Cite as: 520 U. S. 397 (1997)
Souter, J., dissenting
Deliberate indifference is thus treated, as it is elsewhere in the law,1 as tantamount to intent, so that inaction by a policymaker deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of harm is equivalent to the intentional action that setting policy presupposes. Compare Pembaur, supra, at 483 (plurality opinion of Brennan, J.) ("deliberate choice" by policy-maker), and Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U. S. 808, 823 (1985) (plurality opinion of Rehnquist, J.) (" 'policy' generally implies a course of action consciously chosen"), with Canton, supra, at 389 ("Only where a municipality's failure to train its employees . . . evidences a 'deliberate indifference' to the rights of its inhabitants can . . . a shortcoming be . . . city 'policy or custom' . . . actionable under § 1983").
Under this prior law, Sheriff Moore's failure to screen out his 21-year-old great-nephew Burns on the basis of his criminal record, and the decision instead to authorize Burns to act as a deputy sheriff, constitutes a policy choice attributable to Bryan County under § 1983. There is no serious dispute that Sheriff Moore is the designated policymaker for implementing the sheriff's law enforcement powers and recruiting officers to exercise them, or that he "has final authority to act for the municipality in hiring matters." Ante, at 408. As the authorized policymaker, Sheriff Moore is the county
1 See, e. g., American Law Institute, Model Penal Code § 2.02(2)(c) (1985) ("A person acts recklessly with respect to a material element of an offense when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct"); J. I. Case Credit Corp. v. First Nat. Bank of Madison Cty., 991 F. 2d 1272, 1278 (CA7 1993) ("To consciously ignore or to deliberately close one's eyes to a manifest danger is recklessness, a mental state that the law commonly substitutes for intent or actual knowledge"). Cf. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 105-106 (1976) (deliberate indifference to a prisoner's serious medical needs violates the Eighth Amendment); United States v. Giovannetti, 919 F. 2d 1223, 1228 (CA7 1990) (a "deliberate effort to avoid guilty knowledge is all the guilty knowledge the law requires"); United States v. Jewell, 532 F. 2d 697, 700 (CA9), cert. denied, 426 U. S. 951 (1976) ("[D]eliberate ignorance and positive knowledge are equally culpable").
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