torturous punishments meted out by statutes or sentencing judges,
and not generally to any hardship that might befall a prisoner
during incarceration. In
Weems v.
United States,
217 U. S. 349
(1910), the Court extensively chronicled the background of the
Amendment, discussing its English antecedents, its adoption by
Congress, its construction by this Court, and the in-
1 This point is pure dictum, because the force here was surely
not
de minimis.
19
terpretation of analogous provisions by state courts. Nowhere
does
Weems even hint that the Clause might regulate not just
criminal sentences but the treatment of prisoners. Scholarly
commentary also viewed the Clause as governing punishments that
were part of the sentence. See T. Cooley, Constitutional
Limitations *329 ("It is certainly difficult to determine precisely
what is meant by cruel and unusual punishments. Probably any
punishment
declared by statute for an offence which was
punishable in the same way at the common law, could not be regarded
as cruel or unusual in the constitutional sense. And probably any
new statutory offence may be punished to the extent and in the mode
permitted by the
common law for offences of similar nature.
But those degrading punishments which in any State had become
obsolete before its existing constitution was adopted, we think may
well be held forbidden by it as cruel and unusual") (emphasis
added). See also 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of
the United States 750-751 (1833).
Surely prison was not a more congenial place in the early years
of the Republic than it is today; nor were our judges and
commentators so naive as to be unaware of the often harsh
conditions of prison life. Rather, they simply did not conceive of
the Eighth Amendment as protecting inmates from harsh treatment.
Thus, historically, the lower courts routinely rejected prisoner
grievances by explaining that the courts had no role in regulating
prison life. "[I]t is well settled that it is not the function of
the courts to superintend the treatment and discipline of prisoners
in penitentiaries, but only to deliver from imprisonment those who
are illegally confined."
Stroud v.
Swope, 187 F.2d
850, 851-852 (CA9), cert. denied, 342 U. S. 829 (1951). See
also
Sutton v.
Settle, 302 F.2d
286, 288 (CA8 1962)
(per curiam), cert. denied, 372 U.
S. 930 (1963);
United States ex rel. Atterbury v.
Ragen, 237 F.2d
953, 954-956 (CA7 1956), cert. denied, 353 U. S. 964
(1957); Banning v.
Looney, 213 F.2d
771 (CAlO 1954)
(per curiam); Sarshik v.
Sanford,
142 F.2d 676 (CA5 1944). It
20
was not until 1976-185 years after the Eighth Amendment was
adopted-that this Court first applied it to a prisoner's complaint
about a deprivation suffered in prison.
Estelle v.
Gamble, 429 U.
S. 97 (1976).
B
We made clear in
Estelle that the Eighth Amendment plays
a very limited role in regulating prison administration. The case
involved a claim that prison doctors had inadequately attended an
inmate's medical needs. We rejected the claim because the inmate
failed to allege "acts or omissions sufficiently harmful to
evidence
deliberate indifference to
serious medical
needs."
Id., at 106 (emphasis added). 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. We have since described these twin
elements as the "objective" and "subjective" components of an
Eighth Amendment prison claim. See
Wilson v.
Seiter,
501 U. S. 294,
298 (1991).
We have never found a violation of the Eighth Amendment in the
prison context when an inmate has failed to establish either of
these elements. In
Rhodes v.
Chapman, 452 U. S. 337 (1981), for
instance, we upheld a practice of placing two inmates in a single
cell on the ground that the injury alleged was insufficiently
serious. Only where prison conditions deny an inmate "the minimal
civilized measure of life's necessities,"
id., at 347, we
said, could they be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Similarly, in
Whitley v.
Albers, 475 U. S. 312 (1986), we
held that a guard did not violate the Eighth Amendment when he shot
an inmate during a prison riot because he had not acted with a
sufficiently culpable state of mind. When an official uses force to
quell a riot, we said, he does not violate the Eighth Amendment
unless he acts "'maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose
of
21
causing harm.'"
Id., at 320-321 (quoting
Johnson
v.
Glick, 481 F.2d
1028, 1033 (CA2) (Friendly, J.), cert. denied
sub nom.
John v.
Johnson, 414 U. S. 1033 (1973)).
