Crittindon’s DPSC Oversight Rule Applies to Pretrial-Detainee Harm Claims in Parish Jails; Interlocutory Qualified-Immunity Appeals Cannot Revisit Fact Disputes

1. Introduction

Murray v. LeBlanc (5th Cir. July 7, 2026) arises from alleged inmate-on-inmate assaults at the Madison Parish Correctional Center (“MPCC”), a Louisiana parish jail in Tallulah. The plaintiffs—James Murray, Latavius Paschal, and Antone Henderson—were pretrial detainees who claim they were attacked by a mix of other pretrial detainees and sentenced prisoners in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (“DPSC”).

The defendants on appeal are James LeBlanc (former DPSC Secretary) and Seth Smith (DPSC Chief of Operations), sued in their individual capacities. Plaintiffs’ core theory is that LeBlanc and Smith were deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of harm by allowing sentenced DPSC prisoners to be held with pretrial detainees without “functional classification,” adequate supervision, or sufficient investigations—conditions plaintiffs say allowed violence to “flourish,” violating the Fourteenth Amendment.

Procedurally, the case reached the Fifth Circuit via an interlocutory appeal after the district court denied summary judgment to both sides, including defendants’ request for qualified immunity. The Fifth Circuit’s decision is explicitly not designated for publication, but it provides a clear application of two controlling doctrines: (1) the Fifth Circuit’s earlier holding in Crittindon v. LeBlanc, 37 F.4th 177 (5th Cir. 2022) regarding DPSC’s oversight power in parish jails housing DPSC prisoners, and (2) the jurisdictional limits for qualified-immunity interlocutory appeals under Kinney v. Weaver, 367 F.3d 337 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc).

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal. It held that, under Crittindon v. LeBlanc, defendants cannot obtain qualified immunity based solely on the argument that DPSC had “no responsibility” for what happens to pretrial detainees in a parish jail when that jail houses DPSC-sentenced prisoners. The panel agreed with the district court that Crittindon forecloses that “no authority/no control” position because DPSC has at least some power—through audits, compliance efforts, and the ability to remove DPSC prisoners—to influence whether facilities comply with the “Basic Jail Guidelines”.

Separately, the court emphasized that it lacked jurisdiction to resolve the district court’s identified fact disputes (e.g., how many DPSC inmates were on the units, their involvement in the assaults, whether classification was fixed, the nature of audits, staffing/training adequacy). Under Kinney v. Weaver, interlocutory review is limited to “purely legal” questions; the court cannot revisit whether the record genuinely supports disputed facts.

Importantly, the Fifth Circuit did not decide whether LeBlanc and Smith ultimately are entitled to qualified immunity on other grounds; it rejected only the specific control-based argument they presented on interlocutory appeal and left the remainder to the district court on remand.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

A. DPSC authority/oversight and the “Basic Jail Guidelines”: Crittindon v. LeBlanc and related authority

The decision turns on the binding force of Crittindon v. LeBlanc, 37 F.4th 177 (5th Cir. 2022). In Crittindon, DPSC-sentenced prisoners sued state and local officials, including LeBlanc, over overdetention. The Fifth Circuit concluded that DPSC leadership could be deliberately indifferent where DPSC failed to adopt policies ensuring timely release, reasoning that DPSC bears responsibility once local jails house DPSC prisoners—particularly through enforcing or promoting compliance with the Basic Jail Guidelines.

Murray treats Crittindon as establishing an operative proposition for qualified-immunity purposes: DPSC has “at least some level of control” over local jails that house DPSC prisoners, via Guidelines compliance mechanisms (audits, compliance assistance, and in rare scenarios removal of DPSC prisoners). The court also referenced Hamilton Plaintiffs v. Williams Plaintiffs, 147 F.3d 367 (5th Cir. 1998) to situate the Jail Guidelines in a settlement framework designed to ensure constitutional minima for DPSC offenders housed in local facilities.

B. Limits of interlocutory review in qualified-immunity appeals: Kinney v. Weaver and its line

The court relied heavily on Kinney v. Weaver, 367 F.3d 337 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc) to define its jurisdiction. Kinney distinguishes two implicit determinations in a denial of qualified-immunity summary judgment:

• a legal determination (assuming plaintiffs’ version of facts) whether the alleged conduct violates clearly established law; and
• a factual sufficiency determination that genuine disputes exist as to what actually occurred.

Under Kinney, the court can review the first but not the second. Murray applies this rule to refuse review of fact disputes about inmate involvement, classification, audits, transfers, staffing, and training.

