DeJesus v. Lewis

• Decision Date: 21 September 2021
• Docket Number: No. 18-11649,18-11649
• Citation: 14 F.4th 1182
• Parties: Gilberto DEJESUS, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. Sergeant Willie J. LEWIS, Inspector Christopher Dean Castner, each in his individual capacity, Defendants - Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

14 F.4th 1182

Gilberto DEJESUS, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.Sergeant Willie J. LEWIS, Inspector Christopher Dean Castner, each in his individual capacity, Defendants - Appellees.

No. 18-11649

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

September 21, 2021

Pablo Rojas, Law Clerk, Podhurst Orseck, PA, Miami, FL, Gilberto DeJesus, Avon Park CI - Inmate Legal Mail, Avon Park, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Jeanette Marie Lugo, Wiederhold & Kummerlen, PA, WEST PALM BEACH, FL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before MARTIN, ROSENBAUM, and LUCK, Circuit Judges.

MARTIN, Circuit Judge:

Gilberto DeJesus says that in 2016, he was sexually assaulted by a prison official. That official, Sergeant Willie J. Lewis, responds that the assault never happened. Mr. DeJesus had an attorney to represent him in court, but shortly before trial, the District Court allowed counsel to withdraw. Mr. DeJesus was ill-prepared for trial because he had not been provided discovery materials. He was not given transcripts of the depositions taken in discovery until the morning of his trial, and tried to read through them—for the first time—during the morning break. Ultimately Mr. DeJesus presented only his own testimony to show the jury that the sexual assault he alleged he suffered amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The jury ruled in favor of the Defendants.

On appeal, Mr. DeJesus argues the District Court made three errors. First, he says the District Court's instruction to the jury about what he had to prove to succeed on his Eighth Amendment claim against Sergeant Lewis misstated the law and increased his burden of proof. Second, he claims the court should have granted his motion to continue the trial in order to allow him to prepare his case. Finally, he argues that exceptional circumstances warranted the appointment of counsel after his former attorney withdrew from representation.

We recognize that no trial can be perfect. However, this record reflects an error here that we must address in order to clarify the rules governing allegations of sexual assault made by prisoners. That is to say, at a minimum, when a prisoner proves that a prison official, acting under color of law and without legitimate penological justification, engages in a sexual act with the prisoner, and that act was for the official's own sexual gratification, or for the purpose of humiliating, degrading, or demeaning the prisoner, the prison official's conduct amounts to a sexual assault in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Here, no one disputes that the conduct alleged served no legitimate penological purpose, so the jurors should have been instructed that the only fact they had to find was whether the sexual assault occurred. On this record, however, Mr. DeJesus has not met his burden to show that any errors made during the trial of his case were likely to have resulted in an incorrect verdict. We therefore affirm the District Court's order of final judgment in favor of Sergeant Lewis and Inspector Christopher Dean Castner.¹

I. BACKGROUND

A. THE INCIDENT

Mr. DeJesus, through counsel, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in July 2017. He alleged that on the morning of February 4, 2016, he left G Dormitory of South Bay Correctional Facility to go "drop a grievance at the grievance box." Mr. DeJesus said that as he walked back to G Dormitory, through the breezeway connecting the housing units, Sergeant Lewis pulled him out of the line and asked him, "[Y]ou like writing grievances, huh?" Mr. DeJesus alleged that Sergeant Lewis then pulled the elastic band of DeJesus's pants and said "you have a nice ass." When Mr. DeJesus tried to pull away, Sergeant Lewis "body slammed him to the ground." Next, according to Mr. DeJesus, Sergeant Lewis handcuffed him, digitally penetrated his anus, and said "this is what I think of you grievance writers." After this, Sergeant Lewis escorted Mr. DeJesus to administrative confinement, where DeJesus declared a psychological emergency so that he would be transferred to mental health confinement because "he was in fear that [Sergeant Lewis] was taking him to confinement to sexually assault him again."

Mr. DeJesus filed a grievance detailing this incident a few days later. About a month after he filed the grievance, Mr. DeJesus said Inspector Castner came to his cell and threatened to transfer him to another prison if he did not withdraw the grievance against Sergeant Lewis.

Mr. DeJesus brought two claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Sergeant Lewis and Inspector Castner. Mr. DeJesus alleged that Sergeant Lewis violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment by sexually assaulting him. And he alleged that Inspector Castner violated his Eighth Amendment rights by improperly threatening retaliation for his exercise of the prison's grievance procedures.² Both Defendants denied any wrongdoing.

