Opinion ID: 158619
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Consent Instructions

Text: 14 Ms. Giron challenges the consent instructions given by the district court over her counsel's objection. See Aple. Supp. App. at 113; Aplt. App. at 301. Instruction No. 12 stated: 15 Consent is willingness in fact for conduct to occur. It may be manifested by action or inaction and need not be communicated to the actor. 16 If words or conduct are reasonably understood by another to be intended as consent, they constitute apparent consent and are as effective as consent in fact. 17 Aplt. App. at 330. The court informed the jury, in Instruction No. 13, that effective consent is consent by one who has the capacity to consent . . . to the particular conduct, or to substantially the same conduct and that consent can be exceeded by the defendant or terminated by the plaintiff. Aplt. App. at 331. 18 Ms. Giron argues that Instruction Nos. 12 and 13 erroneously required her to prove lack of consent as an element of her case. In her view, because all of her claims were premised on the allegation that Mr. Torrez raped her, the court should not have instructed the jury that she must prove lack of consent, in addition to rape. 19 As a threshold matter, we note that Ms. Giron's failure to appeal the adverse special verdict on her battery claim does not prevent us from reviewing Instruction Nos. 12 and 13. Although lack of consent appears to be an element of battery under New Mexico law, see Sanford v. Presto Mfg. Co., 594 P.2d 1202, 1203 (N.M. Ct. App. 1979), the jury was not so instructed. To find battery, the court required that (1) Defendant Torrez touched Plaintiff and (2) Defendant Torrez touched Plaintiff in a rude, angry, or insolent manner. Aplt. App. at 327. Hence, the jury's finding of no battery under this instruction does not conclusively resolve the consent issue. 20 We consider jury instructions in their entirety and reverse only if we determine that the error was prejudicial in light of the record as a whole. See King v. Unocal Corp., 58 F.3d 586, 587 (10th Cir. 1995). The district court did not make clear which claims its consent instructions encompassed; however, they seem to have referred to both the § 1983 claim and the state-law intentional tort claims. 21 Ms. Giron contends she was required to prove lack of consent as an element of her § 1983 excessive force claim. However, Instruction No. 7 informed the jury that CCA and Mr. Torrez relied on Ms. Giron's consent as an affirmative defense. See Aplt. App. at 324. The Tenth Circuit has not previously determined whether a prison guard may raise consent as an affirmative defense to a §1983 allegation of this nature, nor is the law clearly established elsewhere. At least one circuit has gone farther than the district court did here holding that the inmate must . . . prove, as an objective matter, that the alleged abuse or harassment caused 'pain,' Freitas v. Ault, 109 F.3d 1335, 1338 (8th Cir. 1997), and that welcome and voluntary sexual interactions, no matter how inappropriate, cannot as a matter of law constitute 'pain' as contemplated by the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 1339; see also Fisher v. Goord, 981 F. Supp. 140, 174 (W.D.N.Y. 1997) ([C]onsensual sexual interactions between a correction officer and an inmate, although unquestionably inappropriate, and in this Court's view despicable, do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.). However, because Mr. Torrez did not cross-appeal, claiming that Ms. Giron should have borne the burden of proving lack of consent as an element of her § 1983 claim, we need not reach the burden of proof issue decided in Freitas. 22 None of the cases Ms. Giron cites demonstrates that the consent instructions constitute reversible error on her § 1983 claim in this case. State v. Gillette, 699 P.2d 626 (N.M. Ct. App. 1985), and State v. Jimenez, 556 P.2d 60 (N.M. Ct. App. 1976), deal with New Mexico criminal law, rather than federal civil rights claims. A New Mexico statute enacted after Ms. Giron's alleged rape criminalizes sexual penetration of an inmate by a perpetrator in a position of authority over the inmate, N.M. Stat. Ann. 30-9-11(D)(2), but Mr. Torrez was not charged with criminal sexual penetration or any other crime. Moreover, although both Gillette and Jimenez establish that lack of consent is not an element of criminal sexual penetration in New Mexico, see Gillette, 699 P.2d at 631; Jimenez, 556 P.2d at 63, neither bars a defendant from raising consent as an affirmative defense to that state criminal charge. In contrast to those New Mexico cases, Ms. Giron's claim of excessive force was plead as forcible rape, necessarily involving lack of consent, and therefore, even if the district court erred in giving Instruction Nos. 12 and 13 (because they might suggest that she was required to prove lack of consent), such error was harmless. 23 We also reject Ms. Giron's challenge to these instructions with regard to her state-law intentional tort claims. New Mexico's Uniform Jury Instructions do not include an instruction on assault and battery because there [is] insufficient New Mexico law on the subject. 3 N.M. Rules Ann. UJI 13-1624 Comm. Cmt. (Michie 1999). However, at least one New Mexico case states: For there to a be a battery, there must be an unpermitted contact. . . . 'The gist of the action for battery is not the hostile intent of the defendant, but rather the absence of consent to the contact on the part of the plaintiff.' Sanford, 594 P.2d at 1203 (internal citations omitted) (quoting Prosser, Laws of Torts (4th ed. 1971)). At the very least, [c]onsent is a defense for intentional torts like assault and battery under New Mexico law. Yount v. Johnson, 915 P.2d 341, 346 (N.M. Ct. App. 1996). Thus, it was proper to instruct the jury on consent with regard to the intentional tort claims. 24 Finally, Ms. Giron challenges Instruction No. 12 on the ground that it amounted to a mistake of fact instruction. We first note that the instruction did not refer subjectively to Mr. Torrez or the Defendant, but rather created an objective standard for words or conduct [that] are reasonably understood by another to be intended as consent. Aplt. App. at 330 (emphasis added). Second, while Ms. Giron argues that she resisted sexual intercourse, she has not submitted a trial transcript. As we stated in King, 58 F.3d at 587, [i]t is the appellant's responsibility to provide us with a proper record on appeal. Even if Instruction No. 12 did address mistake of fact, we cannot determine whether the evidence at trial supported it. See id. at 587-88. Based on the case law and the sparse record before us, we hold that neither Instruction No. 12 nor No. 13 deprived Ms. Giron of a fair trial.