We synthesized our Eighth Amendment prison jurisprudence last
Term in
Wilson, supra. There the inmate alleged that the
poor conditions of his confinement
per se amounted to cruel
and unusual punishment, and argued that he should not be required
in addition to establish that officials acted culpably. We rejected
that argument, emphasizing that an inmate seeking to establish that
a prison deprivation amounts to cruel and unusual punishment always
must satisfy
both the "objective component ... (Was the
deprivation sufficiently serious?)"
and the "subjective
component (Did the officials act with a sufficiently culpable state
of mind?)" of the Eighth Amendment.
Id., at 298. Both are
necessary components; neither suffices by itself.
These subjective and objective components, of course, are
implicit in the traditional Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, which
focuses on penalties meted out by statutes or sentencing judges.
Thus, if a State were to pass a statute ordering that convicted
felons be broken at the wheel, we would not separately inquire
whether the legislature had acted with "deliberate indifference,"
since a statute, as an intentional act, necessarily satisfies an
even higher state-of-mind threshold. Likewise, the inquiry whether
the deprivation is objectively serious would be encompassed within
our determination whether it was "cruel and unusual."
When we cut the Eighth Amendment loose from its historical
moorings and applied it to a broad range of prison deprivations, we
found it appropriate to make explicit the limitations described in
Estelle, Rhodes, Whitley, and
Wilson. "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,"
Wilson, 501 U. S., at 300 (emphasis in original)-thus, the
subjective component. Similarly, because deprivations
22
of all sorts are the very essence of imprisonment, we made
explicit the
serious deprivation requirement to ensure that
the Eighth Amendment did not transfer wholesale the regulation of
prison life from executive officials to judges. That is why, in
Wilson, we described the inquiry mandated by the objective
component as: "[WJas the deprivation
sufficiently serious?"
Id., at 298 (emphasis added). That formulation plainly reveals
our prior assumption that a serious deprivation is
always
required. Under that analysis, a court's task in any given case was
to determine whether the challenged deprivation was "sufficiently"
serious. It was not, as the Court's interpretation today would have
it, to determine whether a "serious" deprivation
is required at
all.2
C
Given
Estelle, Rhodes, Whitley, and
Wilson, one
might have assumed that the Court would have little difficulty
answering the question presented in this case by upholding the
Fifth Circuit's "significant injury" requirement.3 Instead, the
Court announces that "[t]he objective component of an Eighth
Amendment claim is ... contextual and responsive to contemporary
standards of decency."
Ante, at 8 (internal quotation marks
omitted). In the context of claims alleging the excessive use of
physical force, the Court then asserts, the serious deprivation
requirement is satisfied by no serious deprivation at all. "When
prison officials maliciously and
2 While granting petitioner relief on his Eighth Amendment
claim, the Court leaves open the issue whether isolated and
unauthorized acts are "punishment" at all. This will, of course, be
the critical question in future cases of this type. If we
ultimately decide that isolated and unauthorized acts are not
"punishment," then today's decision is a dead letter. That anomaly
simply highlights the artificiality of applying the Eighth
Amendment to prisoner grievances, whether caused by the random
misdeeds of prison officials or by official policy.
3 I do not believe that there is any substantive difference
between the "serious deprivation" requirement found in our
precedents and the Fifth Circuit's "significant injury"
requirement.
23
sadistically use force to cause harm, contemporary standards of
decency always are violated."
Ante, at 9. Ascertaining
prison officials' state of mind, in other words, is the
only
relevant inquiry in deciding whether such cases involve cruel and
unusual punishment. In my view, this approach is an unwarranted and
unfortunate break with our Eighth Amendment prison
jurisprudence.
The Court purports to derive the answer to this case from
Whitley. The sum and substance of an Eighth Amendment
violation, the Court asserts, is '" "the unnecessary and wanton
infliction of pain." ",
Ante, at 5 (quoting
Whitley,
475 U. S., at 319). This formulation has the advantage, from the
Court's perspective, of eliminating the objective component. As
noted above, however, the only dispute in
Whitley concerned
the subjective component; the prisoner, who had been shot, had
self-evidently been subjected to an objectively serious injury.
