Date: 12-16-2014

Case Style: Michelle Kosilek v. Luis S. Spencer

Case Number: 12-2194

Judge: Torruella

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on appeal from the District of Massachusetts (Suffolik County)

Plaintiff's Attorney: Richard C. McFarland, Legal Division, Department of
Correction, with whom Nancy Ankers White, Special Assistant
Attorney General, was on brief for appellant.

Defendant's Attorney: Joseph L. Sulman, with whom David Brody, Law Office of Joseph
L. Sulman, Frances S. Cohen, Jeff Goldman, Christina Chan, and
Bingham McCutchen LLP, were on brief for appellee.

Andrew D. Beckwith, on brief for the Massachusetts Family
Institute, amicus curiae in support of appellant.

Daniel V. McCaughey, Cori A. Lable, Kristin G. Ali and Ropes
& Gray LLP, on brief for World Professional Association for
Transgender Health, Mental Health America, Callen-Lorde Community
Health Center, Whitman-Walker Health, GLMA: Health Professionals
Advancing LGBT Equality, and Mazzoni Center, amici curiae in
support of appellee.

Matthew R. Segal, Joshua Block, LGBT Project, and David C.
Fathi, National Prison Project, on brief for American Civil
Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts,
Legal Aid Society, Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project,
Prisoners' Legal Services of New York, and Prisoners' Legal
Services of Massachusetts, amici curiae in support of appellee.

Jennifer Levi and Bennett H. Klein, on brief for Gay & Lesbian
Advocates & Defenders, EqualityMaine, Human Rights Campaign,
MassEquality, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition,
National Center for Transgender Equality, National Gay & Lesbian
Task Force, and Transgender New Hampshire, amici curiae in support
of appellee.

Description: This case involves important
issues that arise under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution. We are asked to determine whether the district court
erred in concluding that the Massachusetts Department of Correction
("DOC") has violated the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the
Eighth Amendment by providing allegedly inadequate medical care to
prisoner Michelle Kosilek ("Kosilek"). More precisely, we are
faced with the question whether the DOC's choice of a particular
medical treatment is constitutionally inadequate, such that the
district court acts within its power to issue an injunction
requiring provision of an alternative treatment -- a treatment
which would give rise to new concerns related to safety and prison
security.
After carefully considering the community standard of
medical care, the adequacy of the provided treatment, and the valid
security concerns articulated by the DOC, we conclude that the
district court erred and that the care provided to Kosilek by the
DOC does not violate the Eighth Amendment. We therefore reverse
the district court's grant of injunctive relief, and we remand with
instructions to dismiss the case.
I. Background
This litigation has now spanned more than twenty years
and produced several opinions of significant length. See Kosilek
v. Spencer, 889 F. Supp. 2d 190 (D. Mass. 2012) ("Kosilek II");
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Kosilek v. Maloney, 221 F. Supp. 2d 156 (D. Mass. 2002) ("Kosilek
I"). In light of the expansive record, we recite here only the
facts necessary to clarify the issues on appeal.
A. Michelle Kosilek
Michelle Kosilek -- born in 1949 as Robert Kosilek -- is
an anatomically male prisoner in her mid-sixties who suffers from
gender identity disorder ("GID")1 and self-identifies as a female.
In 1992 Kosilek was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced
to a term of life imprisonment without parole for the 1990
strangulation of her then-wife, Cheryl McCaul, whose body was found
abandoned in the backseat of a vehicle at a local shopping mall.
See Commonwealth v. Kosilek, 423 Mass. 449, 668 N.E.2d 808 (1996).
While awaiting trial for McCaul's murder, Kosilek twice attempted
to commit suicide. She also once tied a string around her
testicles in an attempt at self-castration, but removed the string
when it became painful. Since 1994, Kosilek has been housed at
MCI-Norfolk, a medium security male prison in Massachusetts.
Throughout the twenty-year duration of her incarceration at MCINorfolk,
Kosilek has not attempted to harm herself.
1 The term "gender identity disorder" has recently been replaced
with the term "gender dysphoria" in the medical community. See Am.
P s y c h i a t r i c A s s ' n , G e n d e r D y s p h o r i a ,
http://www.dsm5.org/documents/gender%20dysphoria%20fact%20sheet.pdf
(last visited June 3, 2014). To maintain consistency with prior
related litigation and evidence in the record, we continue to use
the term "GID" in this opinion.
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B. Kosilek I
Kosilek first sued the DOC in 1992, alleging that its
failure to provide direct treatment for her GID was a violation of
the Eighth Amendment. At that time, Kosilek was receiving only
"supportive therapy" to cope with the distress caused by her GID.
Kosilek initially sought both damages and injunctive relief
requiring the DOC to provide her with sex reassignment surgery
("SRS"), although only her claim for injunctive relief survived to
trial.
The district court issued a decision in 2002, in which it
concluded that Kosilek had proven the existence of a serious
medical need and had shown that her then-current treatment plan was
inadequate. The court concluded, however, that the DOC was unaware
that a failure to provide additional treatment to Kosilek might
result in serious harm. Moreover, it held that the DOC's failure
to provide treatment was rooted, at least in part, in "sincere
security concerns." As a result, the court ruled that the DOC was
not in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Despite finding for the DOC, the district court's opinion
made clear that Kosilek required additional treatment for her GID,
and that the DOC would need to develop and implement an improved
treatment plan. The court warned that a failure to provide
treatment in the future, now that the DOC was on notice of the
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potential for harm if only "supportive therapy" was provided, could
amount to an Eighth Amendment violation.
C. The DOC offers treatment
The DOC responded to Kosilek I by revamping its policy
for GID treatment. In the past, the DOC had adopted a policy of
"freezing" a prisoner's treatment at whatever level that prisoner
had attained prior to incarceration. Hormonal treatment, for
example, would be available only to prisoners who had been
prescribed hormones prior to incarceration. In place of this
"freeze-frame" policy, after Kosilek I the DOC adopted a plan that
allowed prisoners to receive additional treatment beyond the level
of that received before entering prison, when such care was
medically required. Under this new plan, medical recommendations
would be made by the University of Massachusetts Correctional
Health Program ("UMass"), a health-services provider contracted by
the DOC. The DOC Commissioner and the DOC Director of Health
Services were responsible for assessing whether any change in
treatment would create increased security concerns.
Kosilek was evaluated by Dr. David Seil, a genderidentity
specialist, who prescribed a course of treatment to
alleviate the mental distress -- often referred to as "dysphoria"
-- associated with her GID. In line with Dr. Seil's
recommendations, in 2003 the DOC began providing Kosilek with
significant ameliorative treatment aimed at directly addressing the
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mental distress caused by GID. In addition to continued mental
health treatment, she was provided female, gender-appropriate
clothing and personal effects, and electrolysis was performed to
permanently remove her facial hair.2 Kosilek also began a course
of hormonal treatments recommended by an endocrinologist. These
treatments resulted in "breast development and shrinkage of her
testicles." All of the treatments described continue to be offered
to Kosilek to the present day.
D. Consideration of SRS
In line with the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care ("the
"Standards of Care" or "the Standards"),3 Dr. Seil recommended that
Kosilek be considered for SRS after one year of hormonal
2 Facial hair removal was delayed because of difficulty finding a
provider that was willing to perform these services on Kosilek.
The minutes of the DOC's Executive Staff Meetings show that they
proactively sought out service providers throughout this period of
delay, and electrolysis was completed in November 2004.
3 The Standards of Care are a set of treatment recommendations
issued by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria
Association that provide guidance on the treatment of individuals
with GID. Relevant to Kosilek II is the sixth version of the
Standards of Care. See Harry Benjamin Int'l Gender Dysphoria
Ass'n, Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders, Sixth
Version (2001) ("Standards of Care"). A seventh version of the
Standards of Care was published in 2011, and adopts the Harry
Benjamin Association's new name. See World Professional Ass'n for
Transgender Health ("WPATH"), Standards of Care for the Health of
Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender–Nonconforming People, Version
7 (2011). The Standards of Care "are intended to provide flexible
directions for the treatment" of GID, and state that "[i]ndividual
professionals and organized programs may modify" the Standards'
requirements in response to "a patient's unique . . . situation" or
"an experienced professional's evolving [treatment methodology]."
