USCA11 Case: 23-10130 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 08/02/2023 Page: 1 of 8
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-10130
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
KRYSTEN GARNER,
on behalf of minor R.C. and the ESTATE
OF ANDREW CAMPBELL,
on behalf of
MINOR CHILD
deceased
ANDREW CAMPBELL,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
ANTONIA JAMERSON
Defendant,
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2 Opinion of the Court 23-10130
WARREN BALTES,
JUSTIN MOCK,
LOWELL CLARK,
DOUGLAS PERNELL,
RUTLEDGE SP WARDEN, et al.,
Defendants-Appellants.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Georgia
D.C. Docket No. 4:22-cv-00094-CDL
____________________
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and ROSENBAUM and JILL
PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Cadet Warren Baltes and six supervisory officials of the
Georgia Department of Corrections—Lieutenants Justin Mock,
Lowell Clark, and Douglas Pernell, Warden Reagan Black, Re-
gional Director Scott Crickmar, and Commissioner Timothy
Ward—appeal the denial of their motion to dismiss a complaint by
Krysten Garner on behalf of the estate and minor child of Andrew
Campbell, a disabled veteran who committed suicide while incar-
cerated at Rutledge State Prison. The officials argue that the district
court erred by denying them qualified immunity. We affirm.
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23-10130 Opinion of the Court 3
At this stage, we accept the allegations in the complaint as
true and construe them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.
See Bailey v. Wheeler,
843 F.3d 473, 480 (11th Cir. 2016). Campbell,
a former Marine, became disabled while deployed in Afghanistan
and suffered from mental illness. He was placed in a single-inmate
solitary confinement cell in the “G-Building.” On April 2, 2020, cor-
rections officer Antonia Jamerson, who is not a party to this appeal,
and Baltes, who was in training, were the only officers staffing the
G-Building. That evening, Jamerson found Campbell dead from
hanging himself with a sheet tied to the bars on his cell door win-
dow.
Garner alleges that Jamerson and Baltes knew that Campbell
suffered from severe mental health conditions and that he was on
a suicide safety protocol that required observation every 15
minutes. Jamerson and Baltes knowingly failed to observe Camp-
bell on the night of his death, failed to discover him until “long after
he was already dead,” and were deliberately indifferent to his safety
and well-being. The department investigated Campbell’s death,
and Warden Black stated that the video surveillance revealed that
“rounds had been made outside required time and wrong staff” and
recommended adverse action against Jamerson and Baltes. Jamer-
son falsified observation logs to cover up his failure to conduct
safety checks that night and was terminated for “failure to perform
assigned duties, falsification of documents, and untimely report-
ing/documentation.”
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4 Opinion of the Court 23-10130
Garner alleges that Mock, Clark, and Pernell were responsi-
ble for staffing the G-Building and knew that staffing the building
with only an officer and a trainee would make it impossible to per-
form the suicide safety protocol. Because of severe understaffing,
the prison had no on-duty captain the night of Campbell’s death,
so Pernell, a lieutenant, had to serve as “Acting Captain.” Mock,
Clark, and Pernell also knew that the G-building officers failed to
conduct adequate safety observations of high-risk inmates but
never corrected the officers. And they knew that the overuse of sol-
itary confinement and lack of safety observations was part of a his-
tory of widespread abuse but failed to correct these problems.
Garner alleges that Black, Crickmar, and Ward established
customs and policies that caused the prison to be grossly under-
staffed and to overuse and abuse solitary confinement. They knew
that officers lacked necessary supervision, failed to conduct re-
quired rounds and safety observations, and lacked necessary train-
ing in inmate supervision and suicide prevention, but they failed to
correct these problems.
After Baltes, Jamerson, and the supervisors moved to dis-
miss based on qualified immunity, Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), the dis-
trict court denied their motion. The district court ruled that the
complaint sufficiently alleges that Jamerson and Baltes had subjec-
tive knowledge of a strong likelihood that Campbell would commit
suicide and deliberately took no action to prevent his suicide,
which violated clearly established law. It ruled that the complaint
alleges plausible facts to support the reasonable inference that the
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23-10130 Opinion of the Court 5
supervisors knew that officers routinely failed to conduct safety
checks on high-risk inmates, which was part of a widespread pat-
tern of abuse due to severe understaffing, and the supervisors failed
to make the necessary staffing adjustments despite the obvious
risks. And it ruled that it was clearly established that failing to act
despite having knowledge of a serious risk of harm to an inmate
amounted to deliberate indifference, so the supervisors were not
entitled to qualified immunity.
We review an order denying qualified immunity at the mo-
tion-to-dismiss stage de novo.
Id. We accept the allegations of the
complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in the plain-
tiff’s favor.
Id.
Qualified immunity shields officials acting within their dis-
cretionary authority from liability when their conduct does not vi-
olate a federal right that was clearly established when it occurred.
Williams v. Aguirre,
965 F.3d 1147, 1156 (11th Cir. 2020). If an official
acted within the scope of his discretionary authority, a plaintiff
must prove “that qualified immunity is not appropriate.” Penley v.
