Supervision.

• Position: Brief Article

U.S. District Court

Craw v. Gray 159 F.Supp.2d 679 (N.D.Ohio 2001). An arrestee sued law enforcement officers under ?? 1983 asserting claims for use of excessive force. The district court granted partial summary judgment in favor of the officers, finding that the allegations did not support a claim for inadequate training of an officer and that past "use of force" incident reports did not support the claim for inadequate supervision of the officer. According to the court, the assertion that a particular officer may be unsatisfactorily trained does not alone "suffice to fasten ?? 1983 liability" on a municipality for failure to train. The court noted that none of the reports showed that the deputy acted improperly. The officer had brought the arrestee to a county jail and during the booking process an altercation between the arrestee and the officer resulted in a right hip fracture and dislocation for the arrestee. (Mercer County Jail, Ohio)

FAILURE TO SUPERVISE

U.S. Appeals Court

STAFFING LEVELS FAILURE TO SUPERVISE

Marsh v. Butler County. Ala. 268 F.3d 1014 (11th Cir. 2001). Former county jail inmates brought a ?? 1983 action against a county and sheriff to recover for injuries they sustained when they were beaten by other prisoners. The district court dismissed the action and the inmates appealed. The appeals court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded the case. The appeals court held that allegations that the county failed to maintain the jail constituted deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm to the inmates, sufficient to survive the defendants' motion to dismiss. The court found that the sheriff did not have a qualified immunity defense available to her because preexisting case law established at the time that the conditions of confinement alleged by the plaintiffs did pose a risk of harm to the inmates. The court held that allegations that the county received many reports of the jail's deteriorated conditions but took no remedial measures were sufficient to allege deliberate indiffe rence to the substantial risk of serious harm faced by inmates in the jail. According to the court, allegations that jail conditions such as a lack of locks on cell doors resulted in the plaintiffs being assaulted by their fellow prisoners, stated a claim for an Eighth Amendment violation. The court found that the inmates also stated Eighth Amendment violations by alleging that there was no segregation of...