Whether jail officials who are subjectively aware of a substantial risk that a pretrial detainee will attempt suicide and respond to the harm unreasonably may be held liable

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Upon arriving in jail, pretrial detainee Derrek Monroe informed jail officials that he was suicidal and attempted to hang himself twice in his cell. Jail officials responded by isolating Monroe in a new cell with a wall-mounted telephone and a 30-inch phone cord. When Monroe began to strangle himself with the obvious ligature, the lone jailer on duty stood outside the cell and watched. The jailer did not call 911 and did not attempt to render aid to Monroe as Monroe was dying a few feet away. A divided panel of the Fifth Circuit concluded that the jailer who watched Monroe’s suicide without intervening was entitled to qualified immunity because, even though he “knew he should have” intervened, Fifth Circuit precedent did not clearly establish the unreasonableness of his conduct. The panel further concluded that the jail officials who isolated Monroe in a cell with a 30-inch phone cord could not be held liable because, under Fifth Circuit precedent, a phone cord is “not as obvious” a ligature as bedding. This case presents recurring and important questions regarding application of the standard to claims involving pretrial detainees: 1. Whether jail officials who are subjectively aware of a substantial risk that a pretrial detainee will attempt suicide and respond to the harm unreasonably may be held liable where their violation was obvious—as the First, Fourth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits have held—or whether jail officials who respond unreasonably to the obvious risk (i) ll should be granted qualified immunity in the absence of a case involving the same facts—as the Fifth Circuit held below. 2. Whether the objective standard this Court announced in Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015), applies to inadequate-care claims brought by pretrial detainees—as the Second, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits have held— or whether the subjective standard that applies to convicted prisoners also applies to pretrial detainees—as the Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have held and as the Fifth Circuit held below. 3. Whether the judge-made qualified immunity doctrine requires reform.