UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

GARY HEIDEL, individually; MICHELE 

ASCHBACHER, individually; CAMILLE 

ROWELL, individually; KERSTEN 

HEIDEL, individually; MICHAEL 

ROWELL, individually and as the personal 

representative of the Estate of Catherine 

Rowell, 

 Plaintiffs - Appellants, 

v. 

SHERIFF ANTHONY MAZZOLA, in his 

individual and official capacity; 

SERGEANT JEREMY MUXLOW, in his 

individual capacity; DEPUTY KIM 

COOK, in his individual capacity; 

DEPUTY CLINTON KILDUFF, in his 

individual capacity; DEPUTY JOHNNY 

MURRAY, in his individual capacity, 

 Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 20-1067 

(D.C. No. 1:18-CV-00378-REB-GPG) 

(D. Colo.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge, KELLY, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.**

_________________________________ 

* This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines 

of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for 

its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. ** After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of 

this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

March 23, 2021

Christopher M. Wolpert 

Clerk of Court
2 

Plaintiffs-Appellants Gary Heidel, Michele Aschbacher, Camille Rowell, 

Kersten Heidel, and Michael Rowell (collectively, “the Estate”), appeal from the 

district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants-Appellees in their 

civil rights action. Plaintiffs’ decedent, Catherine Rowell, committed suicide while a 

pretrial detainee at the Rio Blanco County Detention Center. On appeal, the Estate 

argues there is ample evidence showing the jail officials’ deliberate indifference, in 

violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, toward Ms. Rowell’s risk of suicide. 

Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm. 

Background1

On February 12, 2016, Ms. Rowell was arrested in Rangely, Colorado, and 

booked into the Rio Blanco County Detention Center (“the jail”). Ms. Rowell had 

also been confined at the jail a few days earlier as well as in February and August of 

2015. Ms. Rowell spent most of her time sleeping and refused to go outside during 

recreation time. Although she ate some of her meals, Ms. Rowell showed signs of a 

loss of appetite by either refusing to eat or not finishing her meals. Officers believed 

this behavior was consistent with their previous interactions with Ms. Rowell. On 

February 15, an officer checked on Ms. Rowell around 1:55 p.m. and discovered her 

in the day room with a 33-inch armored telephone cord wrapped around her neck. 

They were unable to revive her. 

1

 Because the parties are familiar with the case, we provide only a limited 

factual recitation. 
3 

Sheriff Mazzola was in charge of the jail. For its part, the jail’s suicide policy 

largely consisted of moving suicidal inmates for more frequent observation and 

contacting a mental health organization that provided services. Jail officers received 

on-the-job suicide training but nothing more formal than that. The policy manual 

also instructed officers to conduct cell checks every hour, but the evidence shows 

they occasionally waited longer. In fact, the parties contest whether officers checked 

on Ms. Rowell at 1:00 p.m. — an hour before her suicide — and the district court 

appeared to accept that they did not check on her for the purpose of its analysis. See 

5 Aplt. App. 1295. 

The Estate brought this action against the sheriff in his individual and official 

capacities and the other officers in their individual capacities, raising federal and 

state-law claims. The district court granted Defendants’ motion for summary 

judgment on the federal claims concluding, inter alia, that the Estate failed to 

establish an underlying constitutional violation or deliberate indifference by Sheriff 

Mazzola.2

 The district court dismissed the supplemental state law claims without 

prejudice. 

2

 After Defendants filed their motion for summary judgment, the Estate 

voluntarily withdrew all of its claims except the official-capacity claim against 

Sheriff Mazzola and the individual-capacity claim against Sergeant Jeremy Muxlow. 

5 Aplt. App. 1283. In its order, the district court also granted summary judgment in 

favor of Sergeant Muxlow. Id. at 1299. The Estate did not appeal that decision. 
4 

Discussion

We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, “drawing 

all reasonable inferences and resolving all factual disputes in favor of [the Estate].” 

Murphy v. City of Tulsa, 950 F.3d 641, 643 (10th Cir. 2019) (citation omitted). The 

Estate’s claim against Sheriff Mazzola in his official capacity is equivalent to a suit 

against a governmental entity; thus, our municipal-liability cases apply. See Cox v. 

Glanz, 800 F.3d 1231, 1254 (10th Cir. 2015). For the Estate to succeed against 

Sheriff Mazzola, it must show (1) an official government policy or custom, (2) that 

caused a constitutional injury, and (3) requisite state of mind. Schneider v. City of 

Grand Junction Police Dep’t, 717 F.3d 760, 769 (10th Cir. 2013). 

Claims based on a jail suicide usually implicate an alleged “failure of jail 

officials to provide medical care for those in their custody.” Cox, 800 F.3d at 1248 

(citation omitted). Therefore, recovery requires a showing of deliberate indifference, 

id., which requires establishing an objective and subjective component. Strain v. 

Regalado, 977 F.3d 984, 989 (10th Cir. 2020).3 Suicide satisfies the objective 

component. Collins v. Seeman, 462 F.3d 757, 760 (7th Cir. 2006); see Martinez v. 

Beggs, 563 F.3d 1082, 1088 (10th Cir. 2009). For the subjective component, the 

Estate must show that jail officials “knew [Ms. Rowell] faced a substantial risk of 

harm and disregarded that risk, by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it.” 

3

 The Estate argued that only the objective component needs to be established 

under Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015). Aplt. Br. at 31–35. As the 

parties recognize in their supplemental authority letters, this argument has been 

foreclosed by our recent decision in Strain. See 977 F.3d at 989–91. 
5 

Quintana v. Santa Fe Cnty. Bd. of Comm’rs, 973 F.3d 1022, 1029 (10th Cir. 2020) 

(citation omitted). 