Standards of Care at 1-2 (emphasis added).
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treatment.4 Accordingly, in 2004 the DOC began the process of
finding an appropriate professional to evaluate Kosilek's
eligibility for, and the necessity of, SRS. At the DOC's Executive
Staff Meetings there was some debate regarding who should be hired
to conduct this evaluation. The UMass Mental Health Program
Director, Dr. Kenneth Appelbaum, suggested that the DOC consult
with the Fenway Community Health Center (the "Fenway Center"). The
Fenway Center is a Boston-based facility focused on serving the
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. In contrast,
the DOC's Director of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services,
Gregory Hughes ("Hughes"), suggested consulting with Cynthia
Osborne ("Osborne"), a gender identity specialist employed at the
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who had experience working with
other departments of correction regarding GID treatment.
Hughes expressed concern with using the Fenway Center
because of "the perception that their approach was to come out with
recommendations that globally endorsed a full panoply of
treatments." It was thought that Osborne, in contrast, "may do
more objective evaluations." Dr. Appelbaum noted, however, that
the Fenway Center's approach was, to his knowledge, probably "more
4 This treatment plan aligns with the Standards of Care's triadic
sequence for GID treatment. This sequence begins with diagnosis
and the provision of therapy, progresses to endocrine treatments,
and culminates with consideration of SRS after at least one full
year living a "real life experience" in the preferred gender role.
Many individuals with GID choose not to complete the full sequence.
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the norm than the exception." The DOC also recognized that having
a Boston-based treatment provider might more easily facilitate the
process of Kosilek's evaluation.
The Fenway Center was retained by the DOC, and Kosilek
was evaluated by Kevin Kapila, M.D., and Randi Kaufman, Psy.D., in
a ninety-minute interview. Drs. Kapila and Kaufman also reviewed
Kosilek's medical records. On February 24, 2005, they issued a
report recommending that Kosilek receive SRS (the "Fenway Report").
The Fenway Report acknowledged Kosilek's positive response to the
treatment provided by the DOC.
Her joy around being feminized through hormone
therapy, facial and body hair removal, and her
ability to have access, and to dress in,
feminine attire and make-up is palpable.
These responses further suggest that being
able to express herself as female has been
helpful in alleviating her gender
dysphoria. . . . [I]t is clear that her
increasingly feminine presentation has been
beneficial to her psychologically.
Nonetheless, it also emphasized that Kosilek remained significantly
distressed by "having male genitalia, as well as not having female
genitalia." In light of this continuing distress, the Fenway
Center doctors stated that "it is quite likely that Michelle will
attempt suicide again if she is not able to change her anatomy."
The report also concluded that Kosilek had fully progressed through
the Standards of Care's triadic sequence, and that she "appear[ed]
to be ready" for SRS. SRS, the doctors believed, would most likely
"allow Michelle to have full relief from the symptoms of gender
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dysphoria" and would quite possibly "increase her chance for
survival" by greatly decreasing the potential for future suicidal
ideation.
The Fenway Report was received by the DOC and reviewed by
Dr. Appelbaum and his UMass colleague, Dr. Arthur Brewer. The
UMass doctors informed the DOC that they found no clear
contraindications to SRS, but noted that they were "unaware of any
other case in which an inmate has undergone sex reassignment
surgery while incarcerated."
After considering the information from UMass, the DOC
decided to have Osborne conduct a peer review of the Fenway Report.
In a letter to Osborne, the DOC stated that it was requesting her
services because "[t]he treatment of Gender Identity Disorder
within a correctional environment is a complicated issue and one
that the Department takes very seriously. We are aware of the
substantial expertise you possess in this area and hope that you
can provide us with assistance in determining appropriate
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treatment."5 On April 12, 2005, the DOC sent Osborne copies of all
previous medical evaluations of Kosilek.
On April 28, 2005, the DOC Director of Health Services,
Susan Martin ("Martin"), wrote UMass, stating her concern that
UMass had not "address[ed] the lack of detail, clarity and specific
recommendations in the evaluation done by the Fenway Clinic," and
had failed to provide an independent recommendation as to the
appropriateness of surgery. She also asked for specific logistical
information, including a list of doctors who might provide the
surgery, what procedures would be performed, and what recovery time
could be expected.
On May 10, 2005, Drs. Appelbaum and Brewer replied,
indicating that they deferred to the Fenway Center's recommendation
of surgery, as they were not experts in the area of SRS -- a
medical procedure specifically excluded from their contract to
provide services to the DOC. They provided a preliminary list of
surgeons to consider, none of whom were licensed to practice
medicine in Massachusetts.
5 Osborne previously worked with the Virginia and Wisconsin
Departments of Correction regarding their treatment of prisoners
with GID. It is unclear from the record whether the Fenway Center
had previously developed treatment plans for GID within a
penological setting. When the DOC asked what consideration the
Fenway Center gave to issues such as "criminal history [and]
violence against women," the center responded that "independent of
other psychological disorders [Fenway experts] don't consider
criminal history, homicide, [or] brutality." On January 5, 2005 --
before the Fenway Center released its report -- the DOC's Director
of Health Services "expressed concern" about these omissions.
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On May 20, 2005, Osborne finished her peer review of the
Fenway Report. She began by making clear that her review was
limited to reading and evaluating the reports of others. As a
result, she could not independently diagnose Kosilek, but she
agreed with the conclusion that Kosilek suffered from GID. Still,
she disagreed with what she believed to be a lack of
comprehensiveness in the report and an inclination to minimize the
possibility of comorbid conditions. Namely, Osborne highlighted
that Kosilek had previously been diagnosed with Antisocial
Personality Disorder, a diagnosis neither confirmed nor denied by
the Fenway Report, and that the report included no indication that
Kosilek had been assessed for other pathologies likely to lead to
self-harming behavior. Osborne expressed belief that threats of
self-harm or suicide should serve as a contraindication to surgery,
and that such threats were not a valid or clinically acceptable
justification for surgery. In consequence, she disagreed with the
Fenway Center's statements that surgery was medically necessary as
a means to diminish the likelihood that Kosilek would attempt
suicide in the future.
Osborne's report also highlighted that the Standards of
Care admit of flexible application, and noted that the Standards
state that "the diagnosis of GID invites the consideration of a
variety of therapeutic options, only one of which is the complete
therapeutic triad." She emphasized that "[t]here is currently no
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universal professional consensus regarding what constitutes medical
necessity in GID."
In reference to the Standards of Care's application in a
penological setting, Osborne noted that the Standards of Care
include a criterion that candidates for SRS exhibit "satisfactory
control of problems such as sociopathy, substance abuse, psychosis
and suicidality." She believed that this requirement was
inherently in conflict with the Standard's application to
incarcerated persons, as she felt incarceration indicated a lack of
mastery over such antisocial leanings. Moreover, Osborne noted
that non-incarcerated individuals often face external constraints
in their choice of treatments or determine, as a result of their
"real life experience," that other, non-invasive treatments are
personally preferable to SRS. In consequence, she felt that it was
unrealistic for inmates to expect "that prison life [would] provide
no constraints or obstacles to cross gender preferences" and that
it was "outside[] the bounds of good clinical practice" for care
providers to try to meet this expectation. Given the isolation
attendant to incarceration, Osborne also emphasized that prisoners
might often lack awareness of the frequency with which individuals
choose alternative treatments over SRS.
After considering Osborne's peer review, Martin again
reached out to the doctors at UMass. On May 25, 2005, she
expressed continuing concern with the Fenway Report, highlighting
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that Osborne's peer review had raised at least three questions
regarding the report's thoroughness: (1) why the report omitted
consideration of potential comorbidities; (2) why the report did
not rely on formal psychological testing, but only an in-person
interview; and (3) why Kosilek's claims that she would likely seek
to end her life if not provided with SRS were seen to justify,
rather than serve as a contraindication to, surgery. Martin also
expressed dissatisfaction that "the February 24, 2005 evaluation by
the Fenway Clinic does not indicate whether sex reassignment
surgery is a medical necessity for Michele [sic] Kosilek" and
"fails to adequately address the issue of whether the current
treatment provided to Kosilek provides sufficient relief of the
symptoms of gender dysphoria."
