Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01442/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01442-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

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PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

No. 88-1442 

DWIGHT DURAN, LONNIE DURAN, 

SHARON TOWERS, and all others 

similarly situated, 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

v. 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

GARREY CARRUTHERS, GOVERNOR OF ) 

THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO, O.L. ) 

MCCOTTER, SECRETARY OF CORRECTIONS,) 

and ROBERT J. TANSY, WARDEN OF ) 

THE PENITENTIARY OF NEW MEXICO, ) 

Defendants-Appellants •. 

and 

) 

) 

MOUNTAIN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION, ) 

Amici Curiae, on behalf of its ) 

members, the State of Kansas, and ) 

the State of Utah~ ) 

and 

Amici Curiae of the STATES OF ) 

HAWAII, OREGON, UTAH, WASHINGTON, ) 

and WYOMING, in support of ) 

Appellants. ) 

FI LEO 

Uriitcd States Court of Appeals ·tenth Cir::uit 

SEP l 5 1989 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

For the District of New Mexico 

(D.C. Civil No. 77-0721-JB) 

Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 1 
Joel I. Klein of Onek, Klein & Farr, Washington, D.C. (Hal 

Stratton, Attorney General, Henry M. Bohnhoff, Deputy Attorney 

General, James Bieg, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, New 

Mexico; Norman S. Thayer, Saul Cohen, and Stephany s. Wilson of 

Sutin, Thayer & Browne, Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Paul M. Smith 

of Onek, Klein & Farr, Washington, D.C., with him on the brief), 

for Defendants-Appellants. 

Elizabeth Alexander, Washington, D.C. (Mark J. Lopez and Alvin J. 

Bronstein, National Prison Project of the ACLUF, Inc., Washington, 

D.C.; Ray Twohig, P.C., Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Mark H. 

Donatelli of Rothstein, Bailey, Bennett, Daly & Donatelli, Santa 

Fe, New Mexico, with her on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellees. 

(Paul Farley, Mountain States Legal Foundation, Denver, Colorado; 

Robert T. Stephan, Attorney General, State of Kansas, Topeka, 

Kansas; and David L. Wilkinson, Attorney General, State of Utah, 

Salt Lake City, Utah, Attorneys for the Amici Curiae, on behalf of 

the Mountain States Legal Foundation, its members, the State of 

Kansas, and the State of Utah.) 

(Warren Price, III, Attorney General, State of Hawaii, and Steven 

s. Michaels, Deputy Attorney General, Honolulu, Hawaii; Dave 

Frohnmayer, Attorney General, State of Oregon; David L. Wilkinson, 

Attorney General, State of Utah; Kenneth o. Eikenberry, Attorney 

General, State of Washington; and Joseph B. Meyer, Attorney 

General, State of Wyoming, Attorneys for the Amici Curiae States 

of Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.) 

Before SEYMOUR, EBEL, and MCWILLIAMS, Circuit Judges. 

MCWILLIAMS, Circuit Judge. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 2 
This appeal is from an order of the United States District 

Court for the District of New Mexico denying the defendants' motion to vacate certain parts of a consent decree. 1 Our study of 

the matter convinces us that the district court did not err in 

denying defendants' motion to vacate. Accordingly, we affirm. 

By a first amended complaint filed July 6, 1978, Dwight 

Duran, and others, all inmates of the Penitentiary of New Mexico 

("PNM"), instituted a class action charging that conditions in the 

penitentiary violated rights guaranteed them by the United States 

Constitution and by feqeral statutes. 2 Jurisdiction was based on 

28 u.s.c. § 1331. Named as defendants were the following: 

1. Hon. Jerry Apodaca, Governor of the State of New 

Mexico; 

2. Charles Becknell, s

3

cretary of Criminal Justice for 

the State of New Mexico; 

3. Edwin Mahr, Director of the Corrections Division for 

the State of New Mexico; 

4. Levi Romero, Warden of the· Penitentiary of New 

Mexico; 

5. Robert Montoya, a Deputy Warden of the Penitentiary 

of New Mexico; and 

1 The district court's Memorandum Opinion and Order was published 

and appears as Duran v. Carruthers, 678 F. Supp., 839 (D.N.M. 

