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Civil Rights Claim of Unconstitutional Jail Conditions Against County Sheriff Reinstated

By Shari Allison

Tafoya v. Huerfano Co. Sheriff John Salazar, No. 06-1191 (10th Cir. 2/21/08) (published):Ms. Tafoya was sexually assaulted by a detention center guard while being detained in the jail. This assault occurred three years after the Tenth Circuit had held, in another case involving assaults on female detainees by male detention officers, that the assaults were the result of unconstitutional jail conditions and that Sheriff Salazar was deliberately indifferent to those conditions. Despite that earlier 10th Cir. decision, the district court granted Sheriff Salazar's motion for summary judgment, concluding that Ms. Tafoya had failed to show that the Sheriff was actually aware of a substantial risk of harm to female inmates and she had failed to show a causal connection between Salazar's managerial failures and the sexual assault...continue to full post

Full post as published by Tenth Circuit Blog on February 22, 2008 (boomark / email).