Plaintiff Najee Devontae James, a pretrial detainee at the Cook County Department of Corrections, alleges a cascade of abuse during his custody: a beating, strangling, and rape by a cellmate allegedly allowed into his cell despite an active no-cellmate alert; two separate sexual assaults by other detainees; denial of sexual-assault kits by a jail physician; days allegedly spent shackled in a blue box in a holding cage in the Cermak basement after suicide attempts; and a nurse allegedly clearing him without treatment after he swallowed needles. He sued Sheriff Thomas Dart and a group of CCDOC officers, directors, and medical personnel under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
The surviving claim centers on Defendant K. Acey, a CCDOC correctional officer. James alleges that on April 28, 2023, while he was restrained by a belly chain, handcuffs, and confined in a blue box, Acey punched him repeatedly on his right temple, causing injuries. Judge Franklin U. Valderrama held that repeated punches to the head of a restrained detainee state a plausible Fourteenth Amendment excessive-force claim and are not, as defendants argued, de minimis. The court noted that case law in the circuit has treated punching a confined prisoner with a closed fist as force greater than de minimis that can support such a claim.
On qualified immunity, the court held that Acey's conduct was sufficiently egregious that no reasonable officer could have believed it would not violate clearly established rights, defeating the immunity defense at the pleading stage even without a case directly on point.
Two other officers fared better on qualified immunity. James's First Amendment retaliation claim against Director Michael Lucente — who allegedly threatened to keep James on out alone/house alone status if he refused to identify dirty officers, and then ordered that status continued after James filed a grievance — was dismissed. The court held that James failed to show the grievance itself caused the retaliation; the alleged adverse action was tied to his refusal to identify dirty officers, a threat Lucente had made before James ever filed the grievance, and the court found no causal connection between the grievance filing and the continuation of the out alone/house alone status. The claim against Officer A. Peraino — who allegedly refused to take James's sexual-assault incident report until he returned to his cell and then ordered officers to force him back — was also dismissed, with the court concluding James had not alleged Peraino knew of a particular high risk of violence or could have predicted the force Acey subsequently used.
Official-capacity claims against officers Wilesha Johnson and Martha Yoksoulian, who allegedly created policies subjecting detainees to prolonged blue-box restraint and delaying emergency medical transfers for self-harm detainees, were dismissed because James did not allege either officer held final policymaking authority under Monell. James himself conceded those claims were effectively claims against Sheriff Dart.
The Monell claim against Dart was also dismissed. The court held that James failed to allege an express policy or a widespread, permanent, well-settled practice causally connected to his injuries, and did not allege that Dart personally caused any harm. All dismissals were without prejudice.