A response from Drs. Appelbaum and Brewer came on
June 14, 2005. The doctors made clear that they were not experts
in the treatment of GID, and that they deferred to the Fenway
Center's treatment recommendation. Referring to the differences
between the preferred treatment plans of the Fenway Center and
Osborne, the doctors reminded Martin that Osborne's report had
emphasized the "dearth of empirical research upon which to base
treatment decisions" for GID and had highlighted the lack of
"professional consensus" regarding the "medical necessity" of SRS.
The Fenway Center issued a follow-up report aimed at
answering Osborne's critique of its initial recommendation. In
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this report, Drs. Kapila and Kaufmann noted that suicidal ideation
was common among individuals suffering from GID, and that it often
decreased with the provision of care. Therefore, the likelihood
that Kosilek would become suicidal if denied surgery was, to the
doctors, not a contraindication to her eligibility, but instead was
a symptom that could be alleviated by provision of SRS. The
doctors also disagreed with Osborne's belief that incarceration was
a significant contraindication to surgery, noting that the
Standards of Care specifically state that "[p]ersons who are
receiving treatment for [GID] should continue to receive
appropriate treatment . . . after incarceration. For example,
those who are receiving psychotherapy and/or cross-sex hormonal
treatments should be allowed to continue this medically necessary
treatment . . . ."
The Fenway Center doctors further discussed their belief
that a key step of the triadic sequence, the "real-life
experience," could occur in prison. This treatment prerequisite
requires that an individual live full-time in their preferred
cross-gender role for at least one year prior to being deemed
eligible for SRS. The purpose of this requirement is ensure that
GID patients have an opportunity to experience a full measure of
life in a cross-gender role, including the social scrutiny that may
arise among professional counterparts and peers. Prison, the
Fenway Center's doctors surmised, might be considered a "more
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stringent" real-life experience, because a prisoner's gender
presentation would be subject to full-time monitoring by prison
personnel and other inmates. The report concluded by reiterating
the Fenway Center's recommendation that Kosilek receive SRS. The
doctors recognized that performing "such a procedure would . . .
bring up issues of housing and safety," but emphasized that
"hormone therapy and [SRS] are the only clinical treatments found
to be effective for GID."
E. The DOC's Security Report
On April 25, 2005, the district court issued an order
requiring that the DOC conduct a review of any potential safety and
security concerns arising from the provision of SRS. In the next
month, the DOC worked to formalize its security concerns into a
report, which it eventually submitted to the court on June 10,
2005. As made clear by the minutes of the DOC's staff meetings,
however, these security issues were a topic of discussion prior to
the court's order. Previously, on January 5, 2005, the meeting
attendees had discussed how and if Kosilek's prior violent acts
against her wife should impact their evaluation and treatment plan.
On April 20, 2005, the parties discussed potential security
concerns that would arise should Kosilek be housed, post-surgery,
in MCI-Framingham, Massachusetts' only female prison. During that
meeting, DOC personnel noted that they were prepared to provide an
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evaluation of general climate and security concerns implicated by
the provision of surgery.
On May 19, 2005, DOC Commissioner Kathleen Dennehy
("Dennehy") convened a meeting with the Superintendent of MCINorfolk,
Luis Spencer ("Spencer"), and the Superintendent of MCIFramingham,
Lynne Bissonnette ("Bissonnette"), as well as the DOC's
legal counsel. The purpose of this meeting was to formally discuss
the security concerns previously expressed by both superintendents
in phone conversations with Dennehy. It was also an opportunity to
begin preparation of the report requested by the district court.
The report focused mainly on issues of safety and
security surrounding Kosilek's post-operative housing. Dennehy
conveyed concern regarding housing Kosilek at MCI-Norfolk, noting
that approximately twenty-five percent of male offenders in the
Massachusetts prison system are classified as sex offenders and
concluding that "Kosilek would clearly be a target for assault and
victimization in a male prison." The report also expressed
concerns with housing Kosilek at MCI-Framingham, including the
absence of single-bed cells, such that all inmates had to share
cells, and the possibility that Kosilek's presence might exacerbate
mental distress among the significant portion of MCI-Framingham's
population that had previously experienced domestic abuse and
trauma at the hands of male partners.
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Given the stated infeasibility of housing Kosilek in the
general population of either MCI-Framingham or MCI-Norfolk, the
report considered segregated housing in a protected ward. It
expressed concern, however, about the possible deleterious impact
on Kosilek's mental health caused by any housing solution that
required long-term isolation. The report also noted that it was
not within the DOC's ability to create a special ward for prisoners
with GID, given that these prisoners present a significant range of
criminal histories, security ratings, and treatment needs that are
antithetical to co-housing.
On June 10, 2005, citing both its internal review of
safety and security and Osborne's reported concerns regarding the
appropriateness of SRS, the DOC informed the district court that it
had chosen to continue Kosilek's current ameliorative treatment,
but not to provide her with SRS.
F. Kosilek II
Trial commenced on May 30, 2006, with what would be the
first of three rounds of testimony. For the sake of clarity and
concision, we summarize this testimony topically, rather than
temporally. We begin with evidence regarding the standard of care
for treatment of GID.
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1. Testimony related to medical necessity
a. Initial testimony
First to testify in 2006 was an expert witness for
Kosilek, Dr. George Brown, who had previously evaluated Kosilek in
2001 and was an author of the Standards of Care. Prior to
testifying, Dr. Brown issued a written report assessing Kosilek’s
readiness for surgery and evaluating her current mental and
physical presentation, as compared with 2001. Dr. Brown noted that
Kosilek consistently presented as female and that "[a]ccess to
makeup and female undergarments, laser hair removal, along with
hormonal treatments . . . have all seemed to significantly
reinforce and consolidate the outward expression of [Kosilek's]
gender identity as female." Other positive effects of treatment
were also described:
Hormonal treatments have resulted in obvious
breast growth since my last assessment,
decrease in upper body strength, increase in
hip size, changes in amount and texture of
body hair, skin texture changes, testicular
volume decrease, and a large reduction in
spontaneous erections . . . .
Psychologically, the effects of these combined
treatments have [included] . . . resolution of
depression, resolution of suicidality and
suicide gestures and attempts, improved mood
with reduction in irritability, anxiety, and
depression . . . .
Based on his observations, Dr. Brown concluded that Kosilek was
eligible for SRS, having met all of the readiness criteria.
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Before the court, Dr. Brown's testimony emphasized that
the provision of female clothing and effects, hair removal, and
hormones had resulted in a lessening of "the severity of
[Kosilek's] dysphoria." According to Dr. Brown "[s]he was clearly
less depressed, less anxious, less irritable . . . . She was not
suicidal . . . ." Despite these significant improvements, Dr.
Brown testified that he believed SRS to be an appropriate and
"medical[ly] necessary component" of Kosilek's treatment. He
related instances in which incarcerated persons who could not
complete the triadic sequence6 exhibited an increase in negative
symptoms, including a resurgence of self-harming behavior.
Dr. Brown further testified that, if not granted surgery,
he believed Kosilek’s feelings of "hopelessness will intensify,"
and that she would likely attempt suicide. In reaching this
conclusion, Dr. Brown emphasized that "other parts of the treatment
plan [e.g., hormones, hair removal, and the provision of female
clothing] . . . all contribute in their own way to a level of
improvement." Nonetheless, he felt that, if Kosilek lost hope of
receiving SRS, her current treatment plan would not stop a
deterioration of her mental state and the possible reemergence of
suicidal ideation.
6 The steps of this sequence, if fully completed, progress from
GID diagnosis and therapeutic treatment, through endocrine
treatment, and culminate -- after at least a one-year-long reallife
experience -- with the consideration of SRS.
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Dr. Kaufman from the Fenway Center also testified,
reiterating that the Fenway Center believed SRS to be an
appropriate and medically necessary step in Kosilek's treatment.
She further stated her belief that, if not given surgery, Kosilek
would present a significant risk of suicide: "if she's not able to
have surgery, I think that she'll be hopeless and feel helpless and
at that point really will have nothing else to live for."
Next to testify was Mark Burrows ("Burrows"), who had
been Kosilek’s treating psychiatrist for approximately five years.
