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The Reporter: Social Justice Law 
Center Magazine 
Volume 2023 Article 3 
2023 
Deliberate Indifference: An Impossible Standard 
Caroline Kish 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/sjlcr 
 Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Kish, Caroline (2023) "Deliberate Indifference: An Impossible Standard," The Reporter: Social Justice Law 
Center Magazine: Vol. 2023, Article 3. 
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/sjlcr/vol2023/iss1/3 
This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly 
Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Reporter: Social Justice Law Center Magazine by an 
authorized administrator of Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. 
Caroline Kish 
Deliberate Indifference: An Impossible Standard 
A critique of Fifth Circuit’s Unpublished Opinion Denying 1983 Relief to a Prisoner Locked in a 
Cage. Case No. 22-40276 Guzman v. Sturgis  
 
Procedural Posture 
Uvaldo Guzman appealed the southern district of Texas’s decision in Guzman v. Fuentez 
in which the district court granted summary judgment to warden Fuentez for Guzman’s failure to 
state a deliberate indifference claim.1 Guzman alleged prison guards acted with deliberate 
indifference to his health and well-being while locked in a “shakedown cage” for 19 hours 
without food and water.2  
 
Facts  
In 2019, guards at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice McConnell Unit placed 
Uvaldo Guzman, a non-English speaking prisoner in his late sixties, in a shakedown cage 
“approximately seven feet high, and the floor space is three feet wide and two-to-three feet long” 
with no running water or toilet for 19 hours.3  Lieutenant Sturgis–the ‘head guard’--testified that 
the prison rarely used the ‘shakedown cage’ but in Guzman’s case found such segregation 
necessary after Guzman allegedly assaulted a prison guard.4 Even though Sturgis allegedly 
checked on Guzman multiple times and insisted he would be released shortly, Guzman did not 
see anyone for more than ten hours.5 19 hours later, after finally being released from a tiny cage, 
another inmate helped Guzman file a complaint against Warden Fuentez, Lieutenant Sturgis and 
Sergeant Tommy West.6 A Spears hearing–where Guzman articulated his pro se complaints–
 
1 Guzman v. Sturgis, No. 22-40276, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 6062, at *2 (5th Cir. Mar. 14, 2023) 
2 Id.  
3 Guzman v. Fuentez, Civil Action No. 2: 18-CV-00432, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59586, at *4 (S.D. Tex. Mar. 31, 
2022).  
4 Id.  
5 Id. at 2.  
6 Id. at 6. 
found Warden Fuentez uninvolved.7 Guzman however insisted the supervisors, Sturgis and West, 
should be held accountable for holding Guzman in horrifying conditions.8 Once appointed 
counsel for his claims, defendants responded with claims of qualified immunity.9 Both the 
district court and Fifth Circuit court found in favor of the defendants for Guzman’s failure to 
state a claim of deliberate indifference.   
Law:  
Because courts consider incarceration to be inherently dangerous and violent, succeeding 
on a claim of deliberate indifference is purposefully burdensome. The deliberate indifference test 
is both objective and subjective.10 “To establish deliberate indifference, the prisoner must show 
that the prison officials (1) were aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a 
substantial risk of serious harm existed, (2) subjectively drew the inference that the risk existed, 
and (3) then disregarded that risk.”11 The Fifth Circuit held that because “defendants periodically 
checked on Guzman while he was in the cage, [they] did not believe he was at risk of being 
harmed, and that Sturgis told his staff to remove Guzman from the cage and believed that task 
had been accomplished” there is no deliberate indifference.12  
Additionally, when defendants claim qualified immunity, the usual summary-judgment 
standard shifts the burden to the plaintiff to prove defendant’s conduct violated a clearly 
established constitutional right.13 Guzman thus must prove the guards acted in an objectively 
unreasonable manner as to violate his constitutional rights.14 In this case, the Fifth Circuit found 
 
7 Id. at 2.  
8 Id.  
9 Id. at 4.  
10 Id. at 7. Citing Farmer v. Brennan, 114 S. Ct. 1980 (1994). 
11 Id. at 3. Citing Cleveland v. Bell 938 F.3d 672, 675–76 (5th Cir. 2019). 
12 Id. at 4.  
13 Sturgis 2, citing Williams v. City of Cleveland, 736 F.3d 684, 688 (5th Cir. 2013). 
14 Id. 
that even though Sturgis made teasing comments towards Guzman, the defendants lacked 
subjective awareness of any risk to Guzman.15  
Finally, a prisoner can only succeed on a claim of retaliation if guards’ actions prevented 
a reasonable person from exercising constitutional rights.16 Here, the holding of Guzman in the 
‘shakedown cage’ prevented him from eating three normal meals and use of toilet facilities.  
 
 
Analysis/Critique 
This ruling sends the message that prison guards can treat prisoners as less than human. 
Initially deemed rehabilitative, prisons have now become purely punitive. Incarcerated 
individuals are provided the bare minimum with few if any restorative offers.  As long as guards 
can attest they checked up on inmates, prisoners can be left without food and water. The Fifth 
Circuit effectively codifies inmate abuse. To meet the deliberate indifference standard, harm 
need only be inferred–whether real harm occurred is rendered moot. According to this opinion, a 
superior cannot be held accountable for the action or in this case inaction if they believed action 
would be taken.  
As if hiding behind its shameful decision, the Fifth Circuit did not publish this opinion. 
Knowing the decision would cause backlash, the court chose to cower behind an unpublished 
opinion that would receive little coverage. The court mentions that the door to the ‘shakedown 
cage’ remained open for some time but the policy required inmates to be shackled before 
leaving.17 The judges’ unawareness to the realities of incarceration left Guzman on his own 
 
15 Id. at 5, citing Aguirre v. City of San Antonio, 995 F.3d 395, 421 (5th Cir. 2021). 
16 Fuentez, 5. Citing Bibbs v. Early 541 F.3d 267, 270 (5th Cir. 2008). 
17 Id.  
volition would certainly be met with violent retaliation. Guzman may not have sustained any 
physical harm but he endured mental and emotional humiliation. 
Qualified immunity allows for horrific and abusive misconduct to be protected as long as not 
“plainly incompetent.”18 If keeping an inmate in a literal cage for 19 hours without food, water, 
or a toilet, does not amount to incompetency , then what does? 
The Prison Litigation Reform Act (42 USC 1997(e)(e)) allows for compensatory 
damages for such harm without proof of physical harm.19  Guzman can only recover punitive 
damages if he can overcome the intentionally-difficult-for-plaintiffs-to-overcome doctrine of 
qualified immunity.20 Without having to read the facts of the case, one can assume that qualified 
immunity will not be subverted. Even if one believes the court when it says the guards’ mis-
coordination is the only reason Guzman remained in the cage, should not Guzman be entitled to 
some sort of relief for the trauma he endured? Because of the recency of the decision, I am 
unaware as to whether Guzman will further appeal the Fifth Circuit’s decision up to the Supreme 
Court.   
 
 
18 Id. Citing Stanton v. Sims, 517 U.S. 3, 6, 134 S. Ct. 3, 5, 187 L. Ed. 2d 341 (2013). 
19 Id. at 3.  
20 Id. at 4.  


Deliberate Indifference: An Impossible Standard

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