1988). The background chronology is fully set forth therein and 

will not be repeated in great detail here. 

2 The first amended complaint also set forth in a second and third 

claim violations of the New Mexico state constitution, and New 

Mexico state statute. A fourth claim for relief alleged violations of the United States Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, 49 u.s.c. § 3750(b). However, none of these claims plays 

any role in the present proceeding. 

3 The Secretary of Criminal Justice is appointed by the Governor. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 3 
6. Joseph ~ujan, a Deputy Warden of the Penitentiary of 

New Mexico. 

Partial consent agreements, covering visitation, access to 

legal services, and food services, were signed by the parties in 

1979, and orders reflecting the agreements were entered by the 

court. 

appeal. 

Those partial consent decrees are not the subject of this 

In February, 1980, a bloody riot occu~red in the 

Penitentiary of New Mexico in which twelve correctional officers 

were taken hostage, thirty-three inmates were killed, at least 

ninety were seriously injured, and damage to the prison facilities 

measured in the millions of dollars. 

In this general setting the parties entered into a consent 

decree which was approved by the district court on July 14, 1980. 

This negotiated decree was elaborate, extending well over 100 

printed pages, and by its provisions regulated many aspects of the 

prison operation. In provisions not challenged in the present 

proceeding, the decree comprehensively regulates the defendants' 

conduct in the penitentiary in the area of (1) food services, (2) 

physical facilities, including clothing and personal hygiene items 

provided to inmates, (3) medical care, (4) mental health care, (5) 

correspondence between inmates and outsiders, (6) access to legal 

resources, and (7) attorney-client visitations. 

On June 12, 1987, the Attorney General for the State of New 

Mexico filed a motion to vacate seven parts of the 1980 consent 

4 All defendants were represented in the district court by the 

Attorney General for New Mexico. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 4 
decree. 5 The motion was filed on behalf of the Hon. Garrey 

Carruthers, who was then the Governor of New Mexico, and on behalf 

of the other individuals named as defendants in the amended 

complaint, or their successors. The motion to vacate was signed 

not only by the state's Attorney General, but also by private 

counsel located in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Washington, D.C. 

Specific.ally, the defendants moved to vacate the following 

portions of the .1980 consent decree: 

1. Paragraph 6 in the July 14, 1980 Agreement, except for 

the first sentence. 6 

2. Paragraphs 1 through 15 in the "Classification" section 

of the consent decree. 

5 An earlier motion to vacate the 1980 consent decree in its 

entirety was withdrawn. 

6 6. Other than in times of emergency, changed 

circumstances may, . in the future, justify some changes 

in this agreement and the policies attached hereto and 

the partial consent decrees on file herein. No change 

or changes may be made which will lessen the benefits 

provided by the agreement and the policies attached 

hereto and the partial consent decrees on file herein. 

Notice will be given to the lawyers for the Plaintiffs 

at least thirty (30) days prior to the proposed 

implementation date. Said notice will contain the 

proposed change or changes and the reasons therefore. 

Counsel for the Plaintiffs will ascertain whether, in 

their opinion, the proposed change or changes in any way 

lessen the benefits provided by this agreement or the 

policies attached hereto and the partial consent decrees 

on file herein. If so, they will notify Defendants of 

their objections and the reasons therefore within 

fifteen (15) days. Efforts will be made to informally 

resolve the matter. If the dispute cannot be resolved, 

it will be submitted to the court. The burden will then 

be on the Defendants to justify that the change or 

changes should be made and will not lessen the benefits 

provided by the agreement and the policies attached 

hereto and the partial consent decrees on file herein 

before the change or changes will be allowed. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 5 
3. Paragraphs l through 10, except for the first sentence of 

paragraph 7 and the second sentence of paragraph 10 and paragraph 

ll(f) in the "Maximum Security" section of the decree. 

4. Paragraphs 1 through 11 and 14 through 18 of the "Inmate 

Discipline" section of the decree. 

5. Paragraphs 1 through 7, 9 through 12, 14 through 18 and 

the p~olo~ue of the "Inmate Activity" section of the decree. 

6 •. Paragraphs 1, 2, 4(A) and 4(M), except as they apply to 

inmates housed in the PNM-Main, or facilities operated for 

specialized mental-health care, maximum security or disciplinary 

segregation, paragraph 8, as it applies to provision of cigarettes 

and tobacco, and paragraph 11 as such appears in the ''Living 

Conditions" section of the decree. 

