Adames v. Perez

• Citation: 331 F.3d 508
• Decision Date: 04 June 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-40851.,01-40851.
• Parties: Ciro Cid ADAMES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Orlando PEREZ; et al., Defendants, Orlando Perez; William A. Boothe, Robert Crites, Defendants Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

331 F.3d 508

Ciro Cid ADAMES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Orlando PEREZ; et al., Defendants, Orlando Perez; William A. Boothe, Robert Crites, Defendants Appellants.

No. 01-40851.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

June 4, 2003.

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Mikal C. Watts, Gonzalo Joseph Barrientos (argued), Gregory Lamar Gowan (argued), Watts Law Firm, Corpus Christi, TX, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Carlos D. Lopez (argued), Austin, TX, for Defendants-Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, EMILIO M. GARZA and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.

EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judge:

Ciro Cid Adames ("Adames"), a Texas state prisoner, brought suit against five prison officials pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Adames claimed that the officials violated his eighth amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment because they failed to protect him from an attack by another inmate. A jury determined that two of the defendant prison officials (Antonio Garcia and Abigail Villareal) did not violate Adames' rights. The jury, however, found that the other three officials (Orlando Perez, William Boothe, and Robert Crites) were liable for failing to protect Adames. The jury awarded Adames $30 in compensatory damages and $70,000 in punitive damages. The three prison officials filed this appeal. Because we conclude that Adames failed to offer any evidence to support the jury's verdict, we vacate the judgment and remand for a new trial. Delano-Pyle v. Victoria County, Tex., 302 F.3d 567, 573-74 (5th Cir. 2002).

I

Adames was incarcerated at the McConnell Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Beeville, Texas. Because of his affiliation with the Texas Syndicate, a prison gang, Adames was placed in administrative segregation housing (a section of the prison reserved for the more dangerous inmates). Prisoners in administrative segregation are housed in individual cells, and are confined to those cells for most of the day. They are allowed to leave their cells for only one hour each day to engage in recreational activities and to take showers. Only one prisoner is supposed to leave his cell at any given time. When the prisoners in administrative segregation leave their cells, they must be accompanied by at least one, and often two, correctional officers.

During the summer of 1997, Adames began to have second thoughts about his gang membership. He had already acquired his General Education Degree ("GED") and had begun to take college courses, in an effort to prepare himself for life outside of prison. That fall, in order to increase his chances for parole, Adames decided to inform Captain Richard Crites ("Captain Crites")¹ about some illegal activities involving Adames's prison gang. Adames told Crites that some prison guards were smuggling drugs into the prison on behalf of the Texas Syndicate. A few weeks after that conversation, Adames was attacked by another member of the gang.

On the day of the attack, Adames was handcuffed and escorted back from the showers to his cell by Officer Abigail Villareal ("Officer Villareal"). Another prison guard, Officer Antonio Garcia ("Officer Garcia"), stood by Adames's cell, preparing to open the cell door. Before Officer Villareal and Adames could proceed to Adames's cell, however, they were ambushed by inmate Jesse Lopez ("Lopez"), a fellow member of the Texas Syndicate, who had escaped from his own cell. Lopez was carrying a weapon known as a "shank."

Lopez stabbed Adames multiple times. Because Adames was handcuffed, he was powerless to defend himself. Both Officer Garcia and Officer Villareal yelled to Lopez to cease his attack on Adames.² Lopez eventually complied with the officers' orders, but not until Adames had been badly injured by the shank. In less than one minute, Adames had been stabbed approximately thirteen times.

An investigation into the attack revealed how Lopez had escaped from his cell. Lopez was able to manipulate the locking mechanism on his cell door by using soap. During the investigation, officials discovered that, in three out of fourteen cells in the area, the locks on the cell doors were "jimmied" in a similar fashion.

The investigators also looked into the reason for the attack on Adames. Initially, Adames refused to cooperate with the investigation (apparently, out of a fear of retaliation by the Texas Syndicate). Eventually, Adames agreed to speak with the investigators, and asserted that the incident arose out of a confrontation he had with Juan Farias, a respected leader (or "grandfather") of the Texas Syndicate. Adames claimed that the problem began when he refused to give Farias a stamp. Farias was offended by this refusal, and decided to label Adames a "snitch." Adames stated that the incident with the stamp was blown out of proportion and eventually led to the attack on Adames. Later on, Adames provided what he perceived to be the real reason for the attack: the Texas Syndicate discovered that he had given information to Captain Crites.