Burrows testified to Kosilek's strong desire for SRS, and to her
feelings of hope associated with completing the formalization of
her gender presentation. Burrows also stated that denying surgery
would likely have a negative impact on Kosilek's mental health. He
believed that it was "slightly" "more probable than not" that a
denial of the surgery would result in Kosilek attempting to commit
suicide. Burrows also spoke about his belief that, if given SRS,
Kosilek should not continue to reside at MCI-Norfolk, as "the risks
involved in her possibly being assaulted are obvious."
Dr. Appelbaum of UMass was also called as a witness for
Kosilek. He testified as to UMass's trust in the Fenway Center's
recommendations, and to his belief that the DOC need not have
sought out a peer review of the Fenway Report, given the Fenway
Center's expertise in the treatment of GID.
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Kosilek testified next. She expressed the depth of her
desire for SRS, and she stated that she would continue to
experience mental anguish regarding her gender identity so long as
she had male genitalia. If not provided with SRS, Kosilek said
that she "would not want to continue existing [as an anatomical
male]" and might instead attempt to commit suicide. She disagreed
with the suggestion that treatment short of SRS could adequately
relieve her mental distress, stating that "[t]he problem is my
genitals. That's what needs to be fixed." Kosilek also testified
as to feeling discomfort in the all-male environment of MCI-Norfolk
and having a strong desire to be transferred to MCI-Framingham.
She felt that the inmates at MCI-Framingham would be more accepting
and welcoming of her than those at MCI-Norfolk.
The DOC offered testimony from Dr. Chester Schmidt, a
licensed psychiatrist and Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins
School of Medicine. Dr. Schmidt expressed his belief that Kosilek
had undergone an "excellent adaptation" through treatment with
hormones, hair removal, psychotherapy, and the provision of female
garb. These treatments had alleviated the severity of her mental
distress and allowed Kosilek to significantly consolidate her
gender identity. Dr. Schmidt acknowledged that, if not provided
SRS, Kosilek's level of mental distress would likely increase, with
depression or attempts at self-harm possible. On the whole,
however, he believed that her positive adaptation and the
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consolidation of her gender identity indicated that the current
course of treatment provided by the DOC was medically adequate.
Dr. Schmidt explained that the severity of dysphoria associated
with GID may "wax and wane," with patients feeling depressed or
hopeless at times, but generally being able to alleviate these
depressive symptoms with appropriate psychotherapy and medical
interventions. He felt that these measures, in combination with
Kosilek's current course of treatment, would allow her to live
safely and maintain a level of contentment.
On cross-examination, Dr. Schmidt was questioned
regarding his alleged rejection of the Standards of Care.
Dr. Schmidt responded that he found the Standards of Care "very
useful for patients" and that he commonly requested that patients
familiarize themselves with these Standards when they began to seek
care for SRS. Asked if he had stricter requirements for SRS
eligibility than those in the Standards of Care, Dr. Schmidt
emphasized that he neither "advocate[s] for nor . . . speak[s]
against the decisions for the cross-gender hormones or eventually
for surgery." Rather, he believes such decisions are best made by
the patient, based on their personal needs and desires. In line
with this belief, Dr. Schmidt stated that he does not specifically
recommend SRS, but at a patient's request he will release medical
files and send a letter indicating that a patient is ready for
surgery to their chosen SRS provider.
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Dr. Schmidt further testified that he viewed the
Standards of Care as "guidelines." He explained, however, that
"[t]here are many people in the country who disagree with those
standards who are involved in the [GID] field." Because of this
disagreement, Dr. Schmidt expressed hesitation to refer to the
Standards of Care, or the recommendation for SRS, as medically
necessary. He emphasized the existence of alternative methods and
treatment plans accepted within the medical community. He also
questioned whether the Standards of Care's requirement of a reallife
experience could occur in prison, opining that the real-life
experience required a range of social and vocational experiences
unavailable within a penological setting.
Osborne testified next, reiterating her agreement with
Kosilek's GID diagnosis, but disagreeing that SRS was a medically
necessary treatment. In reference to the Standards of Care,
Osborne testified that she fully agreed that SRS was an effective
and appropriate treatment for GID. She emphasized, however, that
she did not view SRS as medically necessary in light of "the whole
continuum from noninvasive to invasive" treatment options available
to individuals with GID. Regarding Kosilek personally, Osborne
indicated that she believed Kosilek's current treatment plan had
been highly effective in allowing Kosilek to feel "hopeful,
euphoric, and not depressed" about her gender identity. Osborne,
like Dr. Schmidt before her, again expressed skepticism as to
-24-
whether a real-life experience could occur in jail, given that a
single-sex environment necessarily limited the sorts of social and
human interactions available. Osborne agreed that not providing
Kosilek with SRS might give rise to possible suicidal ideation, but
noted that the DOC had significant expertise in treating prisoners
exhibiting self-harming behavior. She felt that Kosilek's current
treatment plan, in conjunction with protective measures aimed at
ensuring her personal safety, was an appropriate and medically
acceptable response to Kosilek's GID.
b. The UMass report
Following the close of initial testimony, the district
court ordered UMass to review the testimony of all medical experts
and to issue a report regarding whether the treatment proposed by
Dr. Schmidt was an adequate method of treating Kosilek's GID. In
this report -- submitted to the court on September 18, 2006 -- Drs.
Appelbaum and Brewer made clear that they "worked with and relied
upon Dr. Kapila and Dr. Kaufman" who "assist[ed] to prepare this
response." The report stated that the UMass doctors "have been
informed by Dr. Kaufman and Dr. Kapila that . . . trial testimony
. . . confirms their opinion that Michelle Kosilek has a 'serious
medical need' because there is a 'substantial risk of serious harm
if it is not adequately treated.'" In conclusion, the report
reiterated that the Fenway Center believed Dr. Schmidt's proposed
-25-
treatment plan would not provide adequate care, and UMass endorsed
that conclusion.
c. The court-appointed expert
At the conclusion of the first round of testimony, the
district court decided to appoint an independent expert to assist
in determining what constituted the medical standard of treatment
for GID. On October 31, 2006, with the parties' input, the
district court selected Dr. Stephen Levine, a practitioner at the
Center for Marital and Sexual Health in Ohio and a clinical
professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School
of Medicine. Dr. Levine had helped to author the fifth version of
the Standards of Care, and served as Chairman of the Harry Benjamin
International Gender Dysphoria Association's Standards of Care
Committee.
A month after his appointment, Dr. Levine issued a
written report. The report began by explaining the dual roles that
WPATH -- formerly the Harry Benjamin Association and the
organization that wrote the Standards of Care -- plays in its
provision of care to individuals with GID:
WPATH is supportive to those who want sex
reassignment surgery (SRS). . . . Skepticism
and strong alternate views are not well
tolerated. Such views have been known to be
greeted with antipathy from the large numbers
of nonprofessional adults who attend each [of]
the organization's biennial meetings. . . .
The [Standards of Care are] the product
of an enormous effort to be balanced, but it
-26-
is not a politically neutral document. WPATH
aspires to be both a scientific organization
and an advocacy group for the transgendered.
These aspirations sometimes conflict. The
limitations of the [Standards of Care],
however, are not primarily political. They
are caused by the lack of rigorous research in
the field.
Dr. Levine further emphasized that "large gaps" exist in the
medical community's knowledge regarding the long-term effects of
SRS and other GID treatments in relation to its positive or
negative correlation to suicidal ideation.
Dr. Levine next discussed the possibility of Kosilek
having a real-life experience in prison. He explained that the
Fenway Center, in stating that a real-life experience could be had
in prison, "failed to offer a mild caveat that the real life test
was designed to test the patients' capacity to function as a female
in the community by mastering the demands of . . . family, social
relationships, educational accomplishment, [and] vocational
performance." Such experiences and relationships, Dr. Levine
noted, are not a part of Kosilek's daily life in prison. Dr.
Levine's final conclusion was that:
Dr. Schmidt's view, however unpopular and
uncompassionate in the eyes of some experts in
GID, is within prudent professional community
standards. Treatment stopping short of SRS
would be considered adequate by many
psychiatrists, gender team members, and gender
patients themselves, if Kosilek were a citizen
in the community. . . . [T]here are a number
of acceptable community standards which derive
from differing assumptions about disorders,
-27-
their causes, and the possible effective
interventions.
He recognized that the different treatment plans advocated by Dr.
Schmidt and the Fenway Center "each . . . [had] merit," as well as
limitations. Dr. Levine further wrote that doctors generally "do
not recommend treatment to GID patients. . . . The decision is
[the patient's], when and if they still want it."
