by Douglas Ankney

On July 2, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated the grant of summary judgment to one of several North Carolina Department of Corrections (DOC) officials accused by a prisoner of failing to protect him from violence from other prisoners.

In 2004, while Harris Ford was incarcerated at the Scotland Correctional Institution (SCI) in Laurinburg, he cooperated with the State in successfully prosecuting a murder charge against another prisoner. For Ford’s protection, the DOC transferred him to several prisons over the next decade before he was eventually returned to SCI in March 2015.

Almost immediately, Ford was threatened by a prisoner, an alleged gang member who told Ford to “check off or get blowed.” Ford understood the threat to mean he would be “shanked”—stabbed with a makeshift knife—if he did not go into protective custody (PC).

Ford reported the incident, and guard Jerry Ingram temporarily assigned him to PC. During the ensuing investigation, Ingram was unable to identify the prisoner who had made the threat “due to inmate Ford not providing any names of the inmates who allegedly put a hit out on him.” Consequently, Ford’s request for PC was ultimately denied, and he was returned to SCI’s general population.

About a month later in April 2017, Ford was again threatened by a gang member who told Ford to give him commissary items or “get blowed.” Ford complied with the demand. But two gang members stabbed him anyway. Ford did not immediately report this stabbing, however.

In May 2017, SCI Warden Katy Poole received a letter that Ford had written complaining that “inmates [we]re making shanks” and that he “feared for [his] safety.” Poole directed guard Queen Gerald to “ensure a [PC] investigation” was completed. Gerald conducted the investigation but did not report on its status for two years.

Also in May 2017, Ford alleged that he was again threatened by a gang member. Again, he was placed in PC during the ensuing investigation. Once more, he was returned to general population when he couldn’t identify the perpetrators. It was then that Ingram entered Ford’s cell and yelled “[w]ithin earshot of other inmates on the unit,” as Ford’s complaint later recalled, his demand that Ford name the individuals threatening him. Ford refused to answer Ingram publicly.

Ford then filed another request for PC, alleging that prisoners heard Ingram’s comments “and now they want to harm [me] due to the fact that they believe I’m a snitch…. I can give you the names of these people. I’ll give the information directly to Gerald in a statement.” But the guard reviewing the request denied it, finding the evidence “insufficient” due to the fact that “no names were given and no document from inmate [F]ord was given to state the names of the inmates involved.” On September 24, 2017, prisoner Jamal McRae repeatedly stabbed Ford with a shank, resulting in injuries that required dozens of stitches at a hospital.

Ford then filed suit in federal court for the Middle District of North Carolina in April 2019, proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to accuse Gerald, Ingram and Poole, along with Assistant Superintendent Dean Locklear, guard Cpt. Karen Henderson and Sgt. Cameron Gaddy of deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of attack and the resulting injuries, which violated his Eighth Amendment rights. When the district court granted Defendants summary judgment, Ford timely appealed.

The Fourth Circuit recalled that the Eighth Amendment ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” gives prison officials “a duty to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners,” citing Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994). A prisoner making a failure-to-protect claim must establish that the officials’ state of mind was at least “deliberate indifference” his “health or safety,” per Brown v. N.C. Dep’t of Corr., 612 F.3d 720 (4th Cir. 2010).

“Deliberate indifference is a very high standard,” the Court continued, citing Parrish ex rel. Lee v. Cleveland, 372 F.3d 302 (4th Cir. 2004)—a “culpable” state of mind requiring proof that the prison official subjectively “knew” of the substantial risk of harm to a prisoner and “consciously disregarded” it, in the words of Farmer. “In sum,” the Court said, “the prisoner must show both (1) ‘that the [prison] official in question subjectively recognized a substantial risk of harm’ and (2) that the official also ‘subjectively recognized’ that any actions he took in response ‘were inappropriate in light of that risk,’” as laid out in Parrish ex rel. Lee v. Cleveland, 372 F.3d 294, 302 (4th Cir. 2004).

With regard to Poole, the Court said that while she had received Ford’s letter, she had no knowledge of a substantial risk of harm to him. And she did not recognize that her order directing an investigation was “an inappropriate one.”

Regarding the remaining Defendants, other than Ingram, their denials of Ford’s PC requests were based upon investigations that found insufficient evidence and were deemed justified.

But in regard to Ingram, his public comments—yelled within earshot of other prisoners—were sufficient to sustain a finding that he “knowingly exacerbated the danger to Ford that officers had already recognized,” the Court said, citing Cox v. Quinn, 828 F.3d 227 (4th Cir. 2016).

Therefore, Ford had shown a genuine factual dispute, and summary judgment was inappropriate as to Ingram. Accordingly, that part of the district court’s order was reversed and the case remanded. Before the Court, Ford was represented by attorney Abigail Haglage of Georgetown University Law Center. See: Ford v. Hooks, 108 F.4th 224 (4th Cir. 2024).  

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