7. Paragraphs 1 through 10, ll(E), 13 through 15, plus the 

probable cause provision in paragraph ll(D) and the probable cause 

and reasonable suspicion requirements in paragraph 12 in the 

"Visitation" section of the decree. 7 

Defendants' basic position is that the portions of the 

consent decree which they seek to vacate are not directly related 

to federally created rights nor do they tend to vindicate federal 

7 In greater detail, the contested prov1s1ons (1) requires appellants to follow specified procedures and criteria in classifying 

inmates to different security levels, and severely restricts both 

the amount of time and the circumstances in which they may use the 

"maximum security" classification; (2) sets out the exclusive list 

of actions that may form the basis for inmate discipline, as well 

as the maximum penalties; (3) mandates that eight hours of 

vocational or educational activity per day be ~ade available to 

each inmate; (4) prohibits, in all prisons and under all 

circumstances, the housing of two inmates in the same cell; and 

(5) comprehensively regulates the prison policies on visitations, 

including the types of searches that may be made in re~ation to 

such visits. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 6 
( 

rights. Rather, the defendants argue that at best they may relate 

to, and,vindicate, rights created by the State of New Mexico, and 

that some others relate only to better penological practices. 

Such remedies, according to the defendants, are beyond the reach 

of a federal district court, and should therefore be removed from 

the consent decree. In this argument, defendants place considerable reliance on Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 

465 U.S. 89 (1984), where the Supreme Court held that the Eleventh 

Amendment prohibited a federal district court from ordering state 

officials to conform their conduct to state law. 

At the outset it should be remembered that in the instant 

case there was no trial. We have a first amended complaint filed 

July 6, 1978, followed by several partial consent decrees in 1979, 

culminating in an elaborate and all-encompassing final consent 

decree on July 14,. 1980. Consequently, the first amended 

complaint should be our starting point. 

In a "preliminary statement'' to the first amended complaint 

the plaintiffs contend tha~ "the totality of the overcrowding and 

other conditions at PNM fall beneath standards of human decency, 

inflict needless suffering on prisoners and create an environment 

which threatens prisoners' mental and physical well-being and 

results in physical and mental deterioration and dehabilitation of 

the prisoners confined therein, which· is both unnecessary and 

penologically unjustifiable." By further prefatory statement, the 

plaintiffs asked the district court, after hearing, to declare 

that the totality of prison conditions are unconstitutional under 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 7 
the Constitutions of the United States and New Mexico and in 

violation of the statutes of the United States and New Mexico. 

The plaintiffs' first claim for relief was filed under 42 

u.s.c. S 1983 to redress injuries suffered by the plaintiffs, and 

the class they sought to represent, for deprivation by the 

defendants of rights secured the plaintiffs by the first, sixth, 

eighth, ninth and fourteenth amendments to the United States 

Constitution. Specific constitutional rights allegedly violated 

by the defendant were the rights to be free from cruel and unusual 

punishment, to due process, to religious freedom, to freedom of 

expression and association, to have access to courts, to privacy, 

and to equal protection. 

A second·claim for relief was based on Article II, section 13 

of the New Mexico Constitution prohibiting .cruel and unusual 

punishment. ~t was also alleged in the second claim for relief 

that the conditions at the penitentiary violated plaintiffs' 

rights to freedom of speech, religion, equal protection, due 

process, and other rights guaranteed by Article II, sections 11, 

17, and 18 of the New Mexico Constitution. 

In their third claim for relief, the plaintiffs alleged that 

the several defendants had failed to exercise their duties to 

operate the penitentiary in accord with Article II, section 4 of 

the New Mexico Constitution and N.M~Stat. Ann. SS42-l-38, 42-1-

1.1, 42-1-31.2, 42-9-6(9), and 42-9-6(h). 

The fourth claim for relief was based on provisions of the 

United States Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, 49 U.S.C. 

