Opinion ID: 597117
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the jailhouse incidents

Text: 2 As a result of an undercover police operation conducted by Defendant-Appellant Gary D. Wiggins, Plaintiff-Appellee Raul Jose Valencia was arrested on drug charges. On July 3, 1987, Valencia was committed to Brewster County (Texas) Jail. Shortly thereafter, Wiggins ceased work as an undercover agent and became Acting Chief Deputy of Brewster County Jail, responsible for, among other things, supervision of the jail. 3 One evening three weeks into his pretrial detention, Valencia took part in a jail disturbance in which the inmates made excessive noise and threw objects out of cells. The next day, the inmates, including Valencia, again created a disturbance by singing and making noise. Jailer Joaquin Jackson requested that the inmates quiet down. When they refused, Jackson summoned Wiggins, who reiterated Jackson's command. Unlike most other inmates, however, Valencia and his cellmate, Gilbert Bebo Espinosa, continued to make noise. Wiggins then ordered Valencia out of his cell. Valencia refused to come out, and instead asked why he was being singled out. At that point, Wiggins entered Valencia's cell to enforce his order. Participants and witnesses give quite different accounts of what transpired next. Valencia contends that Wiggins grabbed him by the hair and bashed his head repeatedly against the cell bars. Wiggins asserts, on the other hand, that Valencia's head accidentally hit the bars during this altercation. Espinosa testified, in what perhaps is a third version of events, that Valencia's head hit the bars when he stiffened his body to resist removal from the cell. Irrespective of those conflicting reasons, there is general agreement on what happened next: Wiggins applied a choke hold that left Valencia momentarily unconscious. After getting him to the floor, Wiggins put Valencia in handcuffs. 4 Wiggins and the other jailer then took Valencia downstairs to the drunk tank. Valencia testified that, after Wiggins ordered the other jailer to close the door and wait, he (Wiggins) went into the drunk tank with Valencia and struck him at least three times while he was handcuffed and on his knees. Not surprisingly, Wiggins's version of events is quite different. He testified that he and the other jailer escorted Valencia to the drunk tank, removed the handcuffs, shut the door, and left Valencia alone in the cell. Wiggins claims that he never struck Valencia. 5 Two days after this incident, and for reasons that are not stated in the record, Valencia was moved to the Pecos County Jail. But because that jail had no room, Valencia was moved once again, this time to the Law Enforcement Center. There, the interviewing jailer noted that Valencia had visible injuries, including bruises on his face and scratches and cuts on his throat, but concluded that these injuries did not require immediate medical attention. Several days later, Valencia was visited by an attorney who also noticed the bruises and scratches. Although Valencia testified that his voice was damaged permanently as a result of the choke hold applied by Wiggins in the upstairs incident, both his cousin and a jailer at the Brewster County Jail (who was also a friend of Valencia's family), testified that they noticed no change.