Eslinger,
605 F.3d 843, 849 (11th Cir. 2010) (citation omitted). Be-
cause it is undisputed that the officials were acting within the scope
of their discretionary duties when the alleged constitutional viola-
tions occurred, we ask whether Garner’s allegations, accepted as
true, “show that [each] official committed a constitutional viola-
tion and, if so, (2) that the law, at the time of the official’s act,
clearly established the unconstitutionality of that conduct.” Sin-
gletary v. Vargas,
804 F.3d 1174, 1180 (11th Cir. 2015).
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6 Opinion of the Court 23-10130
“In a prisoner suicide case, to prevail under section 1983 for
violation of substantive rights, under either the eighth or four-
teenth amendment, the plaintiff must show that the jail official dis-
played deliberate indifference to the prisoner’s taking of his own life.”
Jackson v. West,
787 F.3d 1345, 1353 (11th Cir. 2015). To be deliber-
ately indifferent, an official must have subjective knowledge of a
risk of serious harm and “deliberately disregard a strong likelihood
rather than a mere possibility that the self-infliction of harm will
occur.” Snow ex rel. Snow v. City of Citronelle, Alabama,
420 F.3d 1262,
1268 (11th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted); see Gish v. Thomas,
516 F.3d 952, 954–55 (11th Cir. 2008). “Where prison personnel di-
rectly responsible for inmate care have knowledge that an inmate
has . . . threatened . . . suicide, their failure to take steps to prevent
that inmate from committing suicide can amount to deliberate in-
difference.” Greason v. Kemp,
891 F.2d 829, 835–36 (11th Cir. 1990);
see Farmer v. Brennan,
511 U.S. 825, 836 (1994) (“[A]cting 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.”).
The district court did not err in determining that Baltes and
the supervisors were not entitled to qualified immunity. The com-
plaint alleges that Baltes had subjective knowledge of a high risk
that Campbell would attempt suicide but deliberately failed to act
to prevent his suicide. It alleges that Baltes knew that Campbell suf-
fered from severe mental health conditions that warranted place-
ment on a suicide safety protocol, but Baltes’s deliberate disregard
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23-10130 Opinion of the Court 7
for these serious medical needs caused Campbell to experience
pain and suffering and to take his life. See Snow,
420 F.3d at 1268.
Baltes argues that it was not clearly established that his al-
leged failure to conduct timely safety checks violated Campbell’s
constitutional rights. But we disagree. Taking Garner’s allegations
as true, Baltes was deliberately indifferent toward Campbell’s
safety because, although he knew that Campbell had severe mental
health needs and posed a high risk of self-harm, Baltes did not per-
form even cursory supervision on the night of Campbell’s death.
Campbell’s body was not discovered until “long after he was al-
ready dead.” Our caselaw clearly established when the suicide oc-
curred that, when an officer fails to protect an inmate who poses a
serious risk of suicide and that failure amounts to deliberate indif-
ference, the officer violates the prisoner’s constitutional right. See
Belcher v. City of Foley, Ala.,
30 F.3d 1390, 1396 (11th Cir. 1994);
Greason,
891 F.2d at 835–36. Baltes was not entitled to qualified im-
munity.
The district court also did not err in denying the supervisors
qualified immunity. To plead supervisory liability for deliberate in-
difference, Garner must allege either that the supervisors “person-
ally participated” in the alleged unconstitutional conduct or that
there was a “causal connection” between their actions and the al-
leged constitutional deprivation. Christmas v. Harris Cnty.,
51 F.4th
1348, 1355 (11th Cir. 2022). A “causal connection” can be estab-
lished by a history of widespread abuse that put the supervisor on
notice of the need to correct the alleged deprivation, which he
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8 Opinion of the Court 23-10130
failed to do; a custom or policy of deliberate indifference to a con-
stitutional violation; or facts that support an inference that the su-
pervisor directed his subordinates to act unlawfully, or knew they
would act unlawfully, and failed to stop them.
Id.
Garner’s complaint alleges a causal connection between the
supervisors’ conduct and Jamerson and Baltes’s deliberate indiffer-
ence. It alleges that the inmate suicide rate in Georgia prisons—
involving at least 125 suicides since 2017—was double the national
average due to severe understaffing, high turnover, poor training,
lack of supervision, abuse of solitary confinement, and failure to
discipline officers. The supervisors allegedly knew about but failed
to correct these widespread abuses. They allegedly adopted a cus-
tom of allowing officers to disregard required suicide safety proto-
col without consequence, to the point that it was “widely known”
that officers routinely falsified door charts and observation logs.
Mock, Clark, and Pernell allegedly had actual knowledge that
G-Building was understaffed on the night of Campbell’s suicide.
Because the complaint adequately alleges a causal connection be-
tween the supervisors’ conduct and a clearly-established constitu-
tional violation, see
id., the district court did not err by denying
them qualified immunity at this stage.
We AFFIRM the order denying the motion to dismiss Gar-
ner’s complaint based on qualified immunity.
