Opinion ID: 4503539
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Fourteenth Amendment Right to be Free From

Text: Punishment “The status of the detainees determines the appropriate standard for evaluating conditions of confinement.” Gary H. v. Hegstrom, 831 F.2d 1430, 1432 (9th Cir. 1987). “Due 16 VAZQUEZ V. COUNTY OF KERN process requires that a pretrial detainee not be punished. A sentenced inmate, on the other hand, may be punished, although that punishment may not be ‘cruel and unusual’ under the Eighth Amendment.” Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 537 n.16 (1979). “For a particular governmental action to constitute punishment, (1) that action must cause the detainee to suffer some harm or ‘disability,’ and (2) the purpose of the governmental action must be to punish the detainee.” Demery v. Arpaio, 378 F.3d 1020, 1029 (9th Cir. 2004) (citing Bell, 441 U.S. at 538). “[T]o constitute punishment, the harm or disability caused by the government’s action must either significantly exceed, or be independent of, the inherent discomforts of confinement.” Id. at 1030 (citation omitted). Once harm is established, the court considers “whether this harm is imposed ‘for the purpose of punishment or whether it is but an incident of some other legitimate governmental purpose.’” Id. (quoting Bell, 441 U.S. at 538). Here, we evaluate Vazquez’s right to be free from punishment under the Fourteenth Amendment. See Gary H., 831 F.2d at 1432 (concluding that the district court correctly evaluated the conditions of confinement at a facility for adolescent wards of the juvenile court under the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause rather than the Eighth Amendment). 8 The district court acknowledged that Vazquez’s claim stems from the Fourteenth Amendment, 8 In an amicus brief filed in support of Vazquez, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (“the ACLU”) argues that we should evaluate Vazquez’s claims under an even more protective standard than the Constitution provides to adult pretrial detainees. We do not address this argument because Vazquez can prevail under our existing Fourteenth Amendment standards. VAZQUEZ V. COUNTY OF KERN 17 rather than the Eighth Amendment, but erred in its conclusion that it should evaluate the Fourteenth Amendment claim under “the same standards” as an Eighth Amendment claim. Rather, the Fourteenth Amendment is more protective than the Eighth Amendment “because the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits all punishment of pretrial detainees, while the Eighth Amendment only prevents the imposition of cruel and unusual punishment of convicted prisoners.” Demery, 378 F.3d at 1029 (citing Bell, 441 U.S. at 535 n.16) (emphasis added). In Byrd, we considered, among other issues, whether allegations that female guards observed a pretrial detainee in the bathroom and shower violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. 845 F.3d at 921–22, 924. There, the district court sua sponte dismissed the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A after concluding that the policy of allowing crossgender supervision had long been held constitutional in the Ninth Circuit. Id. at 922. Because no evidence had yet been presented to support potential goals behind the observation policy and because the prison’s strip search policy potentially banned this type of observation, we concluded that the allegations were sufficient to proceed past the screening stage. Id. at 924. Here, Vazquez has asserted facts from which a jury could find that Anderson violated her right to be free from punishment. First, Vazquez alleged that Anderson’s conduct caused her harm outside of the inherent discomforts of confinement. Second, Anderson’s alleged conduct did not serve a legitimate governmental objective. As discussed above, there is evidence that Anderson’s alleged viewing of Vazquez in the shower served no legitimate purpose as such observations were against institution policy. See Byrd, 18 VAZQUEZ V. COUNTY OF KERN 845 F.3d at 924. Anderson’s other alleged conduct— including selecting Vazquez for work details so they could be alone together; calling Vazquez “babe”; telling her she had a “big butt”; touching her face and shoulders; commenting on her shower gown; telling her that he had seen her in the shower and that she should leave her boyfriend to find someone like him; directing her to use certain showers; telling her about a sexual dream he had about her and that he wanted the dream to come true; and directing her “to get close to him . . . to the point where he had opened his knees and [she] was right in the middle of him”—serves no legitimate purpose. In light of this record evidence, we hold that a jury could find that Anderson violated Vazquez’s Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from punishment.