Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-94-01328/USCOURTS-ca10-94-01328-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Shelly Ann Adkins
Appellant
Neal Cocco
Not Party
Michael Duran
Not Party
John Hurtado
Not Party
Harold Martinez
Not Party
Kevin Martinez
Not Party
William Reiners
Not Party
Kenneth Rodriguez
Appellee
Xavier Sandoval
Not Party

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

FILED .. Ualted States Court o_f Appeai:l Tenth Circuat 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUL 0 6 1995 

TENTH CIRCUIT PATRICK FISHER 

Clerk 

SHELLY ANN ADKINS, 

Plaintiff - Appellant, 

VS. 

KENNETH RODRIGUEZ, also known 

as Kenny Rodriguez, 

Defendant-Appellee, 

and 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

HAROLD MARTINEZ; JOHN HURTADO; ) 

MICHAEL DURAN, also known as ) 

Michael Durand; KEVIN MARTINEZ; ) 

XAVIER SANDOVAL; WILLIAM REINERS;) 

NEAL COCCO, as County Commis- ) 

sioners for Huerfano County, ) 

Defendants. 

) 

) 

No. 94-1328 

Appeal From the United States District Court 

for the District of Colorado 

(D.C. No. 92-N-376) 

James M. Croshal, Gradisar, Trechter, Ripperger & Croshal, Pueblo, 

Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellant. 

Robert M. Liechty (Theodore S. 

Halaby Cross Liechty Schluter & 

Defendant-Appellee Rodriguez. 

Halaby with him on the brief), 

Buck, Denver, Colorado, for 

Before MOORE and LOGAN, Circuit Judges, and DAUGHERTY, District 

Judge.* 

* The Honorable Frederick A. Daugherty, Senior Judge, United 

States District Court for the Northern, Eastern and Western 

Districts of Oklahoma, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 94-1328 Document: 01019276553 Date Filed: 07/06/1995 Page: 1 
MOORE, Circuit Judge. 

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Appellate Case: 94-1328 Document: 01019276553 Date Filed: 07/06/1995 Page: 2 
Shelly Ann Adkins appeals the dismissal of her § 1983 

complaint. She contends that while she was incarcerated, Kenneth 

Rodriguez, a prison deputy, violated her rights to privacy and to 

be free of sexual intimidation as guaranteed by the First, Third, 

Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth amendments. Although 

Ms. Adkins urges us to free her claim from the sole confines of 

the Eighth Amendment, neither the facts of the case nor the law 

provides support to do so. We, therefore, affirm. 

From January 6, 1990, through March 22, 1990, Ms. Adkins was 

serving a sentence for a felony conviction at the Huerfano County 

Jail. During that time, Deputy Rodriguez, a trainee in the 

Huerfano County Sheriff's Department, made verbal comments to Ms. 

Adkins about her body, his own sexual prowess, and his sexual 

conquests. Ms. Adkins complained to Sergeant Deborah Garcia, a 

detention officer and dispatcher at the jail. Sergeant Garcia 

immediately spoke to Deputy Rodriguez, telling him male guards 

should use the intercom to speak to female prisoners and confine 

their conversations to business matters.1 Sergeant Garcia told 

Deputy Rodriguez to "stay completely away from the cell." Despite 

these instructions, Deputy Rodriguez resumed making sexually 

suggestive comments to Ms. Adkins after she returned to the 

facility.2 

1 In fact, Deputy Rodriguez had used the intercom to address 

Ms. Adkins, asking her, as overheard by other inmates, if she 

still loved him. 

2 During the first half of March, Ms. Adkins had to attend 

another court proceeding in Fremont County, Colorado. 

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Appellate Case: 94-1328 Document: 01019276553 Date Filed: 07/06/1995 Page: 3 
On March 22, the specific incident precipitating this lawsuit 

occurred. Working the graveyard shift with Sergeant Miguel Duran, 

who had fallen asleep, Deputy Rodriguez removed the keys to the 

cells in A block where female prisoners are housed. After 

checking her neighbor's cell, Deputy Rodriguez entered Ms. Adkins' 

cell. As he stood over her bed looking at her, Ms. Adkins opened 

her eyes and asked him what he was doing. He answered he was 

checking on her, and as he left, told her, "By the way, you have 

nice breasts." Ms. Adkins immediately informed Sergeant Garcia, 

who summoned Deputy Rodriguez. 