Whitley did not say, as the Court does today, that the
objective component is contextual, and that an Eighth
Amendment claim may succeed where a prisoner is not seriously
injured. Rather,
Whitley stands for the proposition that,
assuming the existence of an objectively serious deprivation, the
culpability of an official's state of mind depends on the context
in which he acts.
"Whitley teaches that,
assuming the
conduct is harmful enough to satisfy the objective component of an
Eighth Amendment claim, see
Rhodes v.
Chapman,
452 U. S. 337
(1981), whether it can be characterized as 'wanton' depends upon
the constraints facing the official."
Wilson, supra, at 303
(emphasis modified). Whether officials subject a prisoner to the
"unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain" is simply one way to
describe the
state of mind inquiry that was at issue in
Whitley itself. As
Wilson made clear, that inquiry is
necessary but not
sufficient when a prisoner seeks to
show that he has been subjected to cruel and unusual
punishment.
Perhaps to compensate for its elimination of the
objective component in excessive force cases, the Court
simultane-
24
ously makes it harder for prisoners to establish the
subjective component. As we explained in
Wilson,
"deliberate indifference" is the baseline mental state required to
establish an Eighth Amendment violation. 501 U. S., at 303.
Departure from this baseline is justified where, as in
Whitley, prison officials act in response to an emergency;
in such situations their conduct cannot be characterized as
"wanton" unless it is taken "maliciously and sadistically for the
very purpose of causing harm." 475 U. S., at 320-321 (internal
quotation marks omitted). The Court today extends the heightened
mental state applied in
Whitley to
all excessive
force cases, even where no competing institutional concerns are
present. The Court simply asserts that "[m]any of the concerns
underlying our holding in
Whitley arise
whenever
guards use force to keep order."
Ante, at 6 (emphasis
added). I do not agree. Many excessive force cases do not arise
from guards' attempts to "keep order." (In this very case, the
basis for petitioner's Eighth Amendment claim is that the guards
hit him when there was no need for them to use any force at all.)
The use of excessive physical force is by no means invariably (in
fact, perhaps not even predominantly) accompanied by a "malicious
and sadistic" state of mind. I see no justification for applying
the extraordinary
Whitley standard to
all excessive
force cases, without regard to the constraints facing prison
officials. The Court's unwarranted extension of
Whitley, I
can only suppose, is driven by the implausibility of saying that
minor injuries imposed upon prisoners with anything less than a
"malicious and sadistic" state of mind can amount to cruel and
unusual punishment.
D
The Court's attempts to distinguish the cases expressly resting
upon the objective component are equally unconvincing. As noted
above, we have required an extreme deprivation in cases challenging
conditions of confinement,
Rhodes v.
Chapman,
452 U. S. 337
(1981). Why should such an ob-
25
jectively serious deprivation be required there and not here?
The Court's explanation is that "routine discomfort is 'part of the
penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses against
society.'"
Ante, at 9 (quoting
Rhodes, supra, at
347). But there is quite a gap between "routine discomfort" and the
denial of "the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities"
required to establish an Eighth Amendment violation. In the Court's
view, then, our society's standards of decency are not violated by
anything short of uncivilized conditions of confinement (no matter
how malicious the mental state of the officials involved), but are
automatically violated by any malicious use of force, regardless of
whether it even causes an injury. This is puzzling. I see no reason
why our society's standards of decency should be more readily
offended when officials, with a culpable state of mind, subject a
prisoner to a deprivation on one discrete occasion than when they
subject him to continuous deprivations over time. If anything, I
would think that a deprivation inflicted continuously over a long
period would be of greater concern to society than a deprivation
inflicted on one particular occasion.4
The Court's attempted distinction of
Estelle is also
unpersuasive: "Because society does not expect that prisoners
will
4 Moreover, by distinguishing this case from "conditions" cases,
the Court resurrects a distinction that we have repudiated as "not
only unsupportable in principle but unworkable in practice."
Wilson v.
Seiter, 501 U. S. 294, 299, and n. 1
(1991). When officials use force against a prisoner, whether once
or every day, that is a "condition" of his confinement. It is
unwise, in my view, to make the very existence of the serious
deprivation requirement depend on whether a particular claim is
characterized as one challenging a "condition" or one challenging a
"specific act." Cf.
McCarthy v.
