Steve Spencer v. Chris Abbott, et al.

The Eighth Amendment guarantees that “cruel and unusual punishments [shall not be] inflicted.” U.S. Const. amend. VIII. And this Court has long held that prison officials violate this guarantee when they manifest “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976). Under this standard, a prisoner states an Eighth Amendment claim by demonstrating a “sufficiently serious” medical need to which a prison official responded with a “sufficiently culpable state of mind.” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994). Yet federal circuits are split 5-5 on the correct standard to determine when a prison official’s state of mind is culpable, which division and confusion has been acknowledged by Judges Easterbrook and Bybee. See Petties v. Carter, 836 F.3d 722, 736 (7th Cir. 2016) (Easterbrook, J., dissenting); Colwell v. Bannister, 763 F.3d 1060, 1071 (9th Cir. 2014) (Bybee, J., dissenting). The two questions presented are:

1. Do those working in a state prison comply with the Eighth Amendment simply by responding to a prisoner’s serious medical needs with some medical care, even if inadequate, as five circuits have held, or must the prison meet a higher standard of providing adequate medical care, as five other circuits have held?

2. Should this Court’s precedent that creates out of whole cloth the doctrine of qualified immunity for state officials be reconsidered?