Where Complaint Good, Inmate Plaintiff Should Have Chance to Establish Some Evidence

Fifth Circuit Judges Patrick Higginbotham, Edith Brown Clement and Priscilla Owen, in a per curiam opinion, reversed and remanded the dismissal of a Texas state prison inmate's suit against the food service captain when the offender bit into a metal nut hidden in a piece of cornbread he was eating and broke a tooth. Kendrick Green, the plaintiff, alleged in his complaint that the captain had admitted to him that this was not the first time a foreign object had gotten into the food. The panel held that Green should have had the chance to prove this point before his suit was dismissed.

It'll Likely Be a Good Complaint Some Day, But No Time Soon

Fifth Circuit Judge Fortunado P. Benevides, writing for a panel including Carl E. Stewart and Leslie Southwick, reinforced the circuit's view that a district court may
impose a federal sentence that runs consecutively to an undischarged state
sentence. The Eighth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits agree with the Fives. The government, along with the Second, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, take the opposite side. Last year Fifth Circuit Judges Priscilla Owen and James L. Dennis even indicated that they didn't like the ruling. A circuit split like this may well interest the Supreme Court of the United States.