B. PRE-TRIAL LITIGATION

Two days after Mr. DeJesus filed suit, the District Court set a trial date of March 19, 2018. The parties then conducted discovery. Defense counsel deposed Mr. DeJesus twice.³ Other prisoners and prison staff were also deposed.

In December 2017, Mr. DeJesus's attorney moved to withdraw from the case. Counsel broadly cited irreconcilable differences and noted he did not know if Mr. DeJesus would consent to the motion to withdraw. The District Court denied counsel's motion, explaining that the late stage of the case combined with the uncertainty as to whether Mr. DeJesus consented to counsel's withdrawal meant the court required more information about the nature of the irreconcilable differences counsel cited. The court said counsel must confer with Mr. DeJesus and, if irreconcilable differences remained, counsel could file another motion describing "in detail" the nature of those differences.⁴

Mr. DeJesus's counsel filed a renewed motion to withdraw. Counsel explained that the irreconcilable differences were based on information that became available in discovery. First, counsel said he learned that during the incident, Sergeant Lewis seized from Mr. DeJesus a package of "spice," which is a synthetic cannabinoid that was considered contraband. Second, Julian Almeda, another prisoner, said Mr. DeJesus had a reputation for selling spice. And finally, counsel explained that Mr. Almeda, who previously provided a sworn affidavit saying that Sergeant Lewis sexually assaulted Mr. DeJesus, recanted his statement during his deposition and instead testified that not only did DeJesus write the affidavit, but Almeda was in confinement on the date of the incident and had no personal knowledge of it.

On January 22, 2018, less than two months before trial (and before Mr. DeJesus's response was filed),⁵ the District Court found there were irreconcilable differences between DeJesus and his attorney and granted counsel's second motion to withdraw. The court also denied Mr. DeJesus's earlier motion for appointment of counsel, summarily finding that he had not shown "exceptional circumstances" requiring the appointment of counsel.

Mr. DeJesus moved for reconsideration of both these rulings. He argued the court ruled without giving him the opportunity to explain why exceptional circumstances existed. He also filed two additional motions. One was another motion for appointment of counsel, in which Mr. DeJesus cited his lack of legal training and the fact that his placement in "Protective Management" meant he had limited access to the law library, which restricted his ability to litigate his case. The other was a motion to continue the upcoming trial, in which he explained that his access to the law library was severely impaired because he was "in protective management due to being battered by gang members."

The District Court granted Mr. DeJesus's motion for reconsideration, recognizing it had ruled on counsel's motion to withdraw without hearing from DeJesus. Nevertheless, the court reaffirmed its earlier decisions. The District Court noted that, by Mr. DeJesus's own account, there were irreconcilable differences between him and counsel that warranted counsel's withdrawal. The court also cited its "broad discretion" to decide whether to appoint counsel in civil cases and found there were no exceptional circumstances warranting appointment of counsel. This was because Mr. DeJesus "lost" his counsel only after counsel "sought to be removed based on [DeJesus's] credibility," and also because the court viewed DeJesus's legal claims as straightforward. The District Court also denied Mr. DeJesus's motion to continue the trial but said he could renew his argument for a continuance.

C. TRIAL

The case proceeded to trial as scheduled. On the day trial began, Mr. DeJesus filed a third motion for appointment of counsel, arguing that he suffered from a long history of mental health issues and that Sergeant Lewis's sexual assault had affected him psychologically. Mr. DeJesus said he had made "repeated efforts to obtain a lawyer," because an attorney would be better equipped to handle the conflicting trial testimony than someone unfamiliar with civil law. During a pretrial colloquy with the parties, the District Court denied Mr. DeJesus's third motion, explaining that "[b]ased on the filings and including the filings of Mr. DeJesus's previous counsel, I have some doubts about the credibility of the case," and, especially because counsel "has withdrawn for ethical reasons, appointing a lawyer without pay ... would be [in]appropriate."

The District Court also addressed some housekeeping matters. It noted that defense counsel had provided Mr. DeJesus with copies of deposition transcripts, which he requested a few days before at the final status conference. And the court denied Mr. DeJesus's request, also made at the status conference, to have another prisoner come in to testify as a witness. The court said the prisoner could not testify because the Department of Corrections requires a request be submitted 14 days in...