Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendants-police officials’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s section 1983 action alleging that defendants had widespread custom or practice of using excessive force to require detainees such as plaintiff to change into jail-issued uniforms. While plaintiff provided testimony regarding her own experience with defendants, she presented only two statements by correctional officers, i.e., “we have to take their clothes away from them and give them their jumpsuit” and “we just take them off," that failed to support her claim that defendants had widespread practice of using excessive force. Dist. Ct. erred, though, in granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s claim that challenged defendant’s policy requiring female detainees to wear either white underwear or no underwear at all that, according to plaintiff, violated her 4th, 8th and 14th Amendment rights. Defendants’ sole rationale for such policy, i.e., precluding detainees from extracting ink from colored underwear to make tattoos, was not supported by any actual incident occurring at defendant’s jail. Moreover, record did not support Dist. Ct.’s view that such policy was in mainstream of practices followed by other prisons. As such, reasonable trier-of-fact could find that said policy was not rationally related to legitimate govt. objective and ran contrary to dignity of detainees, some of whom were forced to wear no underwear even during their menstrual cycle.
Federal 7th Circuit Court
Civil Court
Section 1983 Action