Bronson, 500 U. S. 136, 139, 143
(1991) ("[C]onditions of confinement" under 28 U. S. C. §
636(b)(1)(B) include not only challenges to ongoing prison
conditions but also challenges to "isolated incidents" of excessive
force, in part because "the distinction between cases challenging
ongoing conditions and those challenging specific acts of alleged
misconduct will often be difficult to identify").
26
have unqualified access to health care, deliberate indifference
to medical needs amounts to an Eighth Amendment violation only if
those needs are 'serious.'"
Ante, at 9. In my view, our
society similarly has no expectation that prisoners will have
"unqualified" freedom from force, since forcibly keeping prisoners
in detention is what prisons are all about. Why should the
seriousness of injury matter when doctors maliciously decide not to
treat an inmate, but not when guards maliciously decide to strike
him?
At bottom, of course, there is no conclusive way to refute the
Court's assertions about our society's "contemporary notions of
decency." That is precisely why this Court has long insisted that
determinations of whether punishment is cruel and unusual "should
be informed by objective factors to the maximum possible extent,"
Rhodes, supra, at 346 (internal quotation marks
omitted).
The Court attempts to justify its departure from precedent by
saying that if a showing of serious injury were required, "the
Eighth Amendment would permit any physical punishment, no matter
how diabolic or inhuman, inflicting less than some arbitrary
quantity of injury."
Ante, at 9. That statement, in my view,
reveals a central flaw in the Court's reasoning. "[D]iabolic or
inhuman" punishments
by definition inflict serious injury.
That is not to say that the injury must be, or always will be,
physical. "Many thingsbeating with a rubber truncheon, water
torture, electric shock, incessant noise, reruns of 'Space 1999'
-may cause agony as they occur yet leave no enduring injury. The
state is not free to inflict such pains without cause just so long
as it is careful to leave no marks."
Williams v.
Boles, 841 F.2d
181, 183 (CA7 1988). Surely a prisoner who alleges that prison
officials tortured him with a device like the notorious "Tucker
Telephone" described by JUSTICE BLACKMUN,
ante, at 14, has
alleged a serious injury. But petitioner has not alleged a
deprivation of this type; the injuries he has alleged are entirely
physical and were found below to be "minor."
27
Furthermore, to characterize the serious injury requirement as
"arbitrary" is not to explain why it should be eliminated in this
particular context while it remains applicable to all other prison
deprivations. To be sure, it will not always be obvious which
injuries are "serious." But similarly, it will not always be
obvious which medical needs are "serious," or which conditions of
confinement deny "the minimal civilized measure of life's
necessities." These determinations are, however, required by the
Eighth Amendment, which prohibits
only those punishments
that are "cruel and unusual." As explained above, I think our
precedents clearly establish that a prisoner seeking to prove that
he has been subjected to "cruel and unusual" punishment must always
show that he has suffered a serious deprivation.
If the Court is to be taken at its word that "the unnecessary
and wanton infliction of pain" upon a prisoner
per se
amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, the implications of
today's opinion are sweeping. For this formulation replaces the
objective component described in our prior cases with a "necessity"
component. Many prison deprivations, however, are not "necessary,"
at least under any meaningful definition of that word. Thus, under
today's analysis,
Rhodes was wrongly decided. Surely the
"double celling" of inmates was not "necessary" to fulfill the
State's penal mission; in fact, the prison in that case had been
designed for individual cells, but was simply overcrowded. 452 U.
S., at 343. We rejected the prisoners' claim in
Rhodes not
because we determined that double celling was "necessary," but
because the deprivations alleged were not sufficiently serious to
state a claim of cruel and unusual punishment. After today, the
"necessity" of a deprivation is apparently the only relevant
inquiry beyond the wantonness of official conduct. This approach,
in my view, extends the Eighth Amendment beyond all reasonable
limits.
28
II
Today's expansion of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause
beyond all bounds of history and precedent is, I suspect, yet
another manifestation of the pervasive view that the Federal
Constitution must address all ills in our society. Abusive behavior
by prison guards is deplorable conduct that properly evokes outrage
and contempt. But that does not mean that it is invariably
unconstitutional. The Eighth Amendment is not, and should not be
turned into, a National Code of Prison Regulation. To reject the
notion that the infliction of concededly "minor" injuries can be
considered either "cruel" or "unusual" punishment (much less cruel
and unusual punishment) is not to say that it amounts to
acceptable conduct. Rather, it is to recognize that primary
responsibility for preventing and punishing such conduct rests not
with the Federal Constitution but with the laws and regulations of
the various States.
