William S. Steele v. Doctor Shah, Mental Health Department, Orange County Jail

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• recognizing that Greason and Waldrop based their holdings on evidence of subjective awareness and therefore are still valid precedent in view of Farmer's rejection of an objective-awareness test for deliberate indifference
• noting that the denial of motions for an expert witness and for counsel are reviewed for an abuse of discretion
• holding a prison psychiatrist would violate the Eighth Amendment by conducting a one-minute “initial screening” of an inmate with a documented mental health treatment plan, then cancelling the inmate’s medications
• finding that the district court abused its discretion in denying the plaintiff’s request for expert assistance because the court did not “exercise[] and reflect[] in a reasoned ruling” its Rule 706(a) discretion
• holding the plaintiff demonstrated a genuine issue of material fact as to deliberate indifference where the physician discontinued a medication after only a “cursory interview [with the plaintiff] and without having reviewed any medical records”
• stating that courts must give “reasoned consideration” to a pro se 15 Case: 17-10797 Date Filed: 03/06/2019 Page: 16 of 18 litigant’s request for counsel and ordinarily must explain its ruling enough to show that it has exercised its “informed discretion”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).