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Monday, July 12, 2004

Indiana Decisions - Four 7th Circuit Decisions Today

DAVIS, ROBERT v. USA (N Ill.)

"Davis challenges the district court’s damages determination as to the loss of his VA benefits and the damages awarded for pain and suffering. We affirm."

RICCARDO, ANTHONY v. RAUSCH, LARRY (SD Ill.)

Before FLAUM, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. Anthony Riccardo, an inmate of the Centralia Correctional Center in Illinois, needed a new cellmate after his former cellmate complained about being housed with him. Normally that pairing would
have been made by Centralia’s placement office, but when the evening of May 28, 1997, arrived and some inmates remained unassigned after the regular placement officers had left, the task fell to Lt. Larry Rausch, who was serving the second shift. Rausch matched Riccardo with Juan Garcia, a pairing that should have lasted only until the placement officers on the day shift could review matters. Two days later Garcia sexually assaulted Riccardo, who sued Rausch under 42 U.S.C. §1983. A jury concluded that Rausch had subjected Riccardo to cruel and unusual punishment and awarded $1.5 million in compensatory damages. The district court entered judgment on this verdict, and Rausch appeals. * * *

Illinois is free, if it wishes, to give prisoners veto power over the identity of their cellmates. But the eighth amendment does not do so of its own force, and prisoners cannot use the Constitution to achieve this control indirectly by making unsubstantiated assertions. The constitutional question is not what Riccardo (initially) said, but what Rausch actually believed. Some prisoners are manipulative, some are mistaken, and some are not only honest but also accurate. The Constitution does not oblige guards to assume (on pain of absolute liability if an assault later occurs) that all prisoners are in the third category; Farmer articulates a different, and more demanding, standard, preserving room for both independent judgment and honest mistake on the guards’ part. This record does not permit a reasonable jury to find that Rausch knew or deliberately disregarded the fact that his actions subjected Riccardo to a substantial risk off serious harm, so the judgment is REVERSED.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, dissenting. [with opinion] * * *

Before FLAUM, Chief Judge, and POSNER, EASTERBROOK, RIPPLE, MANION, KANNE, ROVNER, DIANE P. WOOD, EVANS, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff-appellee filed a petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc on March 12, 2004. In response to this petition, the panel has amended its opinion; the amendments are reflected in the immediately preceding revised opinion. A majority of the judges on the panel voted to deny rehearing. A judge called for a vote on the petition for rehearing en banc, but a majority of the active judges did not favor rehearing en banc. Accordingly, the petition is denied.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge, with whom ROVNER, DIANE P. WOOD and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc. Today, the court allows to stand the decision of a panel majority that imposes on prison inmates a new and impossibly high standard of proof for establishing deliberate indifference in prison condition cases. * * *

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, with whom RIPPLE, ROVNER, and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges, join in dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc. The majority’s opinion has incorrectly resolved and unjustifiably reframed both the Eighth Amendment standard for deliberate indifference as well as the Rule 50 standard to set aside a jury verdict. * * *

USA v. GARCIA-LOPEZ, JAVIER (ED Wis.) - Sentencing, remanded. [non-Blakely]

USA v. MOORE, DONALD G. (CD Ill.)

"The district court found that Moore consented to the search. Moore’s guilty plea was conditioned on allowing him to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress, and that appeal is before us now. We affirm."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 12, 2004 01:33 PM
Posted to Indiana Decisions