Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic Files Amicus Brief Signed by 6 Former High-ranking Corrections Officers in Support of Incarcerated Transgender Woman
Today, the Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic submitted a Tenth Circuit amicus brief signed by six high-ranking former corrections officials in support of the plaintiff in Rios v. United States. The plaintiff is a transgender woman who had a history of being sexually victimized in prison. She is bringing a civil rights suit against various corrections staff for their failure to protect her in prison and to investigate her rape.
In its brief, the Clinic argues that corrections officers must have known of the danger to the plaintiff, satisfying the Eighth Amendment requirement that prison officials be “deliberately indifferent” to a substantial risk of harm for it to be considered punishment. First, the brief details the extreme rates of abuse experienced by both prisoners who are transgender and who have previously been victimized. One widely cited study found that 59% of transgender prisoners sampled reported having experienced sexual assault during their time in prison, which was 13 times the general population sample. The brief describes the consensus among professional organizations that these two groups are particularly vulnerable. It then explains how corrections officers are aware of the vulnerability of these groups because they are trained in accordance with Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) standards and witness the dynamics leading to abuse in prison. Second, the brief describes the basic duty that corrections officers have to keep prisoners safe. When corrections officers fail to take appropriate precautions to protect transgender prisoners and prisoners who have previously been victimized even after they express their concerns, they violate their duty under the Eighth Amendment.
Rios is being represented on appeal by the MacArthur Justice Center. The Clinic’s amicus brief can be accessed by clicking on the “Read more” button below.