4th Circuit rules for Md. prisoner attacked by guards, allows $700K verdict to stand

Listen to this article

A Maryland prisoner did not need to exhaust his administrative remedies before suing over a brutal 2013 attack by guards at a Baltimore jail, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

The appellate court instead found that the prisoner, Kevin Younger, did not have access to administrative remedies because the attack was already the subject of an internal investigation.

The ruling means that Younger is likely to finally receive a $700,000 federal jury verdict awarded in early 2020. Jurors found liable three prison guards and two supervisors, including Tyrone Crowder, who was warden at the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center at the time of the attack.

Several corrections officers assaulted Younger at MRDCC on Sept, 30, 2013, a day after he witnessed other inmates attacking another guard. Younger was housed separately from other inmates because he had seen the assault, as were other inmates who were implicated in beating up the guard.

The three officers went from cell to cell beating the prisoners, including Younger, in an act of “misplaced retaliation,” Younger’s lawsuit claimed. The three guards each faced charges and were convicted of crimes in connection with the attacks.

Jurors at the federal trial ultimately found that Crowder was deliberately indifferent to the risk that Younger would be attacked in retaliation.

A former lieutenant at MRDCC, Neil Dupree, was also accused of sanctioning a violent culture at MRDCC and of directing the retaliatory attacks by telling the other officers he wanted “blood for blood,” according to testimony at the federal trial.

After jurors awarded damages to Younger, Dupree appealed, claiming that Younger failed to exhaust the administrative remedies that were available to him as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act.

The appeal went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled that Dupree’s question had been preserved for appeal despite not being raised again after the trial.

The U.S. Supreme Court did not make a factual determination about whether Younger had been required to exhaust his administrative remedies or whether he did so.

The 4th Circuit, in its ruling last week, found that Younger was not required to exhaust those remedies before suing because the attack at MRDCC was already being investigated internally. Once an incident is turned over to the Intelligence and Investigative Division, administrative remedies are no longer available to the prisoners involved.

“The Prison Litigation Reform Act does not require that inmates tilt at windmills before they can access federal court,” Judge Julius N. Richardson wrote for the three-judge panel.

“It only requires exhausting available remedies. Because no remedies were available to Younger, the exhaustion requirement does not bar his suit.”

The panel also declined to throw out the jury’s verdict based on a sufficiency of the evidence argument and found that Crowder was not protected by qualified immunity.

“Crowder’s final argument is that even if he was deliberately indifferent, he is still entitled to qualified immunity,” Richardson wrote. ” We reject this argument, as it was clearly established in 2013 that a warden with Crowder’s knowledge, who did what Crowder did — i.e., nothing — is deliberately indifferent in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Younger’s lawyer, Allen Honick of Owings Mills-based Furman Honick Law, said the ruling clearly defines prison inmates’ rights when they are involved in an incident that is investigated internally.

The murkiness of the administrative process in prisons can make it incredibly difficult for prisoners to sue successfully over violations of their rights.

“The state’s efforts would be much better spent on making the … administrative schemes workable and navigable rather than expending all their efforts in litigating these issues,” Honick said.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office, which represented Crowder, declined to comment because, it said, the litigation is still pending.