Helping vs. Harming: The Eleventh Circuit Narrows Subjective Recklessness in Pretrial Detainee Suicide Cases

I. Introduction

The Eleventh Circuit’s published decision in Racheal Gantt v. Deputy Everett, No. 24‑12167 (11th Cir. Dec. 18, 2025), addresses a difficult and recurring problem in jail and prison litigation: civil rights liability when a suicidal detainee injures herself while officers are simultaneously trying to help her with a medical issue.

The central question is whether a corrections officer is “deliberately indifferent” to a detainee’s suicide risk, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, when she remotely unlocks a suicidal detainee’s cell door to take the detainee for needed medical care—without ensuring someone is physically present at the cell door—and the detainee uses that brief opportunity to run upstairs and jump from a second-story landing.

The majority (Chief Judge William Pryor, joined by Judge Lagoa) holds that, even viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the officer’s conduct amounted at most to negligence, not “subjective recklessness” as required by the en banc decision in Wade v. McDade, 106 F.4th 1251 (11th Cir. 2024). On that basis, the court vacates the district court’s denial of qualified immunity and orders summary judgment for the officer. Judge Kidd dissents, arguing that under Wade a reasonable jury could find subjective recklessness, so qualified immunity should be denied and the case left for a jury to resolve.

This commentary examines the opinion’s doctrinal significance, especially its refinement of the subjective component of deliberate indifference in detainee-suicide cases, and its practical consequences for jail operations, suicide-watch protocols, and § 1983 litigation.

II. Factual and Procedural Background

A. The Setting and the Suicide-Risk Architecture

The case arises from the Jefferson County Jail. The relevant housing area—A Block on the fifth floor—has two tiers of cells (a bottom and second story) opening into a common “day space.” The jail had an established practice: suicidal inmates were placed on the bottom floor of A Block because jumping from the second-story landing was recognized as an “obvious suicide” risk.

Plaintiff Racheal Gantt was a pretrial detainee who had expressed suicidal thoughts to mental health personnel. She was:

Placed on suicide watch;
Housed in a bottom-tier cell in A Block; and
Given a suicide smock—a thick, green Velcro garment designed to be tear‑resistant.

Deputies could unlock cell doors either from a central control room or by using an intercom to request that the control room operator open a door. When a door is unlocked from the control room, it simply swings open.

B. The Incident

On February 8, 2023, Deputies Morgan and Yunker were assigned to the fifth floor, and Control Room Operator Lovell was in the fifth-floor control room. Deputy Monica Everett (the defendant) was actually assigned to the first floor that day but went up to the fifth floor to help with a “shakedown” (search) in another block (F Block). During that operation, she escorted a female inmate from F Block to A Block for disciplinary reasons.

While in A Block, Everett heard Gantt “screaming and crying hysterically.” Everett:

Had never interacted with Gantt before and did not know her history.
Recognized the suicide smock and understood that meant Gantt had previously expressed suicidal intent.
Knew that suicidal inmates were placed on the bottom tier to reduce the risk of jumping from the second-story landing.
Knew of at least two other inmates (not on suicide watch) who had jumped from the second-story landing and injured themselves.

Gantt told Everett that she had a head injury and needed help. The record describes a visible “large knot” on Gantt’s head. Everett went to the control room, contacted the jail’s medical clinic, and spoke with a nurse. The nurse instructed her to bring Gantt to the clinic.

Everett told other deputies in the control room she was going to take Gantt to medical. According to Everett, no one:

Warned her that Gantt was a special or heightened suicide risk; or
Expressed concern that Gantt was particularly likely to attempt self-harm.

Everett testified that such warnings were customary: jail staff “rely on each other” for inmate-specific information, and suicide attempts are “well-known throughout the jail.” She also testified that Gantt’s request for medical help was, in her mind, “a sure sign that [Gantt] want[ed] help not to harm herself any further.”

To prepare for transport, Everett:

Yelled for another deputy to obtain a uniform for Gantt; and
From the control room, remotely unlocked Gantt’s cell door while no deputy was physically present in A Block.

Once the door opened, Gantt:

Ran out of her cell into the day space;
Ran up the stairs to the second level; and
Reached the top landing and jumped over the rail.

