Fifth Circuit Revives Texas Prisoner’s Sleep Deprivation Claim—Again
Texas prisoner Michael Garrett has been fighting the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) for a good night’s sleep since 2013. His case has twice gone before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, after the district court denied his claims. The Court’s most recent ruling resuscitating the case was issued on March 22, 2024, when it found that the district court again erred—this time by holding Garrett to a higher pleading standard than was proper.
The problem is not limited to Texas, of course; prisoners nationwide fight for a decent night’s sleep over noisy fellow prisoners and middle-of-the-night disruptions from staff. When Garrett filed his case pro se in 2013, he was allegedly unable to get even six hours of uninterrupted sleep at the McConnell Unit. The federal court for the Southern District of Texas ruled he was not entitled to a certain number of hours. But the Fifth Circuit disagreed, saying that sleep deprivation may violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and usual punishment, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Jan. 2015, p.46.]
Picking up pro bono representation from Austin attorney Naomi Howard, Garrett returned to the district court, which held a 2018 bench trial. After that it found he failed to connect the dots between the alleged sleep deprivation and his various maladies, including migraines, high blood pressure and vertigo. So back to the Fifth Circuit went Garrett, this time with additional assistance from Fort Worth attorneys Chris Knight and Chance Fletcher of Hanes & Boone LLP.
By this point, Garrett had been moved to the Estelle Unit so the Court ordered briefings on conditions there. Garrett argued that they were no more conducive to restful sleep. As the Fifth Circuit then observed, the prison schedule is “chock-full” of nearly 100 planned activities every day—“including meals, work assignments, vocational classes, law-library time, recreation, showering, clinic appointments, commissary privileges, and religious services.” The result was three-and-a-half hours for sleep every night between lights-out at 10:30 p.m. and breakfast, which was served beginning at 2:00 a.m. Even that is interrupted by a 1:00 a.m. “bed book count,” meaning the most uninterrupted sleep that Garrett could count on was 150 minutes per night. Except that “nighttime prison conditions—namely the hallway lighting, heavy doors slamming, and prisoners yelling—further imperil inmates’ sleep prospects,” the Court added.
The district court had faulted Garrett for failing to show that any sleep deprivation he suffered actually caused his physical ailments. But the Fifth Circuit called this the wrong standard, noting what the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) held in Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25 (1993)—that unsafe conditions of confinement violate the Eighth Amendment even if no actual injury results. So the prisoner need show only that prison officials put him at substantial risk of serious harm, which the undisputed evidence of sleep deprivation was sufficient to establish in Garrett’s case.
Moreover, the district court held that any civil rights violation imposed by TDCJ’s policies was excused by its legitimate penological purpose, pointing to Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987). But again the Fifth Circuit called this the wrong standard; Turner excused only violations of a prisoner’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, not those under the Eighth Amendment, as SCOTUS specifically held in Johnson v. California, 543 U.S. 499 (2005). TDCJ attempted to argue that what SCOTUS provided was an explanation, not a ruling, but the Fifth Circuit wasn’t buying that. Citing U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Verizon Commc’ns., Inc., 761 F.3d 409 (5th Cir. 2014), it said that “an explication of the governing rules of law” by definition means that “it is not dictum”—so that part of the SCOTUS opinion could not be ignored. Thus the district court’s opinion was vacated and the case remanded. See: Garrett v. Lumpkin, 96 F.4th 896 (5th Cir. 2024).
The case has now returned to the district court, and PLN will update developments as they are available. Garrett continues to be represented by Howard, plus Knight and fellow Hanes & Boone attorney Jason N. Jordan, as well as attorney Terry D. Kernell of Rusty Hardin & Associates, LLP in Houston. See: Garrett v. Davis, USDC (S.D. Tex.), Case No. 2:13-cv-00070.
Additional source: Texas Observer
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Related legal cases
Garrett v. Lumpkin
| Year | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 96 F.4th 896 (5th Cir. 2024) |
| Level | Court of Appeals |
| Conclusion | Bench Verdict |
| Appeals Court Edition | F.4th |
Garrett v. Davis
| Year | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (S.D. Tex.), Case No. 2:13-cv-00070 |
| Level | District Court |