Failure to protect investigations

In Farmer v. Brennan (1994), the Supreme Court held that prison officials violate the Constitution when they know of a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate and disregard it. For force used by staff against people held before trial, Kingsley v. Hendrickson (2015) applies an objective reasonableness standard. Proof depends on what officials knew before the assault.

What an investigation looks for

• Warnings given before the assault: requests for protection, grievances, and classification records
• Housing assignments, and why the people involved were placed together
• Facility video and staff post logs for the time of the assault
• Detainee witnesses, and earlier assaults in the same unit

How these cases are investigated

In failure to protect cases, the work most often involves witness location and interviews, public records requests, video and digital evidence recovery, and pattern and practice evidence. What a particular case needs depends on what evidence already exists and what is at risk of being lost.

Nationwide, and civil rights only

Evidence in failure to protect cases is lost quickly. Video is overwritten, records are purged, and witnesses move on. Civil Rights PI accepts these investigations nationwide, and the earlier the work begins, the more there is to find.