Prison Officials Have Qualified Immunity on Confinement Claims

North Carolina prison officials are entitled to qualified immunity against an inmate’s challenge to certain confinement conditions, the Fourth Circuit ruled.

The inmate, Jordan Andrew Jones, had appealed a lower court’s decision granting summary judgment to the defendants on his claims that temporary confinement conditions during a 2015 episode violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Wednesday decision illustrates how the court evaluates Eighth Amendment claims based on how egregious the conditions were. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit evaluated Jones’ claim under a two-pronged test, under which it determines whether a constitutional ...