860
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
in this context, is to transform federal judges into superintendents of prison conditions nationwide. See Helling, supra, at 40-41 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Although Estelle loosed the Eighth Amendment from its historical moorings, the Court is now unwilling to accept the full consequences of its decision and therefore resorts to the "subjective" (state of mind) component of post-Estelle Eighth Amendment analysis in an attempt to contain what might otherwise be unbounded liability for prison officials under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause. Cf. McGill, supra, at 348.
Although I disagree with the constitutional predicate of the Court's analysis, I share the Court's view that petitioner's theory of liability—that a prison official can be held liable for risks to prisoner safety of which he was ignorant but should have known—fails under even "a straightforward application of Estelle." Helling, supra, at 42 (Thomas, J., dissenting). In adopting the "deliberate indifference" standard for challenges to prison conditions, Estelle held that mere "inadverten[ce]" or "negligen[ce]" does not violate the Eighth Amendment. 429 U. S., at 105-106. "From the outset, thus, we specified that the Eighth Amendment does not apply to every deprivation, or even every unnecessary deprivation, suffered by a prisoner, but only that narrow class of deprivations involving 'serious' injury inflicted by prison officials acting with a culpable state of mind." Hudson, supra, at 20 (Thomas, J., dissenting). We reiterated this understanding in Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U. S. 294, 305 (1991), holding that "mere negligence" does not constitute deliberate indifference under Estelle. See also, e. g., Whitley v. Albers, 475 U. S. 312, 319 (1986). Petitioner's suggested "should have known" standard is nothing but a negligence standard, as the Court's discussion implicitly assumes. Ante, at 837- 839. Thus, even under Estelle, petitioner's theory of liability necessarily fails.
The question remains, however, what state of mind is sufficient to constitute deliberate indifference under Estelle.
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