Adames subsequently filed suit against Officer Villareal, Officer Garcia, Captain Crites, Senior Warden Orlando Perez ("Warden Perez"), and Assistant Warden William Boothe ("Warden Boothe"), claiming that they violated his eighth amendment rights by failing to protect him from the attack by Lopez. As noted above, the jury did not find any wrongdoing on the part of Officer Villareal or Officer Garcia. However, the jury found that Captain Crites, Warden Perez and Warden Boothe (or, collectively, "the prison officials") were responsible for failing to protect Adames. Only these latter prison officials have appealed.

II

The prison officials claim that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's verdict. As the prison officials concede, because they failed to file a post-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law challenging the sufficiency of the evidence, they waived their sufficiency claim. See United States ex rel. Wallace v. Flintco Inc., 143 F.3d 955, 960 (5th Cir.1998). As a result, we must treat the sufficiency claim "`as being raised for the first time on appeal.'" Delano-Pyle, 302 F.3d at 573 (quoting Polanco v. City of Austin, Tex., 78 F.3d 968, 974 (5th Cir.1996)). Therefore, we can review the claim only for plain error. Id. Under the plain error standard, we reverse a jury's verdict only if "the judgement works a manifest miscarriage of justice." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We examine whether there is any evidence to support the jury's verdict in favor of the plaintiff. See id. If we determine that there is no evidence to support the verdict, we do not enter judgment for the defendant, but instead remand the case for a new trial on the merits. Id. at 573-74; see Satcher v. Honda Motor Co., 52 F.3d 1311, 1315 (5th Cir.1995) (observing that "[t]o fully preserve error on appeal," a party must be sure to file a motion for judgment as a matter of law both before and after a verdict, and that "[a]n appellant who failed to do so in the district court is not entitled to rendition of judgment in his favor on appeal, but is at most entitled to a new trial").

"[T]he treatment a prisoner receives in prison and the conditions under which he is confined are subject to scrutiny under the Eighth Amendment." Cantu v. Jones, 293 F.3d 839, 844 (5th Cir.2002) (citing Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994)). In particular, the Eighth Amendment imposes on prison officials a duty to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other inmates. Id. Prison officials are not, however, expected to prevent all inmate-on-inmate violence. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970. Prison officials can be held liable for their failure to protect an inmate only when they are deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious harm. See id.

A prison official is deliberately indifferent if he knows of an "excessive risk to inmate health or safety" and disregards that risk. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994). The Court made clear that a prison official "knows of' an excessive risk only if (1) he is aware of facts from which he could infer "that a substantial risk of serious harm exists" and (2) he in fact "draw[s] the inference." Id. In other words, in order to be deliberately indifferent, a prison official must be subjectively aware of the risk. See id. at 839-40, 114 S.Ct. 1970.

In order to prove that an official is subjectively aware of a risk to inmate health or safety, a plaintiff inmate need not produce direct evidence of the official's knowledge. A plaintiff can rely on circumstantial evidence indicating that the official must have known about the risk. See Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 2514, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002) ("We may infer the existence of this subjective state of mind from the fact that the risk of harm is obvious."); Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842, 114 S.Ct. 1970 ("Whether a prison official had the requisite knowledge of a substantial risk is a question of fact subject to demonstration in the usual ways, including inference from circumstantial evidence[.]"). For example, the plaintiff can produce circumstantial evidence that the risk to inmate health or safety was so longstanding and pervasive that the official must have been aware of this danger. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842-43, 114 S.Ct. 1970.

In this case, the jury determined that Warden Perez, Warden Boothe, and Captain Crites were deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk that Adames (or a similarly situated prisoner) would be attacked by another inmate. Under the plain error standard, we must examine whether Adames produced any evidence to support the jury's determination.

Adames attempted to prove that the prison officials were aware of the risk in this case by highlighting other instances in which inmates had escaped their cells (and sometimes...