CA7: When inmate dies in custody before PC determination, 4A governs the inquiry

When an inmate has been booked into a jail and no judicial probable cause determination has been made, the Fourth Amendment governs the denial of medical care issue. Estate of Perry v. Wenzel, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 18010 (7th Cir. Sept. 18, 2017):

The defendants urge us to narrowly define Perry’s right. But, in doing so, they are essentially urging us to conclude that because there is no case with the exact same fact pattern, qualified immunity applies. That is not what the qualified immunity analysis requires us to do. Rather, we find that in September 2010, it was clearly established that the Fourth Amendment governed claims by detainees who had yet to receive a judicial probable cause determination. See Williams, 509 F.3d at 403 (“Claims regarding conditions of confinement for pretrial detainees such as Williams, who have not yet had a judicial determination of probable cause (a Gerstein hearing), are instead governed by the Fourth Amendment and its objectively unreasonable standard.”). In 2007, in Williams, we identified the four factors later articulated in Ortiz, and upon which we have relied to evaluate the merits of Perry’s claims. And, if by 2010, it was clearly established that an officer or prison nurse’s actions were judged by the objectively reasonable standard of the Fourth Amendment, the failure to take any action in light of a serious medical need would violate that standard. Because Perry has met his burden at summary judgment of establishing that there was a violation of his constitutional rights and that that right was clearly established in 2010, his claims must be submitted to a jury for consideration.