Citation

Magun K. Columbia Law Rev. 2016; 116(8): 2059-2101.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Columbia University School of Law)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Suicide is the leading cause of death in jails, yet many jails and municipalities have insufficient policies for preventing inmate suicide. One of the ways to lead jails and municipalities to change such policies would be through financial pressure from individual lawsuits for damages resulting from an inmate's suicide; however, due to the legal structure surrounding custodial liability, it is often difficult for inmates' estates to successfully hold jail officials or local municipalities liable. In Farmer v. Brennan, the Supreme Court found that a subjective deliberate indifference standard applied to a convicted prisoner's Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect claim. Since then, courts have been applying this subjective deliberate indifference standard to similar claims by pretrial detainees, even though such claims arise under the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects pretrial detainees from any punishment, not just cruel and unusual punishment. In 2015, the Supreme Court held in Kingsley v. Hendrickson that an objective, rather than subjective, standard applies to determine whether an official's use of force against a pretrial detainee was excessive-a lesser standard than the subjective standard used for convicted prisoners. This Note examines how the Kingsley decision and the Court's emphasis that intent is not required for an act to be considered punishment might impact a pretrial detainee's failure-to-protect and serious-medical-needs claims, particularly as they relate to jail-suicide litigation. Ultimately, the Note asserts that courts should begin to apply an objective deliberate indifference standard to such claims and that this could lead municipalities to adopt more effective suicide prevention policies. © 2016, Columbia Law Review Association. All rights reserved.

Language: en