§ 3750(b), with the plaintiffs claiming that they were third party 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 8 
( 

beneficiaries under contractual 

Administration and the defendants. 

arrangements between the 

Under the section heading 

plaintiffs set forth in the first 

"Factual Allegations," the 

amended complaint the facts 

underlying 

plaintiffs 

inhumanely 

all of their several claims for relief. 

alleged that the penitentiary was 

overcrowded." According to the 

complaint, some of the prisoners were forced to 

Specifically, 

"grossly and 

first amended 

live in cells 

which were approximately 6' x 9' in size, with two or more persons 

being housed in one cell, and that the majority of the prisoners 

were housed in dormitories which were overcrowded, filthy and 

impossible to keep clean. Such overcrowding, plaintiffs alleged, 

destroyed any possibility of privacy and rendered the quarters 

unfit for human habitation because of mice, roaches, vermin, 

clogged toilets, and the like. 

The plaintiffs also complained about food service, physical 

and sexual assaults by other prisoners, understaffed professional, 

educational and security personnel, improper classification of 

inmates according to their educational, vocational and health 

needs, lack of meaningful industrial or institutional employment, 

inadequate recreational activities, unduly restrictive visitation 

rights and correspondence policies, inadequate medical and dental 

care, lack of access to legal books and resources, and disciplinary proceedings that were devoid of due process. 

Based upon the factual allegations, the plaintiffs sought 

class action certification, a declaratory judgment that the 

"totality of the conditions" at the penitentiary violated the 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 9 
rights of the plaintiffs established by the constitutions of the 

United States and of New Mexico and by both federal and local 

state statutes, and a preliminary and permanent injunction directing the defendants to comply with the various constitutional and 

statutory mandates. The plaintiffs also sought to require the 

defendants to pay the costs of the action, including attorneys' 

fees pursuant to 42 u.s.c. § 1988. 

As above stated, the parties submitted several partial 

consent decrees to the district court in 1979, and orders were 

entered in accord with the matters agreed to by the parties. And 

on July 14, 1980, a final consent decree was entered by the court 

reflecting the agreements between the parties. These orders 

cove~ed such items as correspondence policies and practices, 

attorney-prisoner visit•tions, food service, inmate legal access, 

visitation rights, classification of inmates, living conditions, 

inmate activity, medical care, mental health care, staffing and 

training of prison personnel, maximum security classification, and 

inmate discipline procedure. 

A prefatory statement in the final consent decree stated that 

the agreement was voluntarily and mutually agreed upon as a 

compromise settlement of the dispute between the parties. Another 

statement in the final agreement between the parties read as 

follows: 

Those policy statements and the partial consent decrees 

on file herein may include specific requirements and 

procedures beyond what is required by the Constitution 

of the United States, the Constitution of the State of 

New Mexico, the federal Civil Rights Act, the New Mexico 

Torts Claim Act, or any other constitutional, statutory 

or common law requirement. 

-LOAppellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 10 
Article XI of the United States Constitution8 provides as 

follows: 

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be 

construed to extend to any suit in law or in equity, 

'commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States 

by Citizens of another state or by Citizens or Subjects 

of any Foreign State. 

A literal reading of the eleventh amendment would appear to 

bar only suits against a state by a citizen of another state. 

However, it has been interpreted to also bar suits against a state 

brought by its own citizens. Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. l 

(1890). In the instant case, the plaintiffs are citizens of New 

Mexico, and the State of New Mexico, as such, is not named as a 

defendant. The defendants are, however, various state officials, 

and the immunity granted in the eleventh amendment to the state 

bars a suit against a state official when the suit is·one which, 

in essence, would operate against the state. Edelman v. Jordan, 

415 U.S. 651 (1974). However the eleventh amendment does not bar 

a suit in federal district court against a state official seeking 

injunctive relief where the state official has allegedly violated 

federal law. Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908). The Eleventh 

Amendment does, however, prohibit a federal district court from 

granting injunctive relief against a state official who has allegedly violated only state law, as opposed to federal law. 

Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89 

(1984). 

