Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-01089/USCOURTS-ca10-90-01089-0/pdf.json

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

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' 

FILED 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Unit.eel Stat.ea~ f!l Appeals Tenth c1rcu1t 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT AUG 1 0 1990 

OBERT L. HOECKER 

EUGENE VELARDE, ) Clerk 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellant, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

ROY ROMER, HENRY SOLANO, ) 

BOB HICKOX, RALPH GRANZELLA, ) 

CARLOS BACA, RICHARD MARR, ) 

and BEN GRIEGO, ) 

) 

Defendants-Appellees. ) 

No. 90-1089 

(D. Colorado) 

(D.C. No. 90-Z-124) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before ANDERSON, BALDOCK, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The cause is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Upon the recommendation of a federal magistrate, the federal 

district court for the district of Colorado dismissed sua sponte 

Eugene Velarde's civil rights complaint alleging constitutional 

violations under the federal and Colorado constitutions, as well 

as violations of various Colorado laws and prison regulations. 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-1089 Document: 010110040830 Date Filed: 08/10/1990 Page: 1 
., 

The district court also denied Velarde's motion for appointment of 

counsel. To be dismissed as frivolous under 28 u.s.c. § 1915(d), 

as presumably was the case here, the complaint must lack any 

arguable basis in law or in fact. Nietzke v. Williams, 109 S.Ct. 

1827 (1989). If the legal theory is indisputably meritless, or if 

the factual allegations are fanciful or clearly baseless, the 

claim is frivolous. Id. at 1831, 1833. We affirm in part, 

reverse in part and remand. 

Velarde, an inmate at the Delta Correctional Center ("DCC") 

in Delta, Colorado, filed a prose complaint and a motion seeking 

a court-appointed attorney to help him bring a class action suit 

against various Colorado officials under 28 U.S.C. § 1983. He 

sought declaratory and injunctive relief, and monetary damages. 

Velarde asserted violations of the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth 

Amendments resulting from a whole host of allegedly unconstitutional confinement conditions at the DCC, including living 

conditions, medical treatment, prisoner classification procedures, 

and access to the courts. 

Many of Velarde's allegations as to the living conditions at 

the DCC are stated in conclusory form, i.e., "unhealthy" and 

"inhuman" conditions, facilities that do not meet health and 

safety codes, and inadequate programming for the prisoners, whose 

lives as a result are said to be characterized by "massive and 

pervasive idleness." Such allegations standing alone are not 

cognizable. A number of allegations, however, are more specific, 

and can be summarized as follows: 

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Dorms 1-4 are comparable to "horse stalls," with only 

partitions for walls, contributing to ventilation problems; 

Windows and doors in dorms 1-4 have no screens, yet the cells 

are located within 100 yards of either a sewage lagoon or a large 

frog pond, thereby allowing an infestation of insects; 

Dorm 5 double bunks prisoners in cells approximately 10' x 

8, ; 

None of the above dorms has a day room or indoor recreation 

facilities; 

Inadequate plumbing produces a lack of hot water, requiring 

prisoners to "wait for the water to warm after two or three have 

showered;" 

The design of dorms 1-4 precludes the elimination of drafts; 

inadequate ventilation in the summer produces foul odors and 

excessive heat, plus "mold, fungus and slime;" 

The lighting is insufficient for close eye tasks, and 

impli edly does not meet minimum standards for candle power; 

The living units lack fire alarms or sprinkler systems, and 

the plexi-glass windows create a threat of toxic poisoning in the 

event of fire; 

The kitchen walls and storage shelves are dirty, with rodent 

droppings in the storeroom; excessive water collects around food 

processing areas, and an ineffective fan causes dust and lint to 

be blown over the food preparation area and dining room; 

The indoor recreation room is small and extremely noisy, and 

access to the weight room is limited to eighteen prisoners; 

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The medical care system requires that prisoners be 

transported out of the prison for "vital medical procedures;" only 

Emergency Medical Technicians are available to diagnose or 

distribute medications to the prisoners; 

The prison population exceeds the design capacity by ten 

prisoners. 

As a result of these combined conditions, Velarde claims 

injury in the form of nausea, headaches, fatigue, eye pain, 

stress, loss of appetite, constipation, nervousness, anxiety, 

fear, pain, and general mental and physical deterioration. 

We conclude that these allegations, taken as true, do not 

state a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against 

cruel and unusual punishment. While they allege various 

uncomfortable and unpleasant living conditions, they do not meet 

the tests announced in Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 347 

(1981), i.e., the allegations do not indicate wanton and 

unnecessary infliction of pain, nor that the punishment is grossly 

disproportionate to the crime, nor do they suggest failure to 

provide a "minimal civilized measure of life's necessities." Id. 

As Rhodes stated, "[T]he Constitution does not mandate comfortable 

prisons," id. at 349, and restrictive and harsh conditions do not 

of themselves inflict unconstitutional punishment. Id. at 347. 

And as the Tenth Circuit noted in Battle v. Anderson, 788 F.2d 

1421, 1426 (10th Cir. 1986), "there will always be problems and 

inadequacies [in prison conditions]. We are considering a large 

confined population of convicted felons, not a nursery school." 

Even the most specific of Velarde's allegations remain quite 

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general and do not depict conditions that could be said to be 

constitutionally cruel and unusual. We affirm the decision of the 

district court on this issue. 

On an individual level, Velarde alleges that he was denied 

adequate medical and dental care. Velarde alleges that he was 

never given anything but aspirin for the variety of physical ills 

of which he complained. He complains that he was forced to 

undergo tooth extraction rather than tooth repair because DCC's 

lack of funds precluded better dental care. These allegations do 

not raise claims of deliberate indifference to serious medical 

needs, see Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976), but rather 

reflect accepted methods of pain alleviation with respect to nonlife-threatening and secondary medical needs. We affirm the 

district court's dismissal of this claim. 

