Keyvon Sellers v. Jerry Nelson, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Eddie Lee Nelson, Jr., Deceased, et al.
SocialSecurity DueProcess Punishment Securities Patent
Whether a jail intake officer had a clearly-established constitutional duty to inform others about an inmate's alleged racial animus in underlying charges
QUESTIONS PRESENTED Until this case, no court anywhere required a jail intake officer like Petitioner, whose role was limited to booking inmates into the jail, to inform others that an otherwise compliant inmate had displayed potential racial animus in the inmate’s underlying charges. And, because of this case, all jail officers, regardless of their job duties, will have a constitutional duty (at least within the Eleventh Circuit) to inform others if the officer hears the inmate was imprisoned for a racially motivated violent crime so that another department—charged with making housing decisions—can consider whether the inmate should be segregated. In her concurrence, Judge Abudu found the decision “especially groundbreaking” because the Eleventh Circuit has previously “suggested that the broader, general principal articulated in this case was not clearly established.” App. 20a-21a. Yet, conceptually, qualified immunity cannot be denied in the same case that established the rule in the first place. Nor should the deliberate indifference standard be broadened as it has been here based on a general statement of the law and where the result is judicially mandated segregation and immediately suspect racial classification pursuant to an unworkable standard lacking any procedural guideposts. The Eleventh Circuit’s ruling is so problematic that the two judges who joined the majority opinion also wrote a concurrence that displayed sharp disagreements as to the novelty and breadth of the holding. The questions presented for review in this Petition are: (1) Whether a jail intake officer with no responsibility for classification or cell assignments nevertheless had a clearly established constitutional duty to u inform others that a compliant inmate had been arrested for an allegedly racially motivated assault so that inmate’s housing assignment could be determined by a separate department. (2) Assuming this constitutional duty was clearly established, whether the Eleventh Circuit’s direction to racially segregate is procedurally defective because it did not provide procedural guideposts.