While rape does not yet appear on the list of approved penal sanctions, it must be demonstrated, ruled the District Court, that prison administrators either had knowledge of, or "recklessly" closed their eyes to, a situation that would encourage male guards, incited by their helpless female charges, to run amuck.

A tough test indeed. Applying the test, the Court dismissed those counts alleging violation of the constitutional prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" brought by a female inmate raped by a guard.

The suit alleged that the prison officials exhibited deliberate indifference to Plaintiff's Eighth Amendment rights. Ms. Giron was housed in a segregation unit at the prison, which allowed access by male guards and didn't (according to Giron) make adequate safeguards to insure privacy and proper supervision or training of male guards.

The Court in its analysis laid out the core constitutional requirements for humane treatment of prisoners. "Prison officials...must ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care and must 'take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates."

To prevail on an Eighth Amendment claim, however, the plaintiff must first establish an "objectively sufficiently serious deprivation of the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities." The Court held that the rape (although not her claim that she was subsequently denied medical services) established that level of deprivation. However, the plaintiff must then prove the existence a "sufficiently culpable state of mind" on the part of the prison official.

Giron failed to prove that the prison administration was either aware of the threat or deliberately indifferent to it.