Dr. Levine testified on December 16, 2006. He first
reiterated his belief that Dr. Schmidt's view, although not
preferred by some GID specialists, was within "prudent professional
standards." He noted that Kosilek had received significant relief
on her current treatment plan, and that many patients with GID live
comfortably without completing the triadic sequence. He believed
that Kosilek had already successfully consolidated her gender
identity, such that the removal of her male genitalia might relieve
dysphoria, but it was not necessary to complete that consolidation.
He also indicated variability and difficulty in forecasting
depressive symptoms and self-harming behavior in GID patients. He
explained that he believed Kosilek would certainly express deep
disappointment if denied SRS -- described as the sole current focus
of her life -- but that coping mechanisms might well change her
outlook in months and years to come, allowing her to live happily
without the provision of SRS.
The district court then asked Dr. Levine to narrow the
lens of his inquiry by presuming that there were absolutely no
-28-
external contraindications to surgery and that Kosilek had indeed
had a real-life experience in prison. Given these presumptions,
the court asked Dr. Levine to testify as to whether it would still
be prudent to not provide Kosilek with SRS. Dr. Levine
acknowledged his belief that prudent professionals would generally
not deny surgery to a fully eligible individual. Still, he
hesitated to declare Dr. Schmidt's approach medically unacceptable.
He answered that the provision of SRS would surely be a prudent
course of treatment, but then stated that "I also believe it's
prudent not to give her Sex Reassignment Surgery for lots of
reasons." He again emphasized for the court that the treatment of
GID was an evolving field, in which practitioners could reasonably
differ in their preferred treatment methods. Dr. Levine explained
that in many instances patients cannot or do not want to receive
SRS, and prudent physicians commonly employ a range of treatments
to ameliorate these patients' dysphoria.
d. Additional rounds of testimony
Several witnesses were recalled for additional testimony.
Drs. Kapila and Kaufman appeared again on behalf of Kosilek. Both
reiterated their belief that Kosilek had a serious medical need and
that, given Kosilek's high risk of suicide if denied the surgery,
SRS was the only adequate treatment plan. Dr. Appelbaum also
testified again, as did the UMass Medical Director. Both UMass
-29-
doctors reaffirmed their endorsement of the Fenway Center's
treatment recommendations.
Kosilek also presented additional witness testimony from
Dr. Marshall Forstein, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard
Medical School, who had previously evaluated Kosilek during
Kosilek I. Dr. Forstein issued a written report, in which he noted
that "the question of the most prudent form of treatment is
complicated by the diagnosis of GID being on the margins of typical
medical practice." Despite this recognition, he testified that he
believed SRS was necessary for Kosilek. He felt that, if she was
not given SRS, there was a significant risk that Kosilek would
attempt suicide or self-mutilation. Although Dr. Forstein believed
that psychotherapy might "help with frustration, with harassment,
and with depression," he was uncertain whether Kosilek could ever
fully "reconcile with being incompletely transitioned."
2. Testimony regarding safety and security concerns
a. Initial testimony
In line with the June 10, 2005, security report prepared
by Commissioner Dennehy, multiple DOC officials testified regarding
the safety and security concerns that were likely to arise if
Kosilek was provided SRS.
First to testify was Spencer, who at that time served as
Superintendent of MCI-Norfolk. Spencer began by explaining the
general layout and security measures at MCI-Norfolk. He also
-30-
explained that the prison had, so far, successfully been able to
accommodate Kosilek's receipt of care without incident. Spencer
was unaware of any issues or incidents of harassment related to
Kosilek's breast growth and increasingly feminine appearance. He
stated, however, that he would have significant concerns housing an
anatomically female prisoner in MCI-Norfolk, an all-male prison.
Despite the lack of historical incidents specific to Kosilek, he
emphasized that "inmates do get assaulted, inmates have been raped
. . . [a]nd putting a female in a correctional environment like
MCI-Norfolk would be of high concern to me." If Kosilek remained
at MCI-Norfolk, Spencer testified that he believed she would only
be safe if housed in the Special Management Unit, a highly
restricted secure building separated from the general population.
Bissonnette, Superintendent of MCI-Framingham, also
testified about the security concerns she believed would arise if
Kosilek was transferred to the all-female prison after receiving
SRS. She explained that MCI-Framingham does not have private
cells, save for the segregation and medical units. All women in
the general population are required to cohabitate, and that prison
would be unable to provide a single-occupancy cell for Kosilek.
She also explained that Kosilek's presence could create significant
disruption in MCI-Framingham's population, given that Kosilek had
been convicted for violently murdering her wife, and that a
-31-
significant portion of women at MCI-Framingham were victims of
domestic abuse.
Bissonnette acknowledged that there were procedures in
place designed to help women cope with exposure to upsetting or
traumatic experiences with other prisoners, but maintained that
these security concerns would require that Kosilek, if transferred
to MCI-Framingham, be housed in the segregated Close Custody unit.
Bissonnette explained that she had significant hesitation about
incarcerating anyone long-term in the Close Custody unit, given the
potential negative effects of such long-term segregation.
Commissioner Dennehy also testified. She described the
security concerns arising from cross-gender housing as "obvious" to
any experienced corrections officer. In line with her belief that
the safety and security concerns about post-operative housing were
clear, Dennehy stated that she would not feel comfortable allowing
SRS -- even if mandated by the court -- if she could not identify
an adequate method of safely housing Kosilek after her operation.
Dennehy reiterated Spencer's and Bissonnette's concerns, stating
that she deeply trusted both Superintendents' professional
judgments regarding the security of housing Kosilek at their
respective facilities. Dennehy also explained why reliance on an
interstate compact to transfer Kosilek would be problematic. She
emphasized that other states take prisoners on a fully voluntary
-32-
basis, and that no state may be willing or able to accommodate a
transfer request for Kosilek.
Commissioner Dennehy was also questioned about negative
press surrounding the DOC's possible provision of SRS to Kosilek.
Specifically, she was asked about her professional relationship
with a state senator who had vocally opposed surgery and sponsored
legislation to deny its provision. She was also asked about any
contact with the then-lieutenant governor, who was another strong
opponent of providing SRS to prisoners. Dennehy stated that she
was aware of negative press reports and political opposition
surrounding Kosilek's request, but that her decision not to provide
SRS was based only on security concerns and had not been influenced
by this public pressure.
The district court recalled Dennehy on October 18, 2006,
to ask additional questions regarding a growing amount of press
coverage surrounding the case. Dennehy acknowledged that she was
aware of significant news coverage of Kosilek's case, but denied
personally following the story in the media. She explained that
there were staff members within the DOC trained to deal with press
inquiries and that she generally received only summaries of news
coverage from her staff. Again, Dennehy strongly denied forming
any opinion about correctional safety procedures based on media
reports or public opinion.
-33-
b. Commissioner Clarke
Dennehy ended her tenure as DOC Commissioner on April 30,
2007, and in November 2007 the position was filled by Harold
Clarke. After Clarke took over, the district court requested that
he familiarize himself with a selected number of trial transcripts.
Clarke was ordered to file a report, on the basis of those
transcripts, indicating whether he believed that the DOC had
legitimate reasons to refuse Kosilek's request for SRS.
Clarke's report, filed approximately a month after the
district court's order, stated that his conclusions were based on
more than three decades of correctional experience and were not
influenced by political or media pressure. He expressed concern
regarding threats of suicide being used as a means for prisoners to
receive wanted benefits or concessions from staff. Finding it to
be bad practice for prison administrators to give in to demands
accompanied by the threat of suicide, Clarke stated that he
believed the Massachusetts prison system had taken significant
measures to ensure it was prepared to deal with suicidal ideation
among its prison population. In addition to considering the issue
of suicide, Clarke's report reemphasized the significant postoperative
security concerns expressed by his predecessor. He
stated that housing Kosilek at MCI-Norfolk created clear security
concerns related to mixed-gender prison populations, while housing
Kosilek at MCI-Framingham would pose a significant risk of
-34-
destabilizing that environment, given the number of women prisoners
who were victims of domestic violence. Clarke also stated his
belief that a separate unit to house GID prisoners was not
feasible, given that prisoners with GID might have a wide range of
security classifications and security needs, making cohabitation
unsafe. In reference to the possibility of an interstate transfer,
Clarke reiterated the concern that any interstate transfer would be
completely voluntary and that a receiving state might later decide
to return Kosilek, at which time the housing concerns would
reemerge.