Chief Judge Pryor notes that only 23 seconds elapsed between the door being unlocked and the jump.

Everett had already left the control room and was walking back toward A Block. She saw Gantt running up the stairs and initially assumed Gantt was trying to get something from another inmate (because suicidal inmates do not have access to the prison store). According to Everett, she did not recognize Gantt’s intent as suicidal until Gantt had reached the landing and “had her hand on the rail,” at which point Everett “knew what she was doing.” Everett then ran up the stairs in an attempt to stop her, but arrived too late to prevent the jump.

Gantt suffered ankle fractures from the jump and was also treated for her pre-existing head injury.

C. The Lawsuit and District Court Ruling

Gantt filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming a violation of her Fourteenth Amendment right to be protected from self-harm. Her theory: Everett was deliberately indifferent to a strong likelihood that she would attempt suicide, and that deliberate indifference caused her injuries.

Everett moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion, holding:

A reasonable jury could conclude Everett deliberately disregarded a strong likelihood of harm by unlocking Gantt’s cell while no officer was present, given Everett’s knowledge of Gantt’s suicide-watch status and the known risk of jumping; and
Everett’s conduct violated clearly established law because the Eleventh Circuit had long recognized that deliberate indifference to a detainee’s serious risk of harm violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

Everett then brought this interlocutory appeal.

III. Summary of the Eleventh Circuit’s Opinion

A. The Majority’s Holding

The Eleventh Circuit vacates the district court’s order and remands with instructions to enter summary judgment in Everett’s favor on qualified-immunity grounds. The key holdings are:

No constitutional violation: Even assuming Gantt’s injuries satisfy the “serious deprivation” element, the record does not permit a reasonable jury to find that Everett acted with “subjective recklessness” as defined in Wade v. McDade. Everett was attempting to assist Gantt with an urgent medical need, and there is no evidence she was actually, subjectively aware that unlocking the cell from the control room created a substantial risk Gantt would run upstairs and jump.
Qualified immunity applies: Because there was no underlying constitutional violation, Everett is entitled to qualified immunity. The court therefore does not need to reach the “clearly established” prong in depth.

The majority emphasizes that the Fourteenth Amendment, like the Eighth Amendment, prohibits criminal-level recklessness, not negligence. Everett’s conduct might have been negligent—perhaps she should have ensured physical supervision or moved faster—but negligence is not actionable deliberate indifference.

B. The Dissent’s Position

Judge Kidd dissents. He accepts the framework of Wade v. McDade but argues that on this record a reasonable jury could find subjective recklessness:

Everett knew that:
- Gantt was suicidal and on suicide watch;
- suicidal inmates were deliberately housed on the bottom floor to prevent jumping;
- other inmates had previously jumped from the second-story landing; and
- remotely unlocking the cell would give Gantt an unsupervised opportunity to run up the stairs and jump.
With that knowledge, Everett chose to unlock the cell door from the control room, leaving Gantt unsupervised in a location where the risk of suicide by jumping was “obvious.”

In Judge Kidd’s view, that is enough for a reasonable jury to find that Everett “was aware that her conduct might cause the [attempted suicide] result,” which Wade defines as subjective recklessness. He stresses the summary-judgment posture and argues that the question of reasonableness should go to a jury, not be resolved on qualified immunity as a matter of law.

IV. Doctrinal Framework

A. Qualified Immunity

Qualified immunity shields government officials performing discretionary functions from personal liability unless they:

Violate a constitutional or statutory right, and
That right was clearly established at the time of the conduct.

The panel quotes Marbury v. Warden, 936 F.3d 1227, 1232 (11th Cir. 2019), emphasizing that the plaintiff bears the burden of showing both a constitutional violation and clearly established law once the defendant shows she acted within her discretionary authority (which Gantt did not dispute).

The court reviews the denial of qualified immunity de novo and, at the summary judgment stage, must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party (here, Gantt). That standard is reaffirmed through citation to Nelson v. Tompkins, 89 F.4th 1289, 1295–96 (11th Cir. 2024).

