Samuel Williams v. Christopher Epps

PRISCILLA R. OWEN, Circuit Judge,

joined by STEWART, Chief Judge, and JOLLY, DAVIS, JONES, SMITH, CLEMENT and' PRADO, Circuit Judges:

While confined at a Mississippi penitentiary, Donald Reed, Jr. was brutally attacked and murdered by other prisoners. Two other inmates, Samuel Williams and Kourtney Bynum, were also attacked but *279recovered from their injuries. Reed’s survivors, Williams, and Bynum (collectively the plaintiffs) sued Sharon Hampton, a corrections officer, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 asserting that she had violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments.…