The court reinforced Kinney with other Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court authorities:

• Cooper v. Brown, 844 F.3d 517 (5th Cir. 2016) (interlocutory appeal allowed only to the extent it turns on a question of law);
• Cunningham v. Castloo, 983 F.3d 185 (5th Cir. 2020) (court may decide whether disputed facts are material, not whether disputes are genuine);
• Cole v. Carson, 935 F.3d 444 (5th Cir. 2019) (en banc) (same jurisdictional framing);
• Wagner v. Bay City, 227 F.3d 316 (5th Cir. 2000) (assume plaintiffs’ version in this posture); and
• Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299 (1996) (scope of interlocutory review in qualified-immunity context).

C. The qualified-immunity framework (two prongs) and “objective unreasonableness” as descriptive

Murray includes an extended clarification (in a footnote) that “objective unreasonableness” is not a third prong. It cites: Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009) (two-step framework; sequencing discretion), Melton v. Phillips, 875 F.3d 256 (5th Cir. 2017) (en banc), Morgan v. Swanson, 659 F.3d 359 (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc), Trent v. Wade, 776 F.3d 368 (5th Cir. 2015), Carmona v. City of Brownsville, 126 F.4th 1091 (5th Cir. 2025) (quoting Converse v. City of Kemah, 961 F.3d 771 (5th Cir. 2020)), Baker v. Coburn, 68 F.4th 240 (5th Cir. 2023), Lewis v. Walley, 168 F.4th 327 (5th Cir. 2026), and Parker v. LeBlanc, 73 F.4th 400 (5th Cir. 2023).

While not outcome-determinative here, this discussion signals the panel’s insistence on doctrinal cleanliness: the court’s job is to apply the two prongs, not to introduce extra hurdles or labels that obscure the analysis.

D. Finality, collateral-order doctrine, and appealability

To frame why it could hear only limited issues, the court cited the basic final-judgment rule and the collateral-order exception: Marler v. Adonis Health Prods., 997 F.2d 1141 (5th Cir. 1993); United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974); Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463 (1978) (as recognized in Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, 582 U.S. 23 (2017)); BancPass, Inc. v. Highway Toll Admin., L.L.C., 863 F.3d 391 (5th Cir. 2017); Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949); and Swint v. Chambers Cnty. Comm'n, 514 U.S. 35 (1995). The qualified-immunity “immunity from suit” rationale is grounded in Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985), echoed through Carswell v. Camp, 54 F.4th 307 (5th Cir. 2022) and Shanks v. AlliedSignal, Inc., 169 F.3d 988 (5th Cir. 1999).

E. Fourteenth Amendment (pretrial detainees) vs Eighth Amendment (convicted prisoners)

Murray notes plaintiffs’ decision to abandon Eighth Amendment claims, explaining that pretrial detainees proceed under the Fourteenth Amendment: Morin v. Caire, 77 F.3d 116 (5th Cir. 1996); Hare v. City of Corinth, 74 F.3d 633 (5th Cir. 1996) (en banc) (citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979)); and Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977).

F. Defendants’ attempted distinctions using older “sheriff runs the jail” cases

Defendants cited Thompkins v. Belt, 828 F.2d 298 (5th Cir. 1987), O'Quinn v. Manuel, 773 F.2d 605 (5th Cir. 1985), and Campbell v. Bergeron, 654 F.2d 719 (5th Cir. 1981) (unpublished table decision), aff'g 486 F. Supp. 1246 (M.D. La. 1980). Murray distinguished these authorities largely as pre-dating (or not addressing) the Jail Guidelines framework and not confronting the specific question whether DPSC officials can bear individual-capacity responsibility for parish-jail conditions when that jail houses DPSC prisoners.

It also distinguished Fairley v. Stalder, 294 F. App'x 805 (5th Cir. 2008) as addressing official-capacity relief for parish-jail confinement conditions without discussion of the Jail Guidelines.

G. Waiver/forfeiture and sovereign immunity side issues

On plaintiffs’ argument that defendants forfeited qualified immunity, the court applied Rollins v. Home Depot USA, 8 F.4th 393 (5th Cir. 2021) and the waiver/forfeiture distinction from United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725 (1993), holding qualified immunity was preserved.