B. The Deliberate-Indifference Standard Post‑Wade

The majority explicitly anchors its analysis in Wade v. McDade, the Eleventh Circuit’s 2024 en banc decision that clarified the deliberate-indifference standard for Eighth Amendment claims:

A plaintiff must show:
- An objective component: a deprivation that is “sufficiently serious”; and
- A subjective component: the defendant acted with “subjective recklessness as used in the criminal law.”
Subjective recklessness, in turn, requires proof that the defendant was “actually, subjectively aware that his own conduct caused a substantial risk of serious harm.”

Although Wade is an Eighth Amendment case (convicted prisoners), the court reminds us—citing Tittle v. Jefferson County Commission, 10 F.3d 1535 (11th Cir. 1994) (en banc)—that the standard is functionally the same for pretrial detainees’ Fourteenth Amendment claims in the prisoner-suicide context. Under Tittle, deliberate-indifference liability for suicide requires that officials have notice of the suicidal tendency of the particular inmate whose rights are at issue.

Thus, after Wade and reaffirmed in this case:

The defendant must have actual, subjective awareness of:
- The detainee’s suicidal tendency; and
- The fact that the defendant’s own acts or omissions are creating a substantial risk of serious harm to that specific detainee.
Mere foreseeability, or what the officer should have known with better care, is insufficient. That is negligence, not deliberate indifference.

V. Precedents and Their Role in the Opinion

A. Jackson v. West and the Fourteenth Amendment Right

Jackson v. West, 787 F.3d 1345 (11th Cir. 2015), is cited for the baseline principle: pretrial detainees have a Fourteenth Amendment right “to be protected from self-inflicted injuries, including suicide.” It also restates the core rule that in suicide cases, the plaintiff must show the jail official “displayed deliberate indifference to the prisoner’s taking of his own life.”

In Gantt, Jackson functions as context rather than a contested precedent: both majority and dissent accept that Gantt had that right, and the dispute lies in whether Everett’s conduct meets the deliberate-indifference standard.

B. Tittle v. Jefferson County Commission (en banc)

Tittle is important in two respects:

It confirms that, in suicide cases, the same deliberate-indifference analysis applies under both the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
It requires individualized notice: officials must have notice of the suicidal tendency of the specific inmate to be liable for that inmate’s suicide.

Here, the individualized-notice element is uncontested: Everett knew Gantt was on suicide watch and thus had, at some point, expressed a desire to kill herself. The controversy centers instead on the second layer: whether Everett understood that unlocking the door in the way she did created a substantial risk of a suicide attempt right then.

C. Wade v. McDade (en banc) and Farmer v. Brennan

Wade v. McDade is the doctrinal centerpiece. It adopts, for deliberate-indifference claims, the Supreme Court’s Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994), standard of “subjective recklessness as used in the criminal law.”

Critically, Wade refines the standard in a way that matters greatly here:

The plaintiff must show that the defendant actually knew that his own conduct put the plaintiff at substantial risk of serious harm.
If a defendant actually knew of a substantial risk but “responded reasonably to that risk,” there is no liability—even if the harm still occurs.

Judge Kidd’s dissent quotes Wade’s usage of Professor LaFave’s formulation: subjective recklessness exists where a person “is aware that his conduct might cause the result, though it is not substantially certain to happen.” The dissent reads the record as meeting that standard because Everett knew that her method of unlocking the door would provide the very opportunity that other inmates had used to jump before.

The majority applies Wade in a more restrictive way: it requires not just general awareness of a risk but awareness, at the time of the act, that this particular decision (remote unlocking without supervision) created a substantial risk that Gantt would in fact run upstairs and jump—despite Everett’s concurrent belief she was helping and her lack of prior information suggesting imminent self-harm.

D. Marbury, Nelson, and Bayse on Qualified Immunity and Summary Judgment

The panel relies on:

Marbury v. Warden, for the basic qualified-immunity framework; and
Nelson v. Tompkins, to confirm the de novo standard and plaintiff-friendly evidentiary lens at summary judgment.

Judge Kidd additionally invokes Bayse v. Ward, 147 F.4th 1304 (11th Cir. 2025), to reiterate the burden-shifting structure at summary judgment:

The defendant may show an “absence of evidence” supporting plaintiff’s case;
Then the plaintiff must come forward with enough evidence to withstand what would effectively be a directed verdict at trial.

