Opinion ID: 77193
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Substantive Claims Related to Compelled Masturbation

Text: 10 We joined other circuits recognizing a prisoner's constitutional right to bodily privacy in Fortner v. Thomas, 983 F.2d 1024 (11th Cir.1993). In Fortner, female officers. . . solicit[ed] . . . [male prisoners] to masturbate and otherwise exhibit their genitals for the female officers' viewing. Id. at 1027. We held that this violated the prisoner's right to privacy. Id. at 1030. Fortner outlined a very narrow privacy right involving people's `special sense of privacy in their genitals' and noted that `involuntary exposure of them in the presence of people of the other sex may be especially demeaning and humiliating.' Id. (citing Lee v. Downs, 641 F.2d 1117, 1119 (4th Cir.1981)). We have reaffirmed the privacy rights of prisoners emphasizing the harm of compelled nudity. See Padgett v. Donald, 401 F.3d 1273, 1281 (11th Cir.2005). Nonetheless, we continue to approach the scope of the privacy right on a case-by-case basis. Fortner, 983 F.2d at 1030. 11 In this case, Boxer's claim is clearly within the scope of the right established in Fortner. Harris, a female prison guard, solicited Boxer to masturbate for her viewing. If his allegations are true, Boxer has stated a § 1983 claim for violation of his privacy rights under Fortner.
12 Boxer also appeals the dismissal of his claim under the Eighth Amendment, which forbids the imposition of cruel and unusual punishment. In the context of a prisoner's conditions of confinement after incarceration, prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment through the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 835, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 1977, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) (quotations omitted). In this case, we join other circuits recognizing that severe or repetitive sexual abuse of a prisoner by a prison official can violate the Eighth Amendment. See, e.g., Giron v. Corrections Corp. of Am., 191 F.3d 1281, 1290 (10th Cir.1999); Freitas v. Ault, 109 F.3d 1335, 1338 (8th Cir.1997); Boddie v. Schnieder, 105 F.3d 857, 860-61 (2d Cir.1997). [S]exual abuse of a prisoner by a corrections officer has no legitimate penological purpose, and is simply not part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses against society. Boddie, 105 F.3d at 861 (citation and quotation omitted). Following Boddie, we conclude that there is an objective component of the inquiry, which requires that the injury be objectively, sufficiently serious, and a subjective component, which requires the prison official have a sufficiently culpable state of mind. See id. at 861 (citing Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. at 1977). However, under our circuit precedent about the nature of actionable injuries under the Eighth Amendment, an injury can be objectively, sufficiently serious only if there is more than de minimis injury. See Johnson v. Breeden, 280 F.3d 1308, 1321 (11th Cir.2002). 13 On the facts as alleged in the complaint, however, Boxer has failed to meet this standard. We conclude that a female prison guard's solicitation of a male prisoner's manual masturbation, even under the threat of reprisal, does not present more than de minimis injury. Accordingly, we affirm the dismissal of Boxer's claim under the Eighth Amendment. 3