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Jail Policy of Cross Gender Guard Doesn’t Establish Liability in Guard Rape
The plaintiff alleged that a male guard had engaged in sex with her, taking advantage of her mental and physical state. The officer was fired and entered an Alford plea to criminal charges.
A policy of "cross-gender guarding" is not unconstitutional, and the municipality cannot be held liable for it. At 550: "It is simply not sufficient, for 1983 purposes, to show that a municipal policy put an employee in the position to commit a constitutional tort. More evidence of causation is necessary." Nor is there evidence of deliberate indifference, since the County does protect prisoners against mistreatment, e.g., by having a policy against male guards' strip-searching females absent emergency; there was no prior history of assaults by the defendant or others; and when notified, the County moved quickly to investigate. The plaintiff alleged unofficial policies or customs of allowing officers to medicate prisoners or compel them to take psychoactive drugs, and to allow officers nearly unlimited discretion over solitary confinement, but offered no proof of these.
The plaintiff had no excessive force claim against the guard, since there was no evidence that his actions were "motivated by malice or the will to pain." (551) Nor did she have an Eighth Amendment claim, since a random sexual assault is not "punishment." (The court cites Johnson v. Glick, long since abandoned elsewhere.) However, the allegations of sexual activity while the plaintiff was mentally incapacitated "shock the judicial conscience" in light of guards' power over prisoners, and therefore state a Fourteenth Amendment claim under the deliberate indifference standard. (552)
Punitive damages under state law require a finding of actual malice, unlike 1983, which requires only a showing of reckless or callous indifference. See: Cain v. Rock, 67 F.Supp.2d 544 (D.Md. 1999).
A policy of "cross-gender guarding" is not unconstitutional, and the municipality cannot be held liable for it. At 550: "It is simply not sufficient, for 1983 purposes, to show that a municipal policy put an employee in the position to commit a constitutional tort. More evidence of causation is necessary." Nor is there evidence of deliberate indifference, since the County does protect prisoners against mistreatment, e.g., by having a policy against male guards' strip-searching females absent emergency; there was no prior history of assaults by the defendant or others; and when notified, the County moved quickly to investigate. The plaintiff alleged unofficial policies or customs of allowing officers to medicate prisoners or compel them to take psychoactive drugs, and to allow officers nearly unlimited discretion over solitary confinement, but offered no proof of these.
The plaintiff had no excessive force claim against the guard, since there was no evidence that his actions were "motivated by malice or the will to pain." (551) Nor did she have an Eighth Amendment claim, since a random sexual assault is not "punishment." (The court cites Johnson v. Glick, long since abandoned elsewhere.) However, the allegations of sexual activity while the plaintiff was mentally incapacitated "shock the judicial conscience" in light of guards' power over prisoners, and therefore state a Fourteenth Amendment claim under the deliberate indifference standard. (552)
Punitive damages under state law require a finding of actual malice, unlike 1983, which requires only a showing of reckless or callous indifference. See: Cain v. Rock, 67 F.Supp.2d 544 (D.Md. 1999).
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Related legal case
Cain v. Rock
| Year | 1999 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 67 F.Supp.2d 544 (D.Md. 1999) |
| Level | District Court |
| Injunction Status | N/A |