Opinion ID: 177118
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Prospective Relief to Address Inadequate Food

Text: The district court concluded that the Eighth Amendment requires that prisoners receive food that is adequate to maintain health. LeMaire v. Maass, 12 F.3d 1444, 1456 (9th Cir.1993). The Amended Judgment required that detainees be provided food that meets or exceeds the Department of Agriculture's Dietary Guidelines. The Dietary Guidelines recommend 2400 calories daily for males aged 19-30 with a sedentary activity level, and 2600-2800 calories daily for males aged 19-30 with a moderately active lifestyle. The district court found that, if Sheriff Arpaio afforded pretrial detainees the amount of recreation time they were entitled to under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, most predetainees would fall into the moderately active category. The Maricopa County dietician testified that he designs menus to provide each prisoner with approximately 2400 to 2500 calories a day. The district court did not credit this testimony because the menus submitted to the court were exceedingly vague, it was clear that the dietician did not actually know what prisoners were fed, and substantial testimony from pretrial detainees established that they are often given food that is overripe, moldy, and generally inedible. The district court ultimately found that pretrial detainees are not given food that satisfies the Dietary Guidelines and that Sheriff Arpaio had produced no evidence showing that the Dietary Guidelines exceed what was necessary for adequate nutrition. Sheriff Arpaio does not contest the district court's conclusion that the Eighth Amendment requires adequate nutrition or the court's factual findings. [3] He argues only that the relief ordered by the Amended Judgment and now the Second Amended Judgmentthat Sheriff Arpaio provide food to pretrial detainees that meets or exceeds the United States Department of Agriculture's Dietary Guidelines for Americans is not narrowly tailored to the requirements of the Eighth Amendment. We disagree. As the movant, the burden was on Sheriff Arpaio to demonstrate that the relief ordered by the Amended Judgment went beyond what is necessary to remedy the ongoing constitutional violations at the Maricopa County jails. See Gilmore, 220 F.3d at 1008 (holding that the district court erred by not plac[ing] the burden on the state to show that the 1972 Order exceeded the constitutional minimum). Sheriff Arpaio does not point to any evidence in the record supporting his assertion that 2600 to 2800 calories is more than what is required for adequate nutrition. Instead, he relies on this court's decision in Hoptowit v. Ray, 682 F.2d 1237 (9th Cir.1982), which states that a court may consider opinions of experts and pertinent organizations when determining whether prison conditions violate the Eighth Amendment, [b]ut these opinions will not ordinarily establish constitutional minima. Id. at 1246. While instructive, Hoptowit is not dispositive; Hoptowit discussed what a district court may consider when determining the minimum required by the Eighth Amendment, while we are concerned with whether the PLRA's narrow tailoring requirement is violated because the Dietary Guidelines are too far from the Eighth Amendment minimum. The abuse of discretion standard does not require us to measure the distance between the Eighth Amendment's adequate nutrition standard and the nutrition standards established by the United States Dietary Guidelines. It requires that we are satisfied that the two are not so far apart that adopting the Dietary Guidelines is illogical, implausible, or without support in inferences that may be drawn from facts in the record, Hinkson, 585 F.3d at 1264, and therefore violative of the PLRA's narrow tailoring requirement. In light of the evidence in the recordwhich includes nothing from Sheriff Arpaio to suggest that the Dietary Guidelines exceed what is necessary for adequate nutritionwe cannot say that it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to order Arpaio to provide food that satisfies the Dietary Guidelines.