Despite Deputy Rodriguez's explanation he heard Ms. Adkins 

moaning in pain and entered her cell to bring her medication for a 

toothache, Captain Robert Martinez immediately suspended him for a 

week beginning on March 22 to complete an internal investigation. 

On March 26, 1990, Sheriff Harold Martinez recommended Deputy 

Rodriguez resign or be terminated, citing the liability created by 

his inability to follow the rules. Deputy Rodriguez resigned that 

same day. 

The district court dismissed Ms. Adkins' complaint against 

defendant Rodriguez3 finding no clearly established right under 

the Eighth Amendment at the time of his actions for a prisoner to 

be free of verbal sexual harassment. Recognizing that "extreme 

deprivations," Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 320 (1986), must 

underlie a conditions of confinement claim under the Eighth 

3 We do not address Ms. Adkins' claims against other county 

officials, the district court having dismissed them as well. Ms. 

Adkins has not raised them in this appeal. 

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Appellate Case: 94-1328 Document: 01019276553 Date Filed: 07/06/1995 Page: 4 
Amendment, the district court was constrained to construe Ms. 

Adkins' complaint to suggest she "was 

civilized measure of life's necessities,'" 

denied 'the minimal 

quoting Rhodes v. 

Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 347 (1981). The court further reasoned, 

because allegations of sexual harassment do not state a section 

1983 violation in an employment context, Poe v. Haydon, 853 F.2d 

418 (6th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1007 (1989); 

therefore, Ms. Adkins could not set forth a claim showing a 

clearly established right to be free of sexual harassment in a 

prison setting. Upon this basis, the court granted defendant 

qualified immunity from suit. 

In this appeal, Ms. Adkins contends the right of privacy is 

not entirely extinguished in a prison setting nor exclusively 

bounded by the contours of the Eighth Amendment. She relies upon 

Cumbey v. Meachum, 684 F.2d 712, 714 (lOth Cir. 1982) (per 

curiam), which stated, "[a]though the inmates' right to privacy 

must yield to the penal institution's need to maintain security, 

it does not vanish altogether." While conceding she has found no 

case involving an Eighth Amendment violation absent prisoner 

contact or touching, Ms. Adkins characterizes the implicit threat 

within the alleged sexual harassment as force sufficient to amount 

to a type of physical assault. 

Our de novo review of the district court's granting summary 

judgment of Rodriguez's qualified immunity defense proceeds 

"somewhat differently than other summary judgment rulings." 

Hannula v. Ci~ of Lakewood, 907 F.2d 129, 130 (lOth Cir. 1990). 

Having raised the defense of qualified immunity, defendant then 

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Appellate Case: 94-1328 Document: 01019276553 Date Filed: 07/06/1995 Page: 5 
places the onus on the plaintiff to establish defendant has 

violated a clearly established law. Hovater v. Robinson, 1 F.3d 

1063, 1066 (lOth Cir. 1993). Because qualified immunity is an 

affirmative defense to a section 1983 action, providing immunity 

from suit from the outset, we have stated, "[t]he question of 

qualified immunity therefore dovetails almost precisely with the 

substantive inquiry in a section 1983 action; both depend on the 

specific contours of the constitutional right at issue." Wilson 

v. Meeks, F. 3d , Nos. 94-3179, 94-3180, 1995 WL 233057, at 

*5 (lOth Cir. Apr. 20, 1995). 

Consequently, Ms. Adkins bears the burden of establishing 

that in 1990, she had a clearly established right to be free from 

verbal sexual harassment while an inmate at the Huerfano County 

Jail. Although she generally invokes the First, Third, Fourth, 

Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, her claim remains 

bounded by the Eighth Amendment, the "explicit textual source of 

constitutional protection," Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395 

(1989), in the prison context.4 "It is undisputed that the 

treatment a prisoner receives in prison and the conditions under 

which he is confined are subject to scrutiny under the Eighth 

Amendment." Helling v. McKinney, __ u.s. I 113 s. Ct. 2475, 

2480 (1993). 

4 Indeed, Ms. Adkins' allegations are insufficient under any 

but the Eighth Amendment. For example, she does not allege the 

violation of her right of privacy arose out of an unreasonable 

search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment or she was denied 

substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment when she 

was sexually harassed. 