Testifying before the court, Clarke acknowledged that he
had received several letters from outraged state politicians
claiming that provision of the surgery would be an "affront to the
taxpayers" and citing state budget concerns as a reason to deny
Kosilek surgery. The letters argued that a strained state budget
should not be used to accommodate what the legislators believed to
be an "elective" procedure and that the DOC would be "unwise" to
provide it. Clarke, however, explained that he had not answered
these letters, as he believed providing an answer would be
inappropriate given his role as DOC Commissioner. He also denied
being in any way influenced by cost concerns in reaching his
conclusion regarding safety and security concerns. Clarke similarly
testified that he was aware of media coverage regarding Kosilek's
-35-
request, but he had not personally viewed the news or heard the
radio stories.
G. Kosilek II
The district court issued an extensive opinion on
September 4, 2012. This opinion concluded that Kosilek had a
serious medical need and that -- based on the court's belief that
Dr. Schmidt was not a prudent professional -- the only adequate way
to treat this need was through SRS. Moreover, the court determined
that the DOC's stated security concerns were merely pretextual and
concluded that the DOC had in fact made its decision based on
public and political pressure. This, the court concluded, amounted
to deliberate indifference under the Eighth Amendment. Stating its
belief that the DOC would continue to deny Kosilek adequate
treatment in the future, the district court granted an injunction
requiring that the DOC provide Kosilek with SRS.
II. Discussion
A. The Eighth Amendment and Medical Care in Prison
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive
fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." U.S.
Const. amend. VIII. From this brief amendment, courts have derived
the principles that govern the permissible conditions under which
prisoners are held and that establish the medical treatment those
prisoners must be afforded. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825,
832 (1994). Where "society takes from prisoners the means to
-36-
provide for their own needs," the failure to provide such care "may
actually produce physical torture or a lingering death." Brown v.
Plata, 131 S. Ct. 1910, 1928 (2011) (internal quotation marks
omitted). Undue suffering, unrelated to any legitimate penological
purpose, is considered a form of punishment proscribed by the
Eighth Amendment. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103 (1976). The
Eighth Amendment is meant to prohibit "unnecessary and wanton
infliction of pain," which is "repugnant to the conscience of
mankind." Id. at 105-06 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Amendment's focus on punishment means that not all
shortages or failures in care exhibit the intent and harmfulness
required to fall within its ambit. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837
(reasoning that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of punishment
implies an act done with intentionality). Therefore, to prove an
Eighth Amendment violation, a prisoner must satisfy both of two
prongs: (1) an objective prong that requires proof of a serious
medical need, and (2) a subjective prong that mandates a showing of
prison administrators' deliberate indifference to that need. See
Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106 (holding that inadequate treatment must be
"sufficiently harmful to evidence deliberate indifference to
serious medical needs"); Sires v. Berman, 834 F.2d 9, 12 (1st Cir.
1987) ("A plaintiff must satisfy two elements to present a viable
[Eighth Amendment] claim: he must show a serious medical need, and
he must prove the defendant's purposeful indifference thereto.").
-37-
First, a medical need must be "serious." Id. This
objective prong requires that the need be "one that has been
diagnosed by a physician as mandating treatment, or one that is so
obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize the necessity
for a doctor's attention." Gaudreault v. Municipality of Salem,
Mass., 923 F.2d 203, 208 (1st Cir. 1990). This prong does not
impose upon prison administrators a duty to provide care that is
ideal, or of the prisoner's choosing. See United States v. Derbes,
369 F.3d 579, 583 (1st Cir. 2004) (stating that prison
administrators are "by no means required to tailor a perfect plan
for every inmate; while [they are] constitutionally obligated to
provide medical services to inmates, these services need only be on
a level reasonably commensurate with modern medical science and of
a quality acceptable within prudent professional standards"
(internal quotation marks and citations omitted)); United States v.
DeCologero, 821 F.2d 39, 43 (1st Cir. 1987) (same); Ferranti v.
Moran, 618 F.2d 888, 891 (1st Cir. 1980) ("[A]llegations [that]
simply reflect a disagreement on the appropriate course of
treatment . . . fall[] short of alleging a constitutional
violation."). Rather, the Constitution proscribes care that is
"'so inadequate as to shock the conscience.'" Torraco v. Maloney,
-38-
923 F.2d 231, 235 (1st Cir. 1991) (quoting Sires, 834 F.2d at
13)).7
Second, even if medical care is so inadequate as to
satisfy the objective prong, the Eighth Amendment is not violated
unless prison administrators also exhibit deliberate indifference
to the prisoner's needs. Estelle, 429 U.S. at 105-06. For
purposes of this subjective prong, deliberate indifference "defines
a narrow band of conduct," Feeney v. Corr. Med. Servs. Inc., 464
F.3d 158, 162 (1st Cir. 2006), and requires evidence that the
failure in treatment was purposeful. See Estelle, 429 U.S. at 105
(holding that "an inadvertent failure to provide adequate medical
care" is not a constitutional violation);8 id. at 106 ("Medical
malpractice does not become a constitutional violation merely
because the victim is a prisoner."); Watson v. Caton, 984 F.2d 537,
540 (1st Cir. 1993) ("The courts have consistently refused to
7 Although these cases address the second, subjective prong of the
Eighth Amendment analysis, we have recognized that "the subjective
deliberate indifference inquiry may overlap with the objective
serious medical need determination" and that "similar evidence
. . . may be relevant to both components." Leavitt v. Corr. Med.
Servs., Inc., 645 F.3d 484, 498 (1st Cir. 2011) (internal quotation
marks and brackets omitted); see also DesRosiers v. Moran, 949 F.2d
15, 18-19 (1st Cir. 1991). As the adequacy of care is germane both
to Kosilek's objective need for surgery and to the DOC's alleged
deliberate indifference to that need, the principles of these cases
are relevant to both steps of our analysis.
8 Although this case does not involve "an inadvertent failure to
provide adequate medical care," see Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106, that
fact alone does not elevate the DOC's choice among alternative
treatments to "deliberate indifference" for purposes of the Eighth
Amendment analysis.
-39-
create constitutional claims out of disagreements between prisoners
and doctors about the proper course of a prisoner's medical
treatment, or to conclude that simple medical malpractice rises to
the level of cruel and unusual punishment."). "The obvious case
would be a denial of needed medical treatment in order to punish
the inmate." Watson, 984 F.2d at 540. While deliberate
indifference may also be exhibited by a "wanton disregard" to a
prisoner's needs, Battista v. Clarke, 645 F.3d 449, 453 (1st Cir.
2011), such disregard must be akin to criminal recklessness,
requiring consciousness of "'impending harm, easily preventable.'"
Watson, 984 F.2d at 540.
When evaluating medical care and deliberate indifference,
security considerations inherent in the functioning of a
penological institution must be given significant weight.
Battista, 645 F.3d at 454 ("[S]ecurity considerations also matter
at prisons . . . and administrators have to balance conflicting
demands."). "[W]ide-ranging deference" is accorded to prison
administrators "in the adoption and execution of policies and
practices that in their judgement are needed to . . . maintain
institutional security." Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 321-22
(1986) (quoting Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 547 (1979))
(internal quotation marks omitted). In consequence, even a denial
of care may not amount to an Eighth Amendment violation if that
decision is based in legitimate concerns regarding prisoner safety
-40-
and institutional security. Cameron v. Tomes, 990 F.2d 14, 20 (1st
Cir. 1993) (requiring courts to "embrace security and
administration, . . . not merely medical judgments" in assessing
claims of deliberate indifference); Sires, 834 F.2d at 13
("[S]afety factors are properly included in the evaluation of the
medical needs of an inmate."). Importantly, prison administrators
need only have "'responded reasonably to the risk.'" Giroux v.
