Lee v. Downs
| Decision Date | 05 March 1981 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 79-6641,79-6643,s. 79-6641 |
| Citation | 641 F.2d 1117 |
| Parties | Debra LEE, Appellee, v. Ann DOWNS, Superintendent, Correctional Center for Women, Goochland, Virginia; Officer Brooks, Correctional Officer, Womens Correctional Center, Goochland, Virginia; Officer Patterson, Correctional Officer, Womens Correctional Center, Goochland, Virginia, Appellants. Debra LEE, Appellant, v. Ann DOWNS, Superintendent, Correctional Center for Women, Goochland, Virginia; Officer Brooks, Correctional Officer, Womens Correctional Center, Goochland, Virginia; Officer Patterson, Correctional Officer, Womens Correctional Center, Goochland, Virginia, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
William P. Robinson, Jr., Norfolk, Va. (Robinson, Eichler, Zaleski & Mason, Norfolk, Va., on brief), for appellant in No. 79-6643 and appellee in No. 79-6641.
Alan Katz, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va. (Marshall Coleman, Atty. Gen. of Virginia, Guy W. Horsley, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellees in No. 79-6643 and appellants in No. 79-6641.
Before HAYNSWORTH, Chief Judge, BUTZNER and RUSSELL, Circuit Judges.
After having been treated rather shabbily, a female prisoner pressed four § 1983 claims against the superintendent of the prison and some of the guards. A jury found in her favor on all four of her claims against the superintendent and against two male guards on three of the claims. Substantial damages were awarded on all four claims. Entry of judgment for the defendants notwithstanding the verdict was awarded by the district court, 470 F.Supp. 188, on three of the four claims so that judgment was entered in the plaintiff's favor upon only one of them. Each side has appealed, but we find ourselves in agreement with the district court's dispositions.
The plaintiff testified that she had been assigned to a job in the prison's kitchen. She said that she had been importuned by a group of her fellow prisoners to steal sugar from the kitchen for use by members of the group in making whiskey. According to her testimony, the group threatened to set the contents of her cell on fire when she refused their request. Because she had heard of another prisoner's cell having been set afire, she complained to a guard and requested a transfer to another building. The next day this complaint and request was repeated to a second guard. On the second day, no transfer having been effected, plaintiff threatened Ms. Bryan, a third guard. This assault was unaccompanied by any statement of a sense of need for protection, but because of the threatened violence, plaintiff was transferred to the maximum security section.
Within half an hour after having been placed in her new cell, plaintiff was seen lying on the floor with an electrical cord wound around her neck. She had removed her dress and was clad only in a bra and underpants. Guards of both sexes were summoned. Over the plaintiff's forceful resistance, they removed the loosely wound cord, covered the plaintiff with a blanket and took her to the prison's clinic.
The nurse on duty at the clinic reported the matter by telephone to the prison physician. He instructed her to treat the act as possibly suicidal and instructed the nurse to remove plaintiff's undergarments since a noose might be fashioned from them. Here the testimony diverged. The guards testified that the plaintiff was informed by the nurse that the male guards would withdraw if she would agree to remove and surrender her underclothes. Plaintiff, on the other hand, testified that she offered peacefully to surrender her undergarments if the male guards would first withdraw, but that they seized and restrained her while the female nurse removed her clothing.
She was given a paper dress with which to cover herself. Sedatives were also administered.
The plaintiff testified that menstruation began and that she requested sanitary napkins of the nurse but did not receive them.
Four days after the removal of her underclothes, the plaintiff removed the paper dress she was wearing and set it afire. After she was seen naked, dancing about the flames and clapping her hands, guards were summoned. The flames were extinguished and the plaintiff was asked if she had any more matches. Her testimony was that her response was that she had none, though the guards testified that her response was that she had some in a place where they would never be found. Since her paper dress was to be replaced, it was thought necessary to conduct a search, including a search of her body cavities to insure that the replacement dress or plaintiff's hair was not set afire. Male guards, holding the struggling plaintiff's arms and legs, restrained her while a female nurse, wearing surgical gloves searched her vagina but found no matches.
From these instances, she sought damages for (1) failure to provide adequate protection for her against the threat of fire in her first cell; (2) invasion of privacy in the forceful removal of her underclothing in the presence of male guards; (3) deprivation of essential medical care; and (4) invasion of her right of privacy in the conduct of a vaginal search by a female nurse in the presence of the restraining male guards. Each was said to be the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment.
