July 2015 Illinois:Davis -v- Wessell and Lay
Earl Sidney Davis, a civil detainee, sued security guards Seth Wessel and George Lay pursuant to the substantive component of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging Wessel and Lay refused to remove Davis's hand restraints while he used the restroom and then laughed as he struggled to unzip his pants and urinate. A jury found in favor of Davis and awarded him $1,000 in compensatory damages.
Wessel and Lay appeal, contending that the district court erred in instructing the jury and denying their motion for judgment as a matter of law. We vacate the judgment and remand for a new trial.
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Davis is a civil detainee pursuant to the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act ("SVP Act"), 725 ILCS 207/1-207/99, in the custody of the Illinois Department of Human Services, and housed at its high-security Rushville Treatment and Detention Facility ("Facility"). The SVP Act permits a person who has been convicted of a sexually violent offense to be civilly detained beyond his criminal sentence, possibly indefinitely but subject to periodic review, if he is found to be "dangerous" because he "suffers from a mental disorder that makes it substantially probable that [he] will engage in acts of sexual violence" in the future. 725 ILCS 207/5(f), 9, 40, 55. Wessel and Lay worked at the Facility as Security Therapy Aids, i.e., security guards.
Davis, then proceeding pro se, filed a complaint in district court under § 1983, alleging (as relevant here) that Wessel and Lay refused to remove his "black box" hand restraints while he used a restroom in a Madison County, Illinois courthouse, and watched and laughed as he struggled to unzip his pants, urinate, and zip his pants, which caused him psychological pain and physical pain in his wrists. After the district court denied Wessel and Lay's motion for summary judgment, the case proceeded to jury trial, with two law students representing Davis. (The law students, Daniel Campbell and Adam Hearn of the University of Illinois College of Law Federal Civil Rights Clinic, were provisionally admitted to practice as attorneys for the purposes of this case pursuant to Central District of Illinois Local Rule 83.5(A).)
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Wessel and Lay take refuge behind the Facility directive that they maintain permitted them to remove restraints only "[w]ithin a secure facility in order to utilize the restroom." But there was conflicting testimony as to whether the corridor behind the courtroom was "secure." Moreover, the same directive allowed Wessel and Lay to call their supervisor for permission to remove the restraints, and a reasonable jury could find that they chose not to do so for the purpose of humiliating Davis.
It must be remembered that Davis would have had no means of escape from the windowless restroom other than by force through Wessel and Lay (while Davis still wore leg shackles), and Wessel and Lay were each considerably larger, younger, and healthier than Davis. And finally, even if the directive meant what Wessel and Lay contend, "[a] jail cannot shield a cruel and unusual punishment from legal challenge simply by imposing it on everyone equally. That would serve only to magnify the constitutional problem." King v. McCarty, 781 F.3d 889, 898-99 (7th Cir. 2015). The district court properly denied Wessel and Lay's motion for judgment as a matter of law.
CONCLUSION.
The judgment is VACATED and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