Somerset Cnty., 178 F.3d 28, 33 (1st Cir. 1999) (quoting Farmer,
511 U.S. at 844).
B. Standard of Review
The test for establishing an Eighth Amendment claim of
inadequate medical care encompasses a multitude of questions that
present elements both factual and legal. Review of such "mixed
questions" is of a variable exactitude; the more law-based a
question, the less deferentially we assess the district court's
conclusion. In Re Extradition of Howard, 996 F.2d 1320, 1328 (1st
Cir. 1993) ("The standard of review applicable to mixed questions
usually depends upon where they fall along the degree-of-deference
continuum . . . .").
The ultimate legal conclusion of whether prison
administrators have violated the Eighth Amendment is reviewed de
novo. See, e.g., Thomas v. Bryant, 614 F.3d 1288, 1307 (11th Cir.
2010) ("Whether the record demonstrates that [the prisoner] was
sprayed with chemical agents . . . and that he suffered
-41-
psychological injuries from such sprayings are questions of fact.
Whether these deprivations are objectively 'sufficiently serious'
to satisfy the objective prong, is a question of law . . . ."
(internal citations omitted)); Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 744
(9th Cir. 2002) ("The district court's factual findings regarding
conditions at the Prison are reviewed for clear error. However,
its conclusion that the facts do not demonstrate an Eighth
Amendment violation is a question of law that we review de novo."
(citing Campbell v. Wood, 18 F.3d 662, 681 (9th Cir. 1994) (en
banc))); Hickey v. Reeder, 12 F.3d 754, 756 (8th Cir. 1993)
("Whether conduct, if done with the required culpability, is
sufficiently harmful to establish an Eighth Amendment violation is
an objective or legal determination which we decide de novo.");
Alberti v. Klevenhagen, 790 F.2d 1220, 1225 (5th Cir. 1986)
("[O]nce the facts are established, the issue of whether these
facts constitute a violation of constitutional rights is a question
of law that may be assayed anew upon appeal."). Subsidiary legal
questions, such as whether an actor's conduct amounted to
deliberate indifference for purposes of the Eighth Amendment, are
likewise reviewed de novo. Cf. Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S.
690, 699 (1996) (holding that, for Fourth Amendment purposes,
reasonable suspicion and probable cause determinations should
receive de novo appellate review); United States v. Camacho, 661
F.3d 718, 724 (1st Cir. 2011) (we review de novo a district court's
-42-
subsidiary reasonable suspicion and probable cause determinations
in evaluating a motion to suppress); United States v. Bucci, 582
F.3d 108, 115-17 (1st Cir. 2009).
Our court awards deference to the district court's
resolution of questions of pure fact and issues of credibility.
See, e.g., DesRosiers v. Moran, 949 F.2d 15, 19 (1st Cir. 1991)
(reviewing factual findings regarding the adequacy of care
deferentially); Torraco, 923 F.2d at 234 (finding that issues of
culpability in a deliberate indifference inquiry are usually
questions for a jury). We will reverse the district court's
findings on such factual questions only for clear error.
DesRosiers, 949 F.2d at 19 ("[W]e assay findings of fact in a bench
trial only for clear error."). We find clear error when we are
left with "'a strong, unyielding belief, based on the whole of the
record,' that the judge made a mistake." In re O'Donnell, 728 F.3d
41, 45 (1st Cir. 2013) (quoting Islamic Inv. Co. of the Gulf (Bah.)
Ltd. v. Harper (In re Grand Jury Investigation), 545 F.3d 21, 24
(1st Cir. 2008)). We may also find clear error when the district
court commits an error of law that affects its fact-finding
analysis. See Uno v. City of Holyoke, 72 F.3d 973, 978 (1st Cir.
1995) ("[T]he jurisprudence of clear error 'does not inhibit an
appellate court's power to correct errors of law, including those
that may infect a so-called mixed finding of law and fact, or a
finding of fact that is predicated on a misunderstanding of the
-43-
governing rule of law.'" (quoting Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S.
30, 106 (1986))).
This standard of review tracks the Supreme Court's
framework for appellate review of claims of excessive punishment or
fines under the Eighth Amendment. United States v. Bajakajian, 524
U.S. 321, 336-37 & n.10 (1998). In Bajakajian, the Supreme Court
concluded that the excessiveness of a fine was a question properly
considered de novo by appellate courts, applying "the standard of
gross disproportionality articulated in [its] Cruel and Unusual
Punishments Clause precedents." Id. at 336. "[T]he application of
a constitutional standard to the facts of a particular case," the
Supreme Court reasoned, may appropriately require de novo appellate
review to ensure consistency in the law's development. Id. at 336
n.10; see also Cooper Indus. v. Leatherman Tool Grp., Inc., 532
U.S. 424, 435-36 (2001) (extending de novo review of the
excessiveness inquiry associated with the Excessive Fines Clause of
the Eighth Amendment to punitive damages awards); Ornelas, 517 U.S.
at 699 (holding that "as a general matter determinations of
reasonable suspicion and probable cause should be reviewed de novo
on appeal").
The considerations set forth in Ornelas, and applied in
Bajakajian and Leatherman Tool, are equally relevant here.
"Medical 'need' in real life is an elastic term," Battista, 645
F.3d at 454, "that take[s its] substantive content from the
-44-
particular context[] in which the standards are being assessed."
Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 696. Similarly, the "legal rules" for what
constitutes care in violation of the Eighth Amendment "acquire
content only through application" -- a fact which favors de novo
appellate review "to maintain control of, and to clarify, the legal
principles." See id. at 697.
C. The Objective Prong: Serious Medical Need
To sustain a claim under the objective prong of the
Eighth Amendment, Kosilek must show that she has a serious medical
need for which she has received inadequate treatment. See Estelle,
429 U.S. at 106; Sires, 834 F.2d at 13 (finding no Eighth Amendment
violation where the prisoner failed to "present[] any evidence of
a serious medical need that has gone unmet"); see also Derbes, 369
F.3d at 583 (a prison's constitutional obligation to provide
medical services does not require "a perfect plan for every
inmate"); DeCologero, 821 F.2d at 42 ("[T]hough it is plain that an
inmate deserves adequate medical care, he cannot insist that his
institutional host provide him with the most sophisticated care
that money can buy."). A significant risk of future harm that
prison administrators fail to mitigate may suffice under the
objective prong. Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 35 (1993); see
also Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35, 50 (2008) ("[S]ubjecting
individuals to a risk of future harm . . . can qualify as cruel and
unusual punishment."); Roe v. Elyea, 631 F.3d 843, 858 (7th Cir.
-45-
2011) ("[T]he Eighth Amendment 'protects [an inmate] not only from
deliberate indifference to his or her current serious health
problems, but also from deliberate indifference to conditions
posing an unreasonable risk of serious damage to future health.'"
(quoting Board v. Farnham, 394 F.3d 469, 479 (7th Cir. 2005))).
That GID is a serious medical need, and one which
mandates treatment, is not in dispute in this case. The parties do
not spar over the fact that Kosilek requires medical care aimed at
alleviating the harms associated with GID -- to the contrary, the
DOC has provided such care since 2003. Rather, the parties
disagree over whether SRS is a medically necessary component of
Kosilek's care, such that any course of treatment not including
surgery is constitutionally inadequate. The parties' disparate
positions on this issue are fit for succinct summary.
Kosilek argues that the only constitutionally sufficient
treatment regimen is to adhere to the Standards of Care's triadic
sequence in full, including the provision of SRS. Kosilek
emphasizes that doctors at both UMass and Fenway Clinic -- doctors
hired by the DOC -- confirmed at trial that SRS was "medically
necessary." The failure to provide treatment, these doctors
testified, would almost certainly lead to a deterioration in
Kosilek's mental state and a high likelihood of self-harming
behaviors. In light of this risk, and given that they believed
Kosilek had successfully met all eligibility criteria for SRS,
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these doctors believed that any course of treatment excluding SRS
is insufficient to treat Kosilek's GID.
In contrast, the DOC argues that full progression through
the Standards of Care's triadic sequence is not the only adequate
treatment option, as Kosilek's GID may be appropriately managed
with treatment short of SRS. The DOC maintains that the evidence
does not meet the standards for negligent treatment of a medical
condition, much less the higher Eighth Amendment standard. See
Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106 ("Thus, a complaint that a physician has
been negligent in diagnosing or treating a medical condition does
not state a valid claim of medical mistreatment under the Eighth
Amendment."); Watson, 984 F.2d at 540 (stating that "simple medical
malpractice" does not "rise[] to the level of cruel and unusual
punishment").
