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Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CHARLES EDWARD BYRD,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

MARICOPA COUNTY BOARD OF 

SUPERVISORS, John/Jane Does 1–

100; JOSEPH M. ARPAIO, named 

as: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe 

Arpaio; MARICOPA COUNTY 

SHERIFF’S OFFICE, named as 

Maricopa County Sheriff’s 

Department, 

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 15-16282

D.C. No.

2:14-cv-02656-

NVW-DKD

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

Neil V. Wake, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 14, 2016

San Francisco, California

Filed January 6, 2017

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2 BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Before: Stephen Reinhardt and John B. Owens, Circuit 

Judges, and Salvador Mendoza, Jr.,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Owens

SUMMARY**

Prisoner Civil Rights

The panel reversed the district court’s sua sponte 

dismissal under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, and remanded in an 

action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging 

defendants Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department, 

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, and Sheriff Joe 

Arpaio’s alleged policy of allowing female guards to observe 

daily, from four to five feet away, male pretrial detainees 

showering and using the bathroom.

The panel held that even if plaintiff was a convicted 

prisoner rather than a pretrial detainee, his allegations 

survived a section 1915A dismissal. The panel held that 

assuming that the female guards could view male pretrial 

detainees while showering and using the toilet frequently 

and up close, the scope and manner of the intrusions were 

far broader than those this court previously has approved. 

 * The Honorable Salvador Mendoza, Jr., United States District 

Judge for the Eastern District of Washington, sitting by designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS 3

The panel stated that it may be that the prison’s up close 

and personal policy of female guards observing male pretrial 

detainees was necessary to ensure security and provide equal 

work opportunities in the prison. But such considerations 

and their legal effect were just conjecture at this point. And 

conjecture was not enough to dismiss a complaint under 

section 1915A. The panel held that defendants should 

respond to plaintiff’s lawsuit.

COUNSEL

Helen Andrews and Cory Batza (argued), Certified Law 

Students; Jeremy B. Rosen, Supervising Attorney, and Mark 

A. Kressel, Horvitz & Levy LLP, Burbank, California; for 

Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Joseph J. Branco (argued), Anne C. Longo, and Thomas P. 

Liddy, Deputy County Attorneys; William G. Montgomery, 

County Attorney; Civil Services Division, Maricopa County 

Attorney’s Office, Phoenix, Arizona; for DefendantsAppellees.

OPINION

OWENS, Circuit Judge:

Charles Edward Byrd, an Arizona state prisoner and 

former pretrial detainee, appeals from the district court’s sua 

sponte dismissal under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A of his 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 action challenging defendants Maricopa County 

Sheriff’s Department, Maricopa County Board of 

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4 BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Supervisors, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s alleged policy of 

allowing female guards to observe daily, from four to five 

feet away, male pretrial detainees showering and using the 

bathroom. The district court dismissed Byrd’s pro se 

complaint without requiring a response because it thought 

that Ninth Circuit precedent foreclosed his claims. This was 

incorrect. Because the district court should have required 

defendants to file an answer to Byrd’s complaint, rather than 

immediately dismissing it under section 1915A, we reverse 

and remand for further proceedings.

I. Background

This is not the first time Byrd has challenged defendants’ 

policies for pretrial detainees. See Byrd v. Maricopa Cty. 

Sheriff’s Dep’t, 629 F.3d 1135, 1147 (9th Cir. 2011) (en 

banc) (agreeing with Byrd and holding that a cross-gender 

strip search in the absence of an emergency violates a pretrial 

detainee’s Fourth Amendment rights). This time, he alleges 

in his handwritten pro se complaint (technically his second 

amended complaint) that defendants’ policy of having 

female guards regularly view his bathroom and shower use

from four to five feet away violates his Fourth and 

Fourteenth Amendment rights, and causes him severe 

emotional harm due to his own history of abuse. He also 

alleges that this policy conflicts with defendants’ policy that 

prohibits female guards from strip searching male prisoners 

in non-emergency situations.

The district court sua sponte dismissed the complaint 

because “[t]he policy to which Plaintiff objects is precisely 

the type of cross-gender supervision that has long been held 

constitutional in the Ninth Circuit.” Because the district 

court dismissed the complaint under section 1915A, we do 

not have defendants’ side of the story, such as any 

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BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS 5

counterbalancing security or personnel management issues 

to consider.

II. Standard of Review

We review de novo a district court’s sua sponte section 

1915A dismissal of a complaint, construing the pro se 

complaint liberally and taking all the allegations of material 

fact as true and in the light most favorable to Byrd. Ramirez 

v. Galaza, 334 F.3d 850, 853–54 (9th Cir. 2003). We review 

the denial of leave to amend for an abuse of discretion. Id. 

at 854.

