Daryll Richardson and John Walker v. Ronnie Lee Mcknight (521 U.S. 399)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 23, 1997 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 521 U.S. 399 · 117 S. Ct. 2100
- Decided
- June 23, 1997
- Term
- October Term 1996
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. The issue before us is whether prison guards who are employees of a private prison management firm are entitled to a qualified immunity from suit by prisoners charging a violation of 42 U. S. C. § 1983. We hold that they are not. r — I Ronnie Lee McKnight, a prisoner at Tennessee s South Central Correctional Center (SCCC), brought this federal constitutional tort action against two prison guards, Darryl Richardson and John Walker. He says the guards injured him by placing upon him extremely tight physical restraints, thereby unlawfully “subject[ing]” him “to the deprivation of” a right “secured by the Constitution” of the United States. Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Richardson and Walker asserted a qualified immunity from § 1983 lawsuits, see Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 807 (1982), and moved to dismiss the action. The District Court noted that Tennessee had “privatized” the management of a number of its correctional facilities, and that consequently a private firm, not the state government, employed the guards. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 41-24-101 et seq, (1990 and Supp. 1996); see generally Cody & Bennett, The Privatization of Correctional Institutions: The Tennessee Experience, 40 Vand. L. Rev. 829 (1987) (outlining State’s history with private correctional services). The court held that, because they worked…
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