The disagreement between majority and dissent is essentially about that step: has Gantt produced enough evidence of subjective awareness and unreasonableness that a reasonable jury could decide against Everett? The majority says no; the dissent says yes.

VI. The Court’s Legal Reasoning in Depth

A. Objective Component: Serious Deprivation

The majority quickly disposes of the objective prong: Gantt “suffered a deprivation that was, objectively, sufficiently serious” because she was not protected from inflicting serious self-harm by jumping from the stairs. This aligns with longstanding case law that serious physical injuries from suicide attempts meet the objective element.

This component is not seriously contested by either side; the case turns entirely on the subjective element and the characterization of Everett’s conduct (negligent vs. reckless).

B. Subjective Component: Actual Awareness of a Substantial Risk from Her Own Conduct

The crucial inquiry: Was Everett “actually, subjectively aware that [her] decision to unlock Gantt’s cell from the control room caused a substantial risk of serious harm” to Gantt, in light of her suicidal tendencies?

The majority acknowledges several key facts indicating general awareness of risk:

Everett knew suicidal inmates were placed on the bottom tier specifically because jumping from the second-story landing was an “obvious suicide” risk.
She knew of two prior incidents where inmates had jumped from the second-story landing.
She understood that unlocking the cell door gave Gantt “the opportunity to run up the stairs and jump” if she wanted to.
She realized that to be on suicide watch, Gantt “had to have told somebody she wanted to kill herself.”

Despite this, the majority finds no triable issue on subjective recklessness because of what Everett did not know or perceive:

No specific prior suicide attempts or red flags from or about Gantt herself:
- Everett had never heard of any prior suicide attempts by Gantt; she testified she would have “heard [Gantt’s] name plenty of times” if Gantt had a history of such attempts.
- When Everett informed other deputies she was taking Gantt to medical, none expressed concern that Gantt was particularly likely to attempt suicide.
Gantt’s behavior suggested a desire for help, not immediate self-harm:
- Gantt asked for medical attention for her head injury.
- Everett regarded this request as “a sure sign” that Gantt wanted assistance, not further self-injury.
Everett’s evolving perception of the risk:
- When she first saw Gantt run up the stairs, Everett thought Gantt might be trying to get something from someone, consistent with the reality that suicidal inmates did not have commissary access.
- Only when Gantt reached the top and placed her hand on the rail did Everett “know what she was doing” and run to stop her.

The majority’s key move is to interpret these facts as showing that Everett did not actually perceive, at the time she unlocked the door, that she was creating a substantial risk of an imminent suicide attempt by jumping, especially in light of her simultaneous objective of addressing a serious medical need.

C. The “Two Risks” Problem and the Court’s Integration Approach

Judge Kidd’s dissent emphasizes that Everett faced two separate risks:

A risk from Gantt’s serious head injury; and
A risk from Gantt’s known suicidal tendencies and the architecture of A Block.

From the dissent’s perspective, we must evaluate Everett’s response to the suicide risk independently from her response to the head-injury risk. The majority expressly rejects that analytical separation:

We reject the notion that we must view Everett’s response to Gantt’s suicide risk in isolation from the risk posed by her head injury.

Instead, the court holds that Everett’s overall conduct—immediately seeking medical help, arranging for transport, returning to the block, and attempting to stop the jump—shows she was trying to aid Gantt. Because she was actively addressing a serious medical risk, the court concludes she cannot simultaneously be said to be knowingly ignoring a substantial suicide risk:

Because Everett sought to aid Gantt, we cannot say that she knowingly ignored a substantial risk of harm at the same time.

Doctrinally, this is an important gloss on Wade’s “reasonable response” language: if an officer is responding reasonably to one serious risk, a second risk that is not clearly imminent may be deemed legally insufficient to establish subjective recklessness, even if, in hindsight, better precautions were available.

D. Negligence vs. Criminal Recklessness

The majority squarely concedes that Everett might have acted negligently:

She perhaps should have ensured another deputy was present in A Block before unlocking the door;
She perhaps should have moved faster back to the block; and
She could have better coordinated supervision while unlocking the cell.

Yet the court emphasizes that the Constitution does not impose liability for negligence. Relying on Wade, it reiterates that the Fourteenth Amendment standard is “subjective recklessness as used in the criminal law.”