Plaintiff's claim of lack of adequate protection from the threat that the things in her cell would be set afire produced a verdict in her favor against Ann Downs, the prison superintendent, only. Ms. Bryan was acquitted by the jury since the plaintiff's testimony showed only that Ms. Bryan had been the victim of plaintiff's assault with no reason to know of any special need of protection on the plaintiff's part. The record is clear, however, that at the time of the incident Ms. Downs was away on vacation, out of touch with the prison. If there was any neglect or unreasonable delay in providing adequate protection for the plaintiff, it is clear that Ms. Downes did not direct it and knew nothing of it.
Moreover, if the threat of burning of plaintiff's possessions created any unreasonable risk of harm to her, the risk did not mature into reality. Her things were not burned. The district court properly concluded that the jury's verdict against the superintendent on this claim could not stand.
The district court entered judgment for the plaintiff on the jury's verdict on the claim arising out of the forceful removal of her underclothing in the presence of the guards. This was proper.
Persons in prison must surrender many rights of privacy which most people may claim in their private homes. Much of the life in prison is communal, and many prisoners must be housed in cells with openings through which they may be seen by guards. Most people, however, have a special sense of privacy in their genitals, and involuntary exposure of them in the presence of people of the other sex may be especially demeaning and humiliating. When not reasonably necessary, that sort of degradation is not to be visited upon those confined in our prisons.
In Forts v. Ward, 471 F.Supp. 1095 (S.D.N.Y.1979), women prisoners sought an injunction under § 1983 against the positioning of male guards where they could observe the women while undressed and while using toilets. The court issued its injunction holding that the women's rights to be private in the most private portions of their persons must prevail despite the fact that the general employment of guards may be required to be open to persons of both sexes under equal employment opportunity legislation. The order also directed that male guards not be stationed in rooms in which female prisoners were required to dress or undress in connection with medical examinations. In the reverse situation, male prisoners are also entitled to judicial protection of their right of privacy denied by the presence of female guards stationed in positions to observe the men while undressed or using toilets. In re Long, 127 Cal.Rptr. 732 (Cal.App.1976). So, too, males subject to frisk searches by female guards during which the genitals are touched and felt through clothing were held entitled to injunctive...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Skundor v. Coleman, Civil Action No. 5:02-0205 (S.D. W.Va. 7/31/2003)
...is not actionable. Recognizing a limited right to bodily privacy, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals stated in Lee v. Downs, 641 F.2d 1117, 1119 (4th Cir. 1981), decided after the Supreme Court's decision in Bell v. Wolfish and before its decision in Hudson,19 as Persons in prison must sur......
-
Bd. of Educ. of the Highland Local Sch. Dist. v. U.S. Dep't of Educ.
...for a Fourteenth Amendment violation when a superior officer instructed her to undress and shower while filming her); Lee v. Downs , 641 F.2d 1117, 1118–19 (4th Cir.1981) (upholding verdict for a female prisoner who was forcibly restrained by male guards while a female nurse removed her clo......
-
Brown v. Cumberland Cnty.
...exposure of a prisoner's genitals to members of the opposite sex violates his constitutional rights." (citing Lee v. Downs , 641 F.2d 1117, 1119 (4th Cir. 1981) )); Michenfelder v. Sumner , 860 F.2d 328, 333–34 (9th Cir. 1988) ("Shielding one's unclothed figure from the view of strangers, p......
-
Dawson v. Kendrick
...the toilet without being subject to public view, and the provision of suitable sleepwear. 621 F.2d at 1216-17; see also Lee v. Downs, 641 F.2d 1117 (4th Cir. 1981). The balance struck in Forts stands in contrast to the case at bar where the defendants have failed to take any steps to assure......
-
Ratification as an Exception to the Section 1983 Causation Requirement: Plaintiff's Opportunity or Illusion?
...Cir. 1982) ("[A] plaintiff must show that the official at least implicitly authorized, approved or knowingly acquiesced."); Lee v. Downs, 641 F.2d 1117, 1120 n.1 (4th Cir. 1981). As will be discussed shortly, a municipality "may only be held accountable if the deprivation was the result of ......
-
Padgett v. Donald: Why Not So Special - Victoriya Kulik
...Id. at 522. 73. Id. at 526. 74. 983 F.2d 1024 (11th Cir. 1993). 75. Id. at 1030. 76. Id. at 1027. 77. Id. at 1030 (citing Lee v. Downs, 641 F.2d 1117, 1119 (4th Cir. 1981). 78. Id. Like fingerprinting and photographing, however, a DNA sample can be considered as a means for identification s......
-
Lee v. Downs
...v. Downs 641 F. 2d 1117 (1981) Facts Debra Lee, a Virginia state prisoner housed at the Women's Correctional Center in Goochland, was transferred to a kitchen job, prompting a group of prisoners to demand that she steal sugar from the kitchen so they could make whiskey. When the inmates thr......