III. Discussion

A. Fourth Amendment Claim

Byrd alleges that defendants’ policy violated his Fourth 

Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. To 

determine if he is correct, we consider “(1) the scope of the 

particular intrusion, (2) the manner in which it is conducted, 

(3) the justification for initiating it, and (4) the place in 

which it is conducted.” Byrd, 629 F.3d at 1141 (quoting Bell 

v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559 (1979) (internal quotations 

omitted)). Taking Byrd’s allegations as true, Byrd has 

sufficiently alleged facts to survive section 1915A dismissal.

First, while the observation occurred in prison, where 

there are limited privacy rights, see Hudson v. Palmer, 

468 U.S. 517, 527 (1984), Byrd’s status as a pretrial detainee 

suggests that he may have had greater rights than convicted 

prisoners. See Stone v. City & Cty. of S.F., 968 F.2d 850, 

857 n.10 (9th Cir. 1992) (noting that “pretrial detainees . . .

possess greater constitutional rights than prisoners”). That 

alone is enough to distinguish Byrd’s allegations from 

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6 BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

precedent concerning convicted prisoners, which the district 

court thought foreclosed Byrd’s claims.

Second, even if Byrd were a convicted prisoner, Byrd’s 

allegations survive section 1915A dismissal. Assuming that 

the female guards could view male pretrial detainees while 

showering and using the toilet frequently and up close, the 

scope and manner of the intrusions were far broader than 

those our court previously has approved. In Grummett v. 

Rushen, we upheld cross-gender surveillance of showers 

specifically because “such actual viewing of the inmates is 

infrequent and irregular.” 779 F.2d 491, 495 (9th Cir. 1985). 

Similarly, in Michenfelder v. Sumner, we held that female 

guards observing male prisoner body cavity searches from a 

control booth that provided limited view of the searches, and 

female guards sometimes conducting male prisoner shower 

duty, were reasonable because the female guards were “not 

routinely present for strip searches” and observation from 

video monitors “would provide at most an indistinct, limited 

view.” 860 F.2d 328, 334 (9th Cir. 1988). The current case 

is, at this early stage, distinguishable from Grummett and 

Michenfelder because the observation was allegedly not 

infrequent, irregular, or from a distance, but frequent and just 

a few feet away. The district court erred in reading our case 

law to preclude Byrd’s claim.

Defendants argue that this policy is justified to ensure the 

institutional security of the prison and equal employment 

opportunities for female guards. But at this early stage, after 

a sua sponte dismissal of the complaint, we have no evidence 

supporting defendants’ justifications for regular crossgender observation in showers and toilets. Further, Byrd 

alleges that the challenged monitoring violates the prison’s 

policy prohibiting guards from conducting cross-gender 

strip searches of inmates and defining a strip search as “the 

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BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS 7

visual scan of an inmate’s body after all clothing has been 

removed.” If this is true, it undermines the prison’s 

justifications for allowing female guards to view male 

pretrial detainees in showers and toilets frequently and up 

close.

Defendants’ reliance on out-of-circuit authority actually 

illustrates why the dismissal here was premature. For 

example, in Timm v. Gunter, the Eighth Circuit upheld 

female guard monitoring of male inmates showering. 

917 F.2d 1093 (8th Cir. 1990). In that case, the observation 

of prisoners (not pretrial detainees) was neither constant nor 

intrusive, but rather “through small, steam- and watercovered windows positioned in such a way as to hinder the 

guard’s attempt to see every showering inmate’s body in 

full.” Id. at 1101. And in Oliver v. Scott, the Fifth Circuit 

upheld a cross-sex surveillance policy at the summary 

judgment stage after reviewing evidence that the inmates in 

question had “convictions for more severe and violent 

crimes,” something the prisoner did not contest. 276 F.3d 

736, 746 (5th Cir. 2002).

Here, we have no evidence that the pretrial detainees 

were especially violent. We do not have anything in the 

record to suggest why this intrusive policy was necessary for 

convicted prisoners, much less pretrial detainees. For all we 

know at this point, this policy could be in place not for 

security reasons, but merely to humiliate pretrial detainees. 

Accordingly, Byrd’s Fourth Amendment claim is “sufficient 

to warrant ordering [defendants] to file an answer.” Wilhelm

v. Rotman, 680 F.3d 1113, 1116 (9th Cir. 2012).

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8 BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

B. Fourteenth Amendment Right to Bodily 

Privacy Claim

Byrd also alleges that defendants’ policy violated his 

Fourteenth Amendment Due Process right to bodily privacy. 

“[P]risoners retain a limited right to bodily privacy.” 

Michenfelder, 860 F.2d at 333. As a pretrial detainee, Byrd 

had at least the same right to bodily privacy as a prisoner. 

See Stone, 968 F.2d at 857 n.10. As described below, our 

analysis largely mirrors the above Fourth Amendment 

discussion.

