## Facts

- A riot erupted at the Oregon State Penitentiary, where inmates seized a prison officer and held him hostage in a cell on the upper tier of a two-tier cellblock.
- Prison officials planned a rescue in which an unarmed security manager would enter the cellblock and move toward the hostage while officers with shotguns provided cover.
- The security manager ordered an officer to fire a warning shot and to shoot low at any inmates who climbed the stairs toward the upper tier while the manager approached the hostage.
- After the warning shot, an officer shot Gerald Albers in the left knee as Albers began climbing the stairs.
- Albers was not one of the hostage-takers.
- Albers sued prison officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The district court directed a verdict for the officials; the Ninth Circuit reversed as to the Eighth Amendment and ordered a new trial; the Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether shooting an inmate during a prison disturbance constitutes the Eighth Amendment’s “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.”
2. Whether the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause provides an independent, less demanding standard for a convicted prisoner’s excessive-force claim.
3. Whether the directed verdict for prison officials was improper under the governing constitutional standard.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and left judgment for the prison officials in place.
- The Court held the evidence could not support a finding that officials applied force “maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm,” as opposed to acting in a good-faith effort to restore order during a serious disturbance.
- The Court rejected using Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process as an alternative route to a more lenient excessive-force standard for convicted prisoners.
- Because the Court found no constitutional violation on the merits, it did not need to resolve qualified immunity.

## Legal Principles

- In prison disturbances threatening safety, the Eighth Amendment inquiry focuses on whether force was applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically to cause harm.
- “Obduracy and wantonness,” not inadvertence or good-faith error, characterize conduct prohibited by the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause in this context.
- Force used for security does not violate the Eighth Amendment merely because, in hindsight, it appears unreasonable or unnecessary in a strict sense.
- Relevant considerations include the need for force, the relationship between need and amount of force used, the threat reasonably perceived by officials, and efforts to temper the response.
- For convicted prisoners challenging force by prison officials, the Eighth Amendment is the primary source of substantive protection; the Due Process Clause offers no greater protection for the same conduct.

## Conclusion

The Court held that, during a prison riot and hostage situation, an inmate shot while climbing stairs toward the disturbance could not recover under the Eighth Amendment absent proof officials acted maliciously and sadistically rather than in a good-faith effort to restore discipline, and it declined to apply a separate Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process standard.


Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312 (1986)