Opinion ID: 2832201
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Requirement to Admit a Sex Offense

Text: Allen’s second claim—which it appears the district court considered in dismissing his first claim for relief in his initial complaint—attacks the SOMB’s 7 requirement that he admit guilt to a sex offense as part of his completing sex-offender treatment. The district court dismissed this claim because it found that, as an entity of the state, SOMB has Eleventh Amendment immunity absent a waiver. When Allen claimed in his motion for reconsideration that he was seeking to sue the SOMB members in their individual capacities, the district court additionally determined that the defendants had not violated Allen’s Fifth Amendment rights by requiring that he admit guilt to a sex offense because this requirement served a legitimate penological interest. We believe both of these rationales have merit, but we address only the second one because it would hold true regardless of whether Allen’s claim was against SOMB officials in their individual or official capacities. We agree that Allen cannot allege a violation of his Fifth Amendment rights on these facts. First, we note that the Supreme Court has held that “when 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). And, second, in Doe v. Heil, 533 F. App’x 831 (10th Cir. 2013) (unpublished), a case challenging Colorado’s prison regulations that required full disclosure of sexual history as part of a sex-offender-treatment program, we concluded that Colorado furthered its legitimate penological interest in rehabilitating sex offenders “by requiring them, without regard to their Fifth Amendment stake in avoiding self-incrimination, to submit to a polygraph and admit their full sexual history.” Id. at 839–840. Allen provides us with no basis to vary from this holding. 8