This line between negligence and recklessness does substantial work in the opinion: the existence of more cautious alternatives does not by itself convert an officer’s imperfect response into a constitutional violation. Instead, there must be evidence that the officer actually appreciated that her course of conduct—as chosen—posed a substantial risk of serious harm and persisted anyway.

VII. The Dissent’s Reasoning and the Summary-Judgment Tension

Judge Kidd agrees with the majority on the governing doctrinal standard from Wade but diverges sharply in applying it to the record and in evaluating the appropriateness of summary judgment.

A. Focusing on the Second Risk: Suicide

For the dissent, the crucial evidence is what Everett knew before she unlocked the cell:

She knew Gantt was suicidal and on suicide watch.
She knew suicidal inmates were placed on the bottom tier precisely to prevent jumping from the second-story landing.
She knew other inmates had previously jumped from that landing.
She knew that remotely unlocking the door would give Gantt the opportunity to run upstairs and do what other inmates had done.

With that knowledge, unlocking the door remotely, leaving Gantt unsupervised with an obvious path to the second-level rail, is characterized by the dissent as conduct that a jury could view as criminally reckless:

[T]he evidence supports that Everett “[was] aware that [her] conduct might cause the [attempted suicide] result, though it [was] not substantially certain to happen.” That is all “subjective recklessness as used in the criminal law” requires.

B. Reasonable Responses vs. Unreasonable Choices

The dissent accepts Wade’s caveat that officials are not liable if they respond reasonably to known risks. But Judge Kidd argues there were reasonable options available that would have accounted for both the medical risk and the suicide risk:

Everett could have ensured another deputy was in A Block before unlocking the cell.
She could have coordinated timing so that physical supervision was present at the moment the door opened.

By instead unlocking the door remotely and leaving Gantt momentarily unsupervised with direct access to the known hazard, the dissent sees Everett’s response as arguably unreasonable with respect to the suicide risk—even if it was well-intentioned regarding the head injury.

In short, the dissent views Everett’s later attempt to chase and stop Gantt as a reaction to her own misjudgment, not as evidence that her initial decision to unlock the cell was constitutionally reasonable as a matter of law.

C. The Summary-Judgment Lens

Finally, the dissent emphasizes procedural posture. Under Bayse and general summary-judgment standards:

All reasonable inferences must be drawn in favor of Gantt as the non-movant.
If reasonable jurors could differ on whether Everett acted with subjective recklessness, summary judgment and qualified immunity should be denied.

Judge Kidd would therefore affirm the district court and permit a jury to decide whether Everett’s choice to unlock the door, given her knowledge of suicide risk and A Block’s physical layout, crossed the line into deliberate indifference.

VIII. Impact and Future Implications

A. Clarifying the Reach of Wade v. McDade in Suicide Cases

This decision is significant because it applies the en banc Wade standard to a high-risk area—detainee suicide—and does so in a way that:

Requires strong evidence that the officer appreciated that her specific decision (here, remote unlocking without immediate physical presence) was creating a substantial suicide risk at that time; and
Treats an officer’s concurrent efforts to address another serious risk (here, a head injury) as evidence that she was responding reasonably overall, not ignoring danger.

Plaintiffs in future detainee-suicide cases in the Eleventh Circuit will likely need:

Evidence of prior warnings, threats, or attempts by the decedent that the defendant knew about;
Direct or circumstantial evidence that the defendant anticipated, or at least strongly suspected, that the specific action being challenged would lead to self-harm; and
Proof that the defendant either did nothing, or chose an unreasonably dangerous course despite that awareness.

The mere fact that the officer knew the inmate was suicidal, combined with the existence of an architectural hazard and a brief window of opportunity, may no longer be sufficient to survive summary judgment where the officer can point to actions taken in good faith to address another serious risk.

B. Operational Consequences for Jails and Prisons

From an institutional perspective, this decision:

Underscores the need for clear protocols when officers must balance competing emergencies (e.g., medical needs vs. suicide prevention).
Encourages documentation and communication:
- Who knew what about which inmates’ suicide risk?
- What warnings or alerts were conveyed—or not conveyed—among staff?
Highlights the design risks of multi-level housing units and the foreseeability of “jumping” attempts.