In addition to the above Eighth Amendment claims, Velarde 

contends that he and other inmates are deprived of their constitutional right of access to the courts because the DCC law library 

has less than a third of the volumes recommended by the American 

Association of Law Libraries Committee on Law Library Services to 

Prisoners and does not meet the minimal constitutional standards 

recommended by the Colorado Attorney General's Office. In 

particular, he asserts that he was prejudiced in his suit for a 

writ of habeas corpus, No. 89-M-2195, and in his state court suit, 

Velarde v. Solano, 89-CV-159, because of his lack of access to 

needed legal materials. He also states that he was similarly 

disadvantaged in his response to the magistrate's recommendations 

in the present action. Under Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828 

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(1977), an inmate's constitutional right of access "requires 

prison authorities to assist inmates in the preparation and filing 

of meaningful legal papers by providing prisoners with adequate 

law libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the 

law." Velarde acknowledges that the DCC makes legal counsel 

available to inmates, and his speculation that the counsel was 

soon to be withdrawn is just that--speculation. He also notes 

that he (Velarde) is the inmate law clerk, and the quality of his 

own complaint belies any argument that he is unable to adequately 

prepare legal filings. Under binding Tenth Circuit precedent, 

access to the courts requires no more than adequate assistance 

"through completion of the complaint" in a civil rights action. 

Nordgren v. Milliken, 762 F.2d 851, 855 (10th Cir. 1985). Velarde 

does not allege that the assistance is inadequate at this stage of 

legal proceedings. Therefore, his claim of inadequate legal 

assistance is properly dismissed as lacking arguable legal merit. 

Additionally, Velarde asserts that many prisoners, including 

himself, are inappropriately and illegally classified as violent 

in violation of a state-created liberty interest under the 

Fourteenth Amendment. He contends that, as a result, many 

prisoners are ineligible for consideration for timely placement in 

a community corrections facility. In his "Objections to 

Magistrate's Recommendation ("Objections")," he elaborates on this 

claim by stating that his prison classification as a "violent 

offender" violates C.R.S. BA§ 16-11-309(5) (1986) ("subsection 

309(5)") and deprives him of a statutorily created liberty 

interest in being eligible for community corrections placement up 

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.. 

to sixteen months prior to his parole eligibility date. See 

C.R.S. 8A § 17-27-106 (4) (a) (II) (A) (Cum. Supp. 1989) ( "subsection 

IIA"). He argues that Colorado Department of Corrections ("DOC") 

Policy No. 201-11 conflicts with subsection IIA by dividing the 

statutorily non-violent prisoners into (l)"truly non-violent 

offenders" and (2) violent offenders whose convictions did not 

include the specific finding of violence required under subsection 

309(5). We cannot say at this point that this allegation is 

legally without merit and factually baseless. The magistrate, 

without the benefit of the specifics detailed by Velarde in the 

"Objections," dismissed Velarde's Fourteenth Amendment argument by 

saying that classification decisions "have traditionally been 

entrusted to prison administrators and not the federal courts." 

Velarde answered this point in his "Objections" by citing to what 

he asserted was a liberty interest created under Colorado statute. 

Yet the district court ignored this argument and its due process 

implications. Because this claim should be addressed in the first 

instance by the district court, we reverse the order of the 

district court on this point and remand for additional 

proceedings. 1 

Finally, Velarde claims that, in violation of the equal 

protection clause, he was denied Level IV classification status in 

the DCC on the basis of his Hispanic origin and in retaliation for 

1 The magistrate's recommended dismissal of the defendants on 

the basis of their lack of personal participation in causing the 

alleged constitutional violations ignores the fact that the 

defendants were sued in their official as well as their individual 

capacities and that declaratory and injunctive remedies may be 

available even if monetary damages are barred under the Eleventh 

Amendment. 

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" 

his active role in pursuing or facilitating inmate suits and 

grievances. We conclude that Velarde's equal protection claim 

cannot be said to be inarguable on its face. See Candelaria v. 

Griffin, 641 F.2d 868, 870 (10th Cir. 1981). Velarde not only 

alleges that he was denied Level IV status because of his Mexican 

heritage but that he was also denied the opportunity to remain in 

the DOC Regis College program and forced to default on his federal 

Pell grant because of that heritage. In his "Objections," he 

asserted that all the corrections officials sued had personal 

knowledge or personal participation in the discrimination to which 

he was subject. 2 Although he gave no specifics as to the Regis 

College program and Pell grant, he has provided information as to 

the criteria for Level IV status. 3 

In conclusion, we affirm the district court's dismissal of 

Velarde's claims of unconstitutional living conditions, lack of 

access to the courts, and of personal injury as a result of 

inadequate medical and dental care. We reverse with respect to 

his equal protection claim and with respect to his claim 

2 Velarde does not allege the requisite 

Roy Romer in the denial of Level IV status 

is properly dismissed from this portion of 

involvement of Governor 

and, therefore, Romer 

the action on remand. 

3 Velarde asserts that he met the objective criteria, and was 

not given access to the subjective comments of his counselor, nor 

given any reasons for the denial of Level IV status. He alleges 

that 99% of the staff was white and could not relate to minority 

inmates and that there were "no Black or Hispanic officers working 

or able to represent the interests of Black and Hispanic inmates." 

There is no right, as such, either to access to deliberations by 

voting members of the classification committee or reason for its 

decision. Nor is there any right to a staff of any particular 

racial composition. 

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. . 

concerning the classification of prisoners under DOC Policy No. 

201-11. 

AFFIRMED in part and REVERSED in part and REMANDED for 

additional proceedings consistent with this order. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Stephen H. Anderson 

Circuit Judge 

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