Court affirms ruling against Orange Co. jailers sued in inmate’s death

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s ruling against two Orange County detention officers sued over their alleged role in a jail inmate’s death in 2020. The officers were accused of delaying a check on the injured inmate to avoid paperwork.

Thursday’s decision allows Tiffany King to move forward with her federal lawsuit against Sheriff Charles Blackwood and officers William D Berry Jr. and Thomas E Linster III. King is suing on behalf of her son, the late Maurice Antoine King.

King was housed in the Orange County Detention Center while awaiting sentencing for his guilty plea to federal drug charges.

Video surveillance from March 4, 2020, showed a “physical altercation” in King’s cell, according to the 4th Circuit opinion. Within minutes, Berry walked through the area.

“He passed King’s cell twice, but he never turned his head toward the cell,” Judge Julius Richardson wrote. Thirty minutes later, Linster walked through the area. “He too walked past King’s cell twice without looking inside.”

Over the next 27 minutes, four other inmates “cycled in and out of King’s cell,” according to the court opinion. At one point, “an inmate pulled a towel that had partially covered the cell-door window over the rest of the window to fully block it.”

Linster returned roughly 30 minutes later. “He passed King’s cell yet again without looking inside,” Richardson wrote. “On his way out, he heard a ‘concerning noise’ from the cell. But he kept walking.”

A few minutes later, Berry and Linster used an intercom to listen to King’s cell. “Berry later told investigators that they thought they heard ‘a moan or a groan,’” according to the court opinion.

“After this, the pair waited roughly twenty-three minutes,” Richardson wrote. “Officer Berry did not go to check on King until 8:13 p.m. He explained the delay to investigators: ‘[W]e had to wait until about five minutes after [8 p.m.] or our punch won’t count.’ A ‘punch’ is the touch of a wall sensor that the Detention Center uses to log supervisory rounds. The sensors had to be hit on schedule. A missed punch meant extra paperwork.”

“Berry had heard the noise,” Richardson added. “He waited anyway. He did not want to do paperwork.”

Once officers checked on the cell, “Officer Berry found King soaking wet,” the court opinion explained. “The area above his left eye was bruised, bleeding, and swollen. He could not speak. He struggled to breathe.”

A jail nurse eventually called 911. While riding in an ambulance to Duke Hospital, King said “’They’ had ‘stomped him in the head’ and ‘choked him out.’” He suffered a heart attack and died that night.

“The death was classified a homicide,” Richardson wrote. “The attending physician and the local medical examiner agreed that King’s injuries might not have been fatal if he had received treatment sooner.”

Richardson and his colleagues dismissed portions of the appeal dealing with Blackwood and his insurer.

Thursday’s ruling upheld a trial judge’s decision that Berry and Linster could not claim qualified immunity to avoid the lawsuit.

“Officers Berry and Linster were stationed at a segregation pod known to house violent inmates, presenting ‘a high risk of inmate-on-inmate violence,” Richardson wrote. “[D]uring one of his rounds, Officer Linster heard a ‘concerning sound’ come from an inmate’s cell, and reported this to Officer Berry; soon thereafter, they heard — via the intercom — moaning, groaning, and labored breathing coming from the same cell.”

“A reasonable lay person presented with those facts — a concerning sound followed by moans, groans, and labored breathing from an inmate in a highly violent unit — would have recognized the need for medical attention,” Richardson added.

“The district court evaluated the record, made a number of factual findings, and decided that based on these findings, a reasonable jury could conclude that Officers Berry and Linster actually knew of and consciously disregarded a substantial risk to King,” the court opinion explained.

“[T]he district court factually concluded that the officers did not take action for twenty minutes, despite suspecting King had been assaulted, because they wanted to avoid an administrative inconvenience the next morning,” Richardson wrote. “And the court came to the legal conclusion, which we review, that from this factual conclusion, a reasonable jury could find conscious disregard of a substantial risk to King.”

The trial judge also found that Berry and Linster “both made inconsistent and arguably false material statements in their reports, interviews, depositions, and declarations, all tending to indicate they knew they had violated Mr. King’s rights,” Richardson added.

“Taken together, the district court’s factual findings — audible distress from an inmate suspected of having been assaulted, a twenty-minute delay motivated by paperwork avoidance, and post-incident statements supporting an inference of contemporaneous awareness — would permit a reasonable jury to find that Officers Berry and Linster subjectively appreciated a substantial risk of serious harm to King and consciously disregarded it,” the 4th Circuit opinion explained.

“Having concluded that the district court’s findings would permit a reasonable jury to find that Officers Berry and Linster violated King’s constitutional right to be free from deliberate indifference to a serious medical need, we turn to whether that right was clearly established at the time of their conduct. It was,” Richardson wrote.

“Officers who suspect an inmate has been beaten, hear him struggling, and choose to delay checking on him — to avoid extra paperwork — are not entitled to qualified immunity,” Richardson concluded.

Judges Steven Agee and DeAndrea Gist Benjamin joined Richardson’s opinion.

“Court affirms ruling against Orange Co. jailers sued in inmate’s death” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.