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Guided by "contemporary standards of decency," Estelle v. 

Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103 (1976), the Court has addressed those 

minimal standards of providing humane conditions of confinement, 

Helling, 113 S. Ct. at 2480, and prison officials' duties to 

assure the safety of inmates. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 

526-27 (1984). Even under these parameters, the Court will find 

an Eighth Amendment violation only when the alleged deprivation is 

"objectively, 'sufficiently serious,'" and the prison official 

acts with "'deliberate indifference' to inmate health or safety." 

Farmer v. Brennan, U.S. 114 S. Ct. 1970, 1977 (1994) 

(quoting Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 298, 302-03 (1991)). In 

Farmer the Court resolved the meaning of the deliberate 

indifference standard. "[A] prison official may be held liable 

under the Eighth Amendment for denying humane conditions of 

confinement only if he knows that inmates face a substantial risk 

of serious harm and disregards that risk by failing to take 

reasonable measures to abate it." Farmer, 114 S. Ct. at 1984. 

Here, Ms. Adkins alleged the sexual harassment and the 

unauthorized appearance of Deputy Rodriguez in her cell violated 

her rights "to be free from threats of violence and sexual assault 

and/or sexual intimidation, to be free from cruel and unusual 

punishment, to be free from unjustified harassment." While she 

has described outrageous and unacceptable conduct by a jailer, we 

must find the connection between those acts and the constitutional 

right violated. "[N]ot ... every malevolent touch by a prison 

guard gives rise to a federal cause of action. . . . The Eighth 

Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment 

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necessarily excludes from constitutional recognition de minimis 

uses of physical force, provided that the use of force is not of a 

sort repugnant to the conscience of mankind." Hudson v. 

McMjllian, 503 U.S. 1, 9-10 (1992) (internal quotation marks and 

citations omitted; emphasis supplied) . 

Although Ms. Adkins did not allege defendant touched her, she 

maintains his verbal abuse is tantamount to the physical 

intimidation proscribed in Ramos v. Lamm, 639 F.2d 559, 572 (lOth 

Cir. 1980) (Eighth Amendment includes inmates' right to reasonably 

safe environment), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 1041 (1981). However, 

in the context of Eighth Amendment precedent, under the facts 

alleged here, we cannot infuse defendant's words of sexual 

harassment with the sort of violence or threats of violence 

cognizable in the conditions of confinement cases the Court has 

addressed. See, e.g., Hudson, 503 U.S. at 1 (use of excessive 

force against prisoner beaten by prison guards may constitute 

cruel and unusual punishment even if inmate does not suffer 

serious bodily injury). Nor does our own precedent upon which Ms. 

Adkins relies, Cumbey, 684 F.2d at 712, and Hovater, 1 F.3d at 

1063, support her claim. 

Although we stated in Cumbey inmates have a right to privacy 

limited by legitimate penological interests in prison security, 

the statement was addressed to a threshold determination whether 

plaintiff's entire action was properly dismissed as frivolous.-

Thus, we vacated a portion of a district court's order dismissing 

an inmate's complaint that female guards' regular viewing of male 

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Appellate Case: 94-1328 Document: 01019276553 Date Filed: 07/06/1995 Page: 8 
inmates engaged in personal activities does not "necessarily fall 

short of a cognizable constitutional claim." 684 F.2d at 714. 

In Hovater, we upheld the grant of qualified immunity to a 

sheriff whose detention officer forcibly sodomized a female inmate 

in the jail he supervised. Although the claim there was not 

asserted against the perpetrator as here, the case provides us a 

guide because we applied the deliberate indifference standard. We 

concluded while "an inmate has a constitutional right to be secure 

in her bodily integrity and free from attack by prison guards," 1 

F.3d at 1068, absent the allegation defendant knew his detention 

officer posed a threat of safety to female inmates, plaintiff 

failed to meet her burden of establishing a constitutional 

violation. Ms. Adkins' allegations are similarly flawed because 

she did not establish the single invasion of her cell constituted 

the deliberate indifference required for a violation of her Eighth 

Amendment rights. The district court therefore properly granted 

summary judgment on defendant's affirmative defense of qualified 

immunity. 

We AFFIRM. 

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