Nesbit

MEMORANDUM **

Pro Se Plaintiffs Anthony Nesbit and William Kotis allege they were attacked by prison gang members while incarcerated in the high security portion of Hawaii’s Halawa Correctional Facility (“HCF”). Plaintiffs are not gang members, and assert that the assaults were the foreseeable result of a prison policy that housed prison gangs with unaffiliated inmates while at the same time segregating rival gangs from each other. Plaintiffs claim that the policy violated their Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and filed § 1983 claims against the Hawaii Department of Public Safety and various prison officials.

The district court dismissed the claims for damages against officials acting in their official capacity, ruling they were barred by the Eleventh Amendment and incognizable under § 1983. The court also ruled that the claims for injunctive relief became moot when Plaintiffs were transferred from the Halawa facility to a contract prison in Mississippi. Then, after the magistrate judge limited discovery in light of the district court’s rulings, the district court granted summary judgment on virtually all of the remaining claims, finding no evidence that any Defendant…