On appeal, the Estate argues that various jail officers were deliberately 

indifferent because they failed to inquire about Ms. Rowell’s suicidal tendencies, and 

they failed to regularly check on her despite the risk of suicide. The Estate also 

contends that, when viewed collectively, the officers’ actions and other deficiencies 

at the jail are enough to establish its deliberate-indifference claim. We disagree. 

To start, the Estate cannot establish an underlying constitutional violation by 

any of the jail’s officers because they did not have subjective awareness of Ms. 

Rowell’s risk of suicide. Although excessive sleeping, signs of diminished appetite, 

and refusing to go outside for recreation time can arguably be viewed as suicidal 

characteristics, they can be “susceptible to a number of interpretations.” See Cox, 

800 F.3d at 1253. Officers viewed this behavior as common among inmates and 

consistent with Ms. Rowell’s previous time at the jail. No evidence suggests that Ms. 

Rowell mentioned her suicidal thoughts to an officer. Although the Estate argues 

that the subjective component can be shown by a risk of harm to the inmate 

population as a whole, our cases have typically required knowledge about a specific 

inmate’s risk of suicide. Id. at 1249–51. 

Moreover, the officers’ failure to follow jail procedures does not equate with a 

constitutional violation. The Estate alleges that the booking questionnaire was not 

properly administered and that officers failed to conduct hourly cell checks. 

However, an officer’s failure to follow internal jail policies does not automatically 
6 

mean he or she acted with deliberate indifference. See Hovater v. Robinson, 1 F.3d 

1063, 1068 n.4 (10th Cir. 1993). Especially when considering the lack of evidence 

regarding the officers’ subjective awareness, the alleged deviations from timely cell 

checks and proper booking do not amount to deliberate indifference in these 

circumstances. 

The Estate’s comparison of the officers in this case to the defendants in Lemire 

v. Cal. Dep’t of Corrs. and Rehab., 726 F.3d 1062 (9th Cir. 2013), is not persuasive 

because Lemire is readily distinguishable. In that case, defendants violated jail 

policy by pulling all floor staff from a unit to attend a staff meeting. Id. at 1070–71. 

The unit — which housed mentally-ill patients taking psychotropic medication — 

was left unmonitored for three-and-a-half hours, which resulted in an inmate’s 

suicide. Id. There was a triable issue on deliberate indifference because the 

defendants knew the specific risks posed to the inmates and they knew it was the 

“primary” duty of floor staff to prevent suicide attempts. Id. at 1078–79. Thus, the 

Lemire defendants had far more specific knowledge about the risks posed by 

inadequate supervision of inmates. 

The Estate next attempts to show a cognizable injury by aggregating every 

officers’ conduct with various other shortcomings at the jail to show a systemic 

failure. Even recognizing that combined actions or omissions pursuant to a 

governmental policy or custom may violate constitutional rights, see Garcia v. Salt 

Lake Cnty., 768 F.2d 303, 310 (10th Cir. 1985), the fact remains that the officers 

lacked knowledge of Ms. Rowell’s risk of suicide. As for any deficiencies in the 
7 

jail’s training and policies, we do not think that they amount to a systemic failure 

given the reasonable efforts to “protect the prisoners’ safety and bodily integrity.” 

Cox, 800 F.3d at 1248 (citation omitted). The Estate’s arguments about the jail’s 

facilities “all sound remarkably like the tort of negligent design, a state remedy, not a 

constitutional violation.” Bame v. Iron Cnty., 566 F. App’x 731, 740 (10th Cir. 

2014); see Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 835 (1994) (“[D]eliberate indifference 

entails something more than mere negligence . . . .”). 

The Seventh Circuit decision relied upon by the Estate is readily 

distinguishable. See Woodward v. Corr. Med. Servs. of Ill., Inc., 368 F.3d 917 (7th 

Cir. 2004). In Woodward, the court upheld a jury verdict that a defendant was 

deliberately indifferent to an inmate’s risk of suicide. Id. at 919. But there, the 

defendant failed to train staff, condoned violating policies meant to help suicidal 

inmates, and ignored the inmate’s explicit warnings about his mental health and 

thoughts of suicide. Id. at 927–29. 

We also note that the Estate cannot show state of mind, an essential element of 

a municipal-liability claim. See Schneider, 717 F.3d at 770–71. In the context of an 

official-capacity claim, a plaintiff must show: 

the municipality has actual or constructive notice that its action or failure 

to act is substantially certain to result in a constitutional violation, and it 

consciously or deliberately chooses to disregard the risk of harm. In most 

instances, notice can be established by proving the existence of a pattern 

of tortious conduct. In a narrow range of circumstances, however, 

deliberate indifference may be found absent a pattern of unconstitutional 

behavior if a violation of federal rights is a highly predictable or plainly 

obvious consequence of a municipality’s action or inaction[.] 
8 

Id. at 771 (quoting Barney v. Pulsipher, 143 F.3d 1299, 1307 (10th Cir. 1998)). 

Here, the jail has had one suicide-by-hanging from decades ago and one recent 

attempted suicide-by-drowning. While tragic, this is not a pattern of conduct that 

would establish actual notice of a substantially high risk of suicide. Nor is this one 

of those rare circumstances where the jail’s operating procedures were so deficient, 

or the risk of the telephone cord was so obvious, that it would “be liable under § 1983 

without proof of a pre-existing pattern of violations.” Connick v. Thompson, 563 

U.S. 51, 64 (2011). 

AFFIRMED. 

Entered for the Court 

Paul J. Kelly, Jr. 

Circuit Judge