“[W]hen a prison regulation impinges on inmates’ 

constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is reasonably 

related to legitimate penological interests.” Turner v. Safley, 

482 U.S. 78, 89 (1987). To determine if a prison regulation 

can survive a constitutional challenge, we consider whether 

(1) there is a “valid, rational connection between the prison 

regulation and the legitimate governmental interest put 

forward to justify it”; (2) “there are alternative means of 

exercising the right”1

; (3) “the impact accommodation of the 

asserted constitutional right will have on guards and other 

inmates, and on the allocation of prison resources”; and 

(4) there is an “absence of ready alternatives[.]” Id. at 89–

90. (internal quotations and citations omitted).

Byrd alleges that the challenged observation violates the 

prison’s own policy of prohibiting cross-gender visual strip 

searches of inmates. This suggests that there may be no 

 1 The second factor – alternative means of exercising the right at 

issue – is not relevant here because Byrd is seeking to protect his right 

to privacy, which necessarily entails addressing the prison policy that 

allegedly violates his rights. See Michenfelder, 860 F.2d at 331 n.1 

(stating that the second Turner factor is much more meaningful in the 

First Amendment context, than in the Fourth or Eighth, “where the 

right is to be free from a particular wrong”).

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BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS 9

“valid, rational connection” between the observation and a 

legitimate prison interest. While Byrd does not allege any 

facts about the impact that changing the prison’s policy of 

allowing female guards to observe male inmates while 

showering and using the bathroom would have on the rest of 

the prison, he cannot know these facts at this early stage of 

his case, nor is that his concern. Without a response from 

the defendants, we cannot adequately assess the Turner 

factors.

We also have held that similar conduct involving a male 

parole officer observing a female parolee while she used the 

toilet, when his view was “neither obscured nor distant,” 

violated her clearly established right to bodily privacy. 

Sepulveda v. Ramirez, 967 F.2d 1413, 1416 (9th Cir. 1992). 

Sepulveda strongly suggests that dismissal at this stage was 

premature. Accordingly, the allegations of Byrd’s bodily 

privacy claim, taken as true, warrant an answer. Wilhelm,

680 F.3d at 1116.

C. Fourteenth Amendment Cruel and Unusual 

Punishment Claim

 Finally, Byrd alleges that defendants’ policy violated 

his Fourteenth Amendment Due Process right to be free from 

cruel and unusual punishment.2

 Prison officials may be 

liable for cruel and unusual punishment if they “acted with 

deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm.” 

Frost v. Agnos, 152 F.3d 1124, 1128 (9th Cir. 1998) (internal 

quotations omitted).

 2 The Fourteenth Amendment, and not the Eighth Amendment, 

governs cruel and unusual punishment claims of pretrial detainees. Bell, 

441 U.S. at 535 n.16.

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10 BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Byrd alleges that he filed five grievances to alert prison 

officials that he felt uncomfortable being observed by female 

guards, particularly because of his past sexual abuse, to no 

avail. These facts sufficiently allege for section 1915A 

purposes that defendants were deliberately indifferent to 

Byrd’s substantial risk of serious harm.

Byrd also must show that a prison condition is not 

“reasonably related to a legitimate governmental objective” 

for it to be unlawful. Bell, 441 U.S. at 539. Defendants 

repeat that the policy of allowing female guards to observe 

male prisoners while showering and performing bodily 

functions serves the prison’s interests in institutional 

security and equal employment opportunities. But as Byrd 

points out, the prison’s strip search policy potentially bans 

this type of observation. And in any case, we have no 

evidence to support defendants’ security and equal 

opportunity goals because of the section 1915A dismissal. 

Therefore, Byrd’s allegations for his cruel and unusual 

punishment claim, taken as true, are “sufficient to meet the 

low threshold for proceeding past the screening stage.” 

Wilhelm, 680 F.3d at 1123.

IV. Conclusion

It may be that the prison’s up close and personal policy 

of female guards observing male pretrial detainees is 

necessary to ensure security and provide equal work 

opportunities in the prison. See, e.g., Michenfelder, 860 F.2d 

at 334; Grummett, 779 F.2d at 496. But such considerations 

and their legal effect are just conjecture at this point. And 

conjecture is not enough to dismiss a complaint under 

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BYRD V. MARICOPA CTY. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS 11

section 1915A. Defendants should respond to Byrd’s 

lawsuit.3

Finally, we remand with instructions that the district 

court appoint counsel to represent Byrd. See Palmer v. 

Valdez, 560 F.3d 965, 970 (9th Cir. 2009) (“[A] court may 

under ‘exceptional circumstances’ appoint counsel for 

indigent civil litigants pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(1).”). 

Exceptional circumstances exist in this case as evidenced by 

Byrd’s limited ability to articulate his claims pro se, the 

complexity of the legal issues involved, and the possible 

merit of his claims.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

 3 Byrd argues that he should be allowed to add an Equal Protection 

claim because female detainees are allegedly not subjected to crossgender observation in showers and toilets, while male detainees are. On 

remand, the district court should consider whether to grant Byrd leave to 

amend.

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