Petitioner apparently could have, but did not, seek redress for
his injuries under state law. 5 Respondents concede that
5 According to respondents:
"Louisiana state courts are open to prisoners for the purpose of
suing prison personnel who have caused them unjustified wrongs. For
example,
see Parker v.
State, 282 So. 2d 483, 486-87
(La. 1973),
cert. denied, 414 U. S. 1093 (1973);
Anderson v.
Phelps, 451 So. 2d 1284, 1285 (La. Ct.
App. 1st Cir. 1984);
McGee v.
State, 417 So. 2d 416,
418 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir.),
writ denied, 420 So. 2d 871
(La. 1982);
Neathery v.
State, 395 So. 2d 407, 410
(La. Ct. App. 3d Cir. 1981);
Shields v.
State Through
Dep't of Corrections, 380 So. 2d 123 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir.
1979),
writ denied, 382 So. 2d
164; Craft v.
State, 308 So. 2d 290, 295 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir.),
writ
denied, 319 So. 2d 441 (La. 1975),
cert. denied, 423 U.
S. 1075,96 S. Ct. 859,47 L. Ed. 2d 84 (1975);
Lewis v.
Listi, 377 So. 2d 551, 553 (La. Ct. App. 3d Cir.
1979);
Bastida v.
State, 269 So. 2d 544, 545 (La. Ct. App. 1st
Cir. 1972);
Adams v.
State, 247 So. 2d 149, 151 (La.
Ct. App. 1st Cir. 1971);
St. Julian v.
State, 98 So.
2d 284 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir. 1957);
Nedd v.
State,
281 So. 2d 131, 132 (La. 1973),
cert. denied, 415 U. S. 957,
94 S. Ct. 1484,39 L. Ed. 2d 572 (1974);
Mack v.
State, 529 So. 2d 446, 448 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir.
1988),
writ denied, 533 So. 2d 359 (La. 1988);
Walden v.
State, 430 So. 2d 1224 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir. 1983),
writ
denied, 435 So. 2d 430 (La. 1983);
29
if available state remedies were not constitutionally adequate,
petitioner would have a claim under the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment. Cf.
Davidson v.
Cannon,
474 U. S. 344,
348 (1986);
Hudson v.
Palmer, 468 U. S. 517, 532-534
(1984);
Parratt v.
Taylor, 451 U. S. 527, 541
(1981). I agree with respondents that this is the appropriate, and
appropriately limited, federal constitutional inquiry in this
case.
Because I conclude that, under our precedents, a prisoner
seeking to establish that he has been subjected to cruel and
unusual punishment must always show that he has suffered a serious
injury, I would affirm the judgment of the Fifth Circuit.
White v.
Phelps, 387 So. 2d 1188 (La. Ct. App. 1st
Cir. 1980);
Hampton v.
State, 361 So. 2d 257, 258
(La. Ct. App. 1st Cir. 1978);
Davis v.
State, 356 So.
2d 452, 454 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir. 1977);
Betsch v.
State, 353 So. 2d [358], 359 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir. 1977),
writ refused, 354 So. 2d 1389 (La.
1978); Williams v.
State, 351 So. 2d 1273 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir. 1977);
Jones v.
State, 346 So. 2d 807, 808 (La. Ct. App. 1st
Cir.),
writ refused, 350 So. 2d 671 (La. 1977);
Walker v.
State, 346 So. 2d 794, 796 (La. Ct. App.
1st Cir.),
writ denied, 349 So. 2d 879 (La. 1977);
Raney v.
State, 322 So. 2d 890 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir.
1975); and
Bay v.
Maggio, 417 So. 2d 1386 (La. Ct.
App. 1st Cir. 1982)." Brief for Respondents 42-43, n. 38.
Petitioner has not disputed the existence or adequacy of
state-law remedies for his injuries.
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