As to sovereign immunity, the court declined to address it because plaintiffs planned to dismiss official-capacity claims; it cited Russell v. Jones, 49 F.4th 507 (5th Cir. 2022) for the proposition that state sovereign immunity applies only to official-capacity claims.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

The opinion’s reasoning is intentionally narrow and proceeds in two moves:

1. Jurisdictional triage (Kinney framework): The court identified the only reviewable issue as a pure question of law embedded in the qualified-immunity appeal: whether defendants can claim immunity because DPSC had no responsibility for pretrial detainees at MPCC. All other matters implicated the district court’s identified “numerous questions of fact,” which are nonreviewable at this stage.
2. Merits of the narrow legal issue (Crittindon control/authority): Accepting plaintiffs’ version of events (as required in this posture), the court held Crittindon forecloses the asserted defense. Because DPSC has a demonstrated compliance-and-oversight mechanism tied to housing DPSC prisoners in local facilities (Basic Jail Guidelines, audits, efforts to bring facilities into compliance, rare removal of DPSC prisoners), LeBlanc and Smith cannot obtain qualified immunity by asserting a categorical lack of authority over the jail environment where both DPSC prisoners and pretrial detainees are housed together.

Notably, the court did not hold that defendants violated the Constitution, nor did it decide the “clearly established” prong in a broader sense than necessary. It only held that the “no responsibility/no authority” premise is legally wrong under existing circuit precedent when DPSC prisoners are being housed in a parish jail.

3.3. Impact

Even as an unpublished disposition, Murray’s reasoning has practical significance in three ways:

• It extends Crittindon’s logic beyond overdetention and beyond DPSC-sentenced plaintiffs: The court rejects an attempted detainee-specific carveout. If DPSC’s leverage and oversight exist because DPSC prisoners are present, that oversight can affect conditions for everyone housed in the same units—including pretrial detainees.
• It narrows a common qualified-immunity escape hatch at the interlocutory stage: Defendants may be tempted to recast a fact-intensive conditions-of-confinement dispute as a “pure” question of authority under state law. Murray indicates that where Crittindon supplies a control theory (audits/guidelines/removal leverage), a blanket “no authority” argument will not carry the day.
• It reinforces strict jurisdictional limits on interlocutory qualified-immunity appeals: Litigants should expect the Fifth Circuit to dismiss appeals that, in substance, ask it to re-weigh record evidence on inmate counts, classification practices, staffing, audits, training, or causation. Those disputes must be litigated in the district court absent a genuine “legal-only” issue.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Qualified immunity: A doctrine protecting government officials from being sued for damages unless (1) they violated the Constitution and (2) the violated right was “clearly established” at the time. It is designed to spare officials not just liability, but the burdens of trial in appropriate cases.
• Interlocutory appeal / collateral-order doctrine: Normally you can appeal only after final judgment. A denial of qualified immunity can be appealed immediately, but only to address legal questions, not disputes about what the evidence shows.
• “We assume plaintiffs’ facts are true” on interlocutory review: At this stage, the appellate court must take the plaintiff-friendly version of contested facts and ask whether, on that version, the law would entitle defendants to immunity.
• Material vs genuine factual disputes: “Material” means the fact matters to the legal outcome; “genuine” means the evidence is actually in conflict. On interlocutory qualified-immunity appeal, the Fifth Circuit may consider materiality but not genuineness.
• Fourteenth vs Eighth Amendment in jail cases: Pretrial detainees (not yet convicted) proceed under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process protections; convicted prisoners proceed under the Eighth Amendment.
• Individual vs official capacity: Individual-capacity suits seek damages from the official personally (qualified immunity is relevant). Official-capacity suits are effectively against the State (raising sovereign immunity and prospective-relief doctrines).
• Basic Jail Guidelines (as used here): A standards regime tied to a settlement agreement requiring facilities housing DPSC prisoners to meet baseline conditions; DPSC audits for compliance and can apply leverage (including rare prisoner removal).

5. Conclusion

Murray v. LeBlanc is a tightly confined interlocutory decision with two principal takeaways. First, under Crittindon v. LeBlanc, DPSC leadership cannot defend a qualified-immunity motion by claiming categorical non-responsibility for harms to pretrial detainees in a parish jail when that jail houses DPSC prisoners; DPSC’s Guidelines-based audit and compliance leverage supplies at least some relevant authority over jail conditions. Second, under Kinney v. Weaver, the Fifth Circuit will not use an interlocutory qualified-immunity appeal to resolve disputed facts about classification, staffing, audits, and inmate involvement; those issues remain for the district court and (if necessary) a jury.

The opinion ultimately preserves the district court’s role as factfinder gatekeeper at summary judgment while ensuring that defendants cannot transform Crittindon-governed oversight questions into a state-law “no control” shield at the threshold.