8 The eleventh amendment was adopted in response to Chisholm v. 

Georgia, 2 U.S. 4A (1793) which allowed a suit by two South 

Carolinians, on behalf of a British subject, against the State of 

Georgia. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 11 
In the instant case, the plaintiffs instituted a suit against 

state officials alleging that they violated, inter alia, the 

federal constitution and federal statutes. Under Ex Parte Young, 

supra, the defendants under the eleventh amendment are not immune 

from such a suit. Counsel agrees that those parts of the consent 

decree setting forth rules and regulations for prison conduct 

which are directly related to federally protected rights, or tend 

to vindicate those rights, are proper, and are not here challenged. However, it is counsel's further position that those 

parts of the consent decrees. which defendants seek to have vacated 

represent remedies that are not directly related to federally 

protected rights, nor do they tend to vindicate such rights. With 

the latter proposition, we disagree. 

Arguably, the provisions which the defendants seek to vacat~ 

do relate to, or tend to vindicate, federally protected rights. 

In addition, the defendants, by the consent decrees, waived their 

right to make plaintiffs establish at trial that they were 

entitled to all the relief afforded them by the consent decrees. 

In this latter connection, the Supreme Court, in Swift & Co. v. 

United States, 276 U.S. 311, 329 (1928), commented as follows: 

Here again, the defendants ignore the fact that by 

consenting to the entry of the decree, "without any 

findings of fact," they left to the Court the power to 

construe the pleadings, and in so doing, to find in them 

the existence of circumstances of danger which justified 

compelling the defendants to abandon all participation 

in these businesses, and to abstain from acquiring any 

interest hereafter. 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 12 
The defendants' first request in their motion to vacate was 

that paragraph six in the 1980 consent decree be vacated, except 

for the first sentence thereof. See n. 3 supra. We regard 

paragraph six to concern procedure, rather than substance. It 

provides that no change which will lessen the benefits provided by 

the agreement and decree may be made, and then goes on to outline 

the procedure to be folrowed when the defendants proposed to 

"implement'' the decree, namely, 30 days notice to plaintiffs prior 

to any implementation, granting plaintiffs 15 days to file any 

objection to a proposed change, requiring the parties to attempt 

to informally resolve any dispute, and providing for unresolved 

matters to be resolved by the district court after a hearing 

wherein the defendants have the burden of showing that the 

proposed change is just and will not lessen the benefits provided 

by the decree. These procedural safeguards for the plaintiffs, 

which the defendants in the consent decree saw fit to grant, attach to all the remedies provided in the decree, many of which 

defendants concede have a direct relationship to federal rights 

and which are not challenged in this case. Such being the case, 

the district court, in our view, did not err in refusing to vacate 

paragraph six, as requested by the defendants. 

The other parts of the consent decree which the defendants 

seek to have vacated relate to classification of inmates, maximum 

security, inmate discipline, inmate activity, living conditions, 

and inmate visitation rights. As indicated, it was, and is, the 

plaintiffs' position that it was the "totality" of the prison 

conditions, not necessarily any one condition, which violated 

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their federally protected rights. In our view, each of the matters which form the basis of this case is a part of that "totality" and does bear on, or tend to vindicate, federal rights. 

Further, by the 1980 agreement and the consent decree based 

thereon, the defendants waived their right to trial. Quite 

conceivably, if the case had gone to trial plaintiffs' evidence 

might well have e~tablished that the remedies now complained about 

are indeed tied to federal rights, or at least tend to vindicate 

such rights. 9 But the defendants voluntarily waived their right 

to insist that the plaintiffs prove their case in open court. 

We reject the defendants' argument that the Eleventh Amendment dictates the granting of their motion to vacate. As 

indicated, counsel concedes that the district court had the 

jurisdiction and authority to grant relief to these plaintiffs 

against these defendants where prison conditions violated federal 

rights, be they constitutional or statutory. That concession 

wipes out much of the defendants' Eleventh Amendment argument. 10 

9 Such a "totality of the circumstances" approach was approved by 

the Supreme Court in Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 685-89 (1978). 

lO Indeed, there is ample authority for finding that each of the 

contested sections vindicates a federal right. In Ramos v. Lamm, 

639 F.2d 559 (10th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 1041 (1981), 

this court reaffirmed that there is a constitutional right to be 

reasonably protected from constant threats of violence and sexual 

assaults from other prisoners. More specifically, this court 

indicated that, although such a remedy was not warranted under the 

facts in Ramos, there may be a point where motility, classification, and idleness could constitute an actual violation of the 

eighth amendment. Id. at 566-67. 

