Latest Case: East v. Minnehaha County (Civil Rights)

Transitional Justice and Inauguration Poems

LESLEY WEXLER

Illinois law professor Lesley M. Wexler describes how Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb and Jericho Brown’s Inaugural,’ an Original Poem—as two inaugural poems—fit within the call of transitional justice. Professor Wexler explains how, read together, the two poems provide a roadmap of the transitional justice terrain the government may choose to tread.

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East v. Minnehaha County

Docket: 19-2621

Opinion Date: January 26, 2021

Judge: William Duane Benton

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the County, CCS, and other prison officials and healthcare providers under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs in violation of the Fourteenth and Eighth Amendments. Plaintiff also alleges that two officers threatened him in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Plaintiff's allegations stemmed from complications resulting from treatment of his foot injuries. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of one defendant's motion to dismiss and summary judgment as to the other defendants. The court held that the district court properly granted the physician assistant's motion to dismiss where the amended complaint failed to sufficiently allege that the physician assistant knew that plaintiff had serious medical needs and was deliberately indifferent to them. In this case, the court accepted plaintiff's allegations as true, but not his legal conclusions. The court also held that the district court properly granted summary judgment on plaintiff's deliberate indifference claims as to the remaining defendants where plaintiff's claims are a mere disagreement with treatment decisions. The court further held that plaintiff failed to administratively exhaust his claims that prison guards threatened retaliation, and plaintiff cannot show that a reasonable inmate of ordinary firmness would have failed to file a grievance in his situation.