Opinion ID: 734125
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sexual Abuse Claims

Text: 11 The district court expressed some doubt as to whether a prisoner's claim for sexual abuse could lie under Section 1983. We note that there is nothing in the decisions of the Supreme Court or of this court that denies the existence of such a claim and there is, instead, much to support it. We therefore conclude that sexual abuse of a prisoner by a corrections officer may in some circumstances violate the prisoner's right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. 12 The Eighth Amendment sets constitutional boundaries on the conditions of imprisonment. The unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain on a prisoner constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 319, 106 S.Ct. 1078, 1084, 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). An official violates the Eighth Amendment when two requirements are met. See, e.g., Branham v. Meachum, 77 F.3d 626, 630 (2d Cir.1996). First, the alleged punishment must be, objectively, sufficiently serious. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 1977, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) (internal quotation marks omitted); Branham, 77 F.3d at 630. Under the objective standard, conditions that cannot be said to be cruel and unusual under contemporary standards are not unconstitutional. Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 347, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 2399, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981). Second, the prison official involved must have a sufficiently culpable state of mind. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. at 1977 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Branham, 77 F.3d at 630. Because sexual abuse by a corrections officer may constitute serious harm inflicted by an officer with a sufficiently culpable state of mind, allegations of such abuse are cognizable as Eighth Amendment claims. 13 Sexual abuse may violate contemporary standards of decency and can cause severe physical and psychological harm. See, e.g., Women Prisoners of the District of Columbia Dep't of Corrections v. District of Columbia, 877 F.Supp. 634, 664-67 (D.D.C.1994); Jordan v. Gardner, 986 F.2d 1521, 1524-31 (9th Cir.1993) (en banc). For this reason, there can be no doubt that severe or repetitive sexual abuse of an inmate by a prison officer can be objectively, sufficiently serious enough to constitute an Eighth Amendment violation. Cf. Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 347, 101 S.Ct. at 2399 (noting that the list of conditions held cruel and unusual by the Supreme Court is not exclusive). Moreover, like the rape of an inmate by another inmate, sexual 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. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. at 1977 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. ([The] rape of one prisoner by another serves no legitimate penological objective, any more than it squares with evolving standards of decency.) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). 14 The subjective element of the Eighth Amendment test may also be met by claims of sexual abuse. Where no legitimate law enforcement or penological purpose can be inferred from the defendant's alleged conduct, the abuse itself may, in some circumstances, be sufficient evidence of a culpable state of mind. See Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 6-7, 112 S.Ct. 995, 998-99, 117 L.Ed.2d 156 (1992). It is therefore apparent, even without considering exactly what mens rea is necessary to show a wanton state of mind for a claim of sexual abuse, that a prison official who sexually abuses a prisoner can be found to have a sufficiently culpable state of mind to violate the prisoner's constitutional rights. 15 Accordingly, allegations of sexual abuse may meet both the subjective and the objective elements of the constitutional test, thereby stating an Eighth Amendment claim under Section 1983. However, we agree with the district court that Boddie nevertheless failed to state an Eighth Amendment claim. He asserts a small number of incidents in which he allegedly was verbally harassed, touched, and pressed against without his consent. No single incident that he described was severe enough to be objectively, sufficiently serious. Nor were the incidents cumulatively egregious in the harm they inflicted. The isolated episodes of harassment and touching alleged by Boddie are despicable and, if true, they may potentially be the basis of state tort actions. But they do not involve a harm of federal constitutional proportions as defined by the Supreme Court. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 833-34, 114 S.Ct. at 1977; cf. Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 348-349 & 348 n. 13, 101 S.Ct. at 2400-01 & 2400 n. 13 (recognizing that not every deviation from an aspiration toward an ideal environment for long-term confinement amounts to a constitutional violation).