Similarly, the provisions regarding inmate visitation do not 

go beyond what could be ordered by a court. See Pell v. 

Procunfer, 417 U.S, 817 (1974). Indeed, in 1984 the Department of 

Corrections' own analysis of the visitation provisions reached the 

conclusion that the decree did not go beyond those visitation 

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Appellate Case: 88-1442 Document: 01019899997 Date Filed: 09/15/1989 Page: 14 
In Local No. 93 v. City of Cleveland, 478 U.S. 501 (1986), the 

Supreme Court in a Title VII case, where a consent decree was 

entered, spoke as follows: 

Accordingly, a consent decree must spring from and serve 

to resolve a dispute within the court's subject matter 

jurisdiction. Further-more, consistent with this 

requirement, the consent decree must "com[e] within the 

general scope of the case made by the plaintiff .•• 

and must further the objectives of the law upon which 

the complaint was based •••• However, in addition to 

the law which forms the basis for the. claim, the 

parties' consent animates the legal force of a consent 

decree. • • " Therefore, a federal court is not 

necessarily barred from entering a consent decree merely 

because the decree provides broader relief than the 

court could have awarded after trial (citations 

omitted). 

As stated, central to defendants' argument is Pennhurst State 

School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89 (1984). Such reliance is in our view misplaced. The Supreme Court in Pennhurst 

held that the Eleventh Amend~ent prohibited a federal district 

court from ordering state officials to conform their conduct to 

state law. 11 That is not our case. Here, the district court 

rights that could be constitutionally imposed in its absence. Attachment A to Plaintiff's Supplemental Response to Defendant's 

Motion to Vacate or Modify the Judgment, filed 1/6/86. 

All of the other contested provisions may be similarly 

justified. See Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337 (1981) 

(overcrowding may be a constitutional violation); Ruiz v. Estelle, 

679 F.2d 1115 (5th Cir. 1952) (court may impose prophylactic rules 

to prevent repetition of constitutional violations). 

However, it must be noted that the contested provisions 

should not be viewed in isolation, but rather as part of the 

"totality of the circumstances" existing at PNM. Hutto v. Finney, 

437 U.S. 678 (1978). 

11 In Pennhurst, judgment was entered after a "lengthy trial" and 

did not, as here, involve a consent decree. 

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0,rdered state officials to conform their conduct to federal law, 

and the provisions of the decree which the defendants seek to 

vacate tend to vindicate those rights. And even if they didn't 

bear directly on federal rights, the provisions sought to be 

vacated come within the rule of Local No. 93 v. City of Cleveland, 

supra, i.e., (1) the consent decree springs from and serves to 

resolve a dispute within the district court's subject matter 

jurisdiction; (2) the consent decree comes within the "general 

scope" of the case made by plaintiffs in the first amended 

complaint; and (3) furthers the objectives upon which the 

complaint is based, in which event "the parties' consent animates 

the legal force of a consent decree" and a district court is not 

barred from entering a co'nsent decree providing broader relief 

than the court might possibly have been empowered to enter after 

trial. 

Kozlewski v. Coughlin, 871 F.2d 241 (2d Cir. 1989), resembles 

our case. In that case state officials appealed from a consent 

decree which established procedures and sanctions governing the 

suspension and termination of prison visitation rights, arguing 

that the sanctions, unlike the procedures, in the decree were 

unrelated to the underlying due process violation, and that accordingly the Eleventh Amendment barred subject matter jurisdiction. A divided panel of the Second Circuit ·rejected that argument and spoke as follows: 

Before entering a consent judgment, the district court 

must be certain that the decree 1) "spring[s] from and 

serve[s] to resolve a dispute within the court's subject 

matter jurisdiction," 2) "come[s] within the general 

scope of the case made by the pleading," and 

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( 3) "further[s] the objectives of the law upon which the 

complaint was based. Firefighters, 478 U.S. at 525 

(other citations omitted). These three conditions are 

sufficient even if the decree contains broader relief 

than the court could have awarded after trial. 

Judgment affirmed: 12 

12 The present appeal concerns only the propriety of the district 

court's order denying defendants' motion to vacate parts of the 

1980 consent decree. We are not here concerned with defendants' 

right, if any, to have "equitable modification'' of that decree. 

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