Even though the officer here is shielded from liability, the opinion effectively acknowledges that:

Remote unlocking of suicide-watch inmates without immediate physical presence is risky;
Better coordination (“ensure another deputy was in the A Block before unlocking”) is advisable; and
Jails should build redundancies—physical barriers, supervision protocols, training—to reduce the likelihood of similar incidents.

Administrators may use this case as an impetus to revise suicide-watch policies, particularly where multi-level facilities are involved, even if constitutional minimums have been deemed satisfied.

C. Litigation Strategy and the Role of the Dissent

Although not binding, Judge Kidd’s dissent offers a valuable roadmap for plaintiffs’ counsel:

Emphasize specific knowledge officers have about structural suicide hazards and prior similar attempts.
Disaggregate “competing risks” and argue that reasonable responses must address all known serious risks, not just some.
Focus tightly on the summary-judgment standard and the availability of competing reasonable inferences for a jury.

Future plaintiffs may attempt to distinguish Gantt on facts—for example, where:

The officer had more detailed, recent, or explicit information about imminent suicide threats;
There were no competing medical emergencies; or
An officer’s choice was more plainly unsafe (e.g., ignoring direct threats or requests for psychiatric help and walking away).

Conversely, defendants will likely cite Gantt when they:

Can show they were affirmatively trying to help (e.g., facilitating medical treatment) and
Can argue that any failure to foresee how an inmate might exploit a brief opportunity was, at worst, negligent.

IX. Complex Concepts Explained

A. “Deliberate Indifference” vs. Negligence

“Deliberate indifference” in this context does not mean carelessness or poor judgment. It is closer to criminal recklessness:

The official must actually know that their conduct is creating a substantial risk of serious harm; and
Despite that knowledge, the official fails to take reasonable steps to reduce the risk.

Negligence, by contrast, means the official should have known about the risk, or could have avoided harm with better care, but did not actually appreciate the danger at the time.

B. “Subjective Recklessness as Used in the Criminal Law”

This phrase, drawn from Farmer and elaborated in Wade, means:

The person is aware that what they are doing might cause a particular harmful result (here, a suicide attempt by jumping), even though it is not certain to occur; and
They go ahead anyway.

It is not enough that a reasonable person would have recognized the risk; the actual defendant must have recognized it.

C. Qualified Immunity

Qualified immunity is a defense available to government officials in civil-rights suits. If it applies, the official is shielded from personal liability. The analysis has two steps:

Did the official’s conduct violate a constitutional right?
Was that right clearly established at the time?

Courts may address either step first. In Gantt, the Eleventh Circuit stops at step one: because there was no constitutional violation, it does not need to decide whether the law was clearly established.

D. Summary Judgment

Summary judgment is a pretrial procedure where the court decides a case (or an issue) as a matter of law when:

The evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, shows no genuine dispute over any material fact; and
The moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

In deliberate-indifference cases, summary judgment often turns on whether the plaintiff has enough evidence of the defendant’s state of mind to allow a jury—not a judge—to decide whether the official was deliberately indifferent or merely negligent.

X. Conclusion

Racheal Gantt v. Deputy Everett is a notable step in the Eleventh Circuit’s post‑Wade refinement of deliberate-indifference doctrine, particularly in the fraught context of detainee suicide. The court holds that an officer who takes active steps to address a detainee’s visible medical emergency, and who remotely unlocks a suicide-watch inmate’s cell to facilitate transport, does not act with unconstitutional deliberate indifference merely because the inmate exploits that moment to attempt suicide—absent clear evidence the officer subjectively perceived that her chosen method of unlocking created a substantial risk of that result.

The ruling underscores that:

Deliberate indifference demands proof of criminal-level recklessness, not just poor judgment or failure to follow ideal practices;
Courts will consider an officer’s response to all known risks together, especially where the officer is affirmatively trying to help; and
In suicide cases, generalized knowledge of risk and awareness of dangerous architecture are not always enough to survive summary judgment, particularly when the record also shows a prompt, good‑faith attempt to address another serious danger.

At the same time, the dissent highlights the ongoing tension between factual nuance and the rigidities of summary judgment and qualified immunity. That tension—with real implications for detainee safety and accountability—will continue to shape § 1983 litigation in the Eleventh Circuit and beyond.