Relying on the advice of accredited medical
professionals, the DOC argues that its alternative course of
treatment -- which provides Kosilek such alleviative measures as
psychotherapy, hormones, electrolysis, and the provision of female
garb and accessories -- is sufficient to treat Kosilek's GID and
far exceeds a level of care that would be "so inadequate as to
shock the conscience." See Torraco, 923 F.2d at 235 (quoting
Sires, 834 F.2d at 13). Moreover, this course of treatment has, in
practice, greatly diminished Kosilek's mental distress and allowed
her a fair measure of contentment. Should suicidal ideation arise
-47-
in the future, the DOC contends that -- based on the advice of its
medical experts and its own penological experience -- it would be
able to address that future risk appropriately through
psychotherapy and antidepressants.
We begin by discussing the district court's conclusions
regarding the objective prong. We then examine de novo the
question whether the treatment offered was constitutionally
adequate.
1. The district court's medical prudence determination
The district court ruled that SRS was a medically
necessary treatment, and that Dr. Schmidt's alternative belief was
outside the bounds of medical prudence.9 However, the court's
finding that Dr. Schmidt's views were medically imprudent was based
on several erroneous determinations.
First, the court ruled that, unlike prudent medical
professionals, Dr. Schmidt did not "follow" the Standards of Care
in his treatment of GID. This finding ignored critical nuance in
Dr. Schmidt's testimony and based its conclusion on a severely
strained reading of Dr. Levine's expert testimony.
9 For the sake of clarity, we reiterate that medical imprudence --
without more -- is insufficient to establish an Eighth Amendment
violation. See Estelle, 429 U.S. at 105-06; Watson, 984 F.2d at
540. Instead, a prisoner must satisfy both prongs of the Eighth
Amendment inquiry, proving that the level of care provided is
"sufficiently harmful to evidence deliberate indifference to
serious medical needs." Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106.
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As an initial matter, the Standards of Care themselves
admit of significant flexibility in their interpretation and
application. They state, for example, that "[t]he Standards of
Care [a]re Clinical Guidelines" and are "intended to provide
flexible directions" to medical professionals in crafting treatment
plans. Standards of Care at 1 (emphases added). The Standards of
Care also specifically warn that "[a]ll readers should be aware of
the limitations of knowledge in this area." Standards of Care at
1. "Individual professionals and organized programs," the
Standards of Care continue on, "may modify [the standards]" as
appropriate. Id. at 2. Dr. Levine's testimony acknowledged this
flexibility:
[DR. LEVINE]: [T]he "Standards of Care" was a
consensus document from people from seven
different countries or something, you know,
who come from different systems, and it was a
political process that forged together a set
of standards . . . . So "prudent" is a
wonderful word, but it's not like it has one
simple definition.
. . .
THE COURT: But is this an area in which you
think prudent professionals can reasonably
differ as to what is at least minimally
adequate treatment for this condition?
[DR. LEVINE]: Yes, and do.
Moreover, the district court put great weight on the fact
that the Standards of Care require that patients receive two
letters of recommendation prior to SRS. The court concluded,
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therefore, that "prudent professionals who treat individuals
suffering from severe gender identity disorders write such letters
of recommendation," and it faulted Dr. Schmidt as imprudent for his
failure to engage in this practice. In so doing, the court relied
on Dr. Levine's testimony, which it believed stated that a prudent
professional would not "[refuse] to write letters of
recommendation."
Dr. Schmidt's testimony, however, makes clear that
although he does not advocate or recommend surgery to his patients,
if a patient chooses to seek SRS, he releases all of their medical
files to a surgeon and writes that surgeon a letter confirming that
the patient is eligible for surgery. Insofar as Dr. Schmidt had
not advocated for the surgery, this neutrality aligns with what Dr.
Levine describes as the accepted practice for doctors in the
treatment of GID: "[i]f the patient meets eligibility requirements
. . . we then write a letter of support . . . I understand how
others may perceive this as a recommendation . . . [but] we tell
ourselves we are opening a gate to their decision." Therefore,
whatever the semantic force of the district court's distinction, we
see no material difference between the letters written by Dr.
Schmidt confirming a patient's readiness for surgery and what the
Standards of Care refers to as a letter of recommendation.
The district court next concluded that Dr. Schmidt was
imprudent because antidepressants and psychotherapy alone are
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inadequate to treat GID. Again, the court claimed that it relied
on the testimony of Dr. Levine, but misconstrued his testimony in
support of its conclusion. Dr. Levine did in fact state that
"gender dysphoria is not significantly ameliorated . . . by
treating [patients] with a prozac-like drug alone." He continued
on, however, to explain that he did not believe this was the
treatment plan advocated by Dr. Schmidt or the DOC. To the
contrary, he understood that Kosilek would continue to receive
ameliorative treatment for her GID and, if she entered a depressive
or suicidal state based on her inability to receive SRS,
antidepressants and psychotherapy would be used to help stabilize
her mental state so as to alleviate the risk of suicide while
working with her to craft new perspectives and life goals beyond
surgery. He felt that the treatment might well be successful in
this capacity, when combined with the direct alleviative treatments
currently provided.
Finally, the district court found Dr. Schmidt imprudent
because he did not believe that a real-life experience could occur
in prison, given that it was an isolated, single-sex environment.
The district court disagreed, stating that it had concluded a reallife
experience could occur in prison, as Kosilek would remain
incarcerated for her entire life. In reaching this determination,
the court made a significantly flawed inferential leap: it relied
on its own -- non-medical -- judgment about what constitutes a
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real-life experience to conclude that Dr. Schmidt's differing
viewpoint was illegitimate or imprudent. Prudent medical
professionals, however, do reasonably differ in their opinions
regarding the requirements of a real-life experience -- and this
reasonable difference in medical opinions is sufficient to defeat
Kosilek's argument. Cf. Bismark v. Fisher, 213 F. App'x 892, 897
(11th Cir. 2007) ("Nothing in our case law would derive a
constitutional deprivation from a prison physician's failure to
subordinate his own professional judgment to that of another doctor
. . . ."); Estate of Cole by Pardue v. Fromm, 94 F.3d 254, 261 (7th
Cir. 1996); Bowring v. Godwin, 551 F.2d 44, 48 (4th Cir. 1977).
In fact, Dr. Levine noted that an incarcerative
environment might well be insufficient to expose Kosilek to the
variety of societal, familial, and vocational pressures foreseen by
a real-life experience. This viewpoint aligned with that of Dr.
Schmidt and Osborne. And, although Dr. Forstein's written report
appears to presume Kosilek had completed a real-life experience, it
echoed this same point: "being in prison has helped [Kosilek]
consolidate her desire . . . simplifying the issues, without the
stressors and choices that she would have had to make out in the
outside real world." We find no support for the district court's
conclusion that no reasonable medical expert could opine that
Kosilek lacked real-life experience, particularly in light of the
contrary testimony from medical experts concerning the range of
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social, environmental, and professional considerations that are
necessary to constitute a real-life experience under the Standards
of Care. The district court thus erred by substituting its own
beliefs for those of multiple medical experts.10
The district court's finding of medical imprudence relied
heavily on inferences we do not believe can rightly be drawn from
Dr. Levine's testimony; this finding also ignored significant
contrary evidence regarding the breadth and variety of acceptable
treatments for GID within the medical community.11 Its conclusion
that the Fenway Center's recommendation constituted the sole
acceptable treatment plan is, thus, contradicted by the record.
10 There are obvious reasons for the range of judgments in this
area. Although the medical experts disagreed over whether
experience in a prison setting could qualify as real-life
experience, none of the experts who opined that it could do so
appear to have considered the fact that after SRS, Kosilek would
most likely be housed in the drastically different setting of a
female facility. This distinction was reflected in Dr. Forstein's
report, which stated that "[Kosilek's] 'real life experience' leads
her to the conclusion that so long as she is in a male prison . . .
she cannot perceive herself as a true woman." This statement
acknowledges that any real-life experience available to Kosilek was
shaped by her current, all-male prison environment. Kosilek
introduced no evidence to show that her experience there would
satisfy the requirement that she have real-life experience in her
post-operative housing environment.
11 The district court ignored or minimized significant portions of
Dr. Levine's testimony on the theory that the doctor had based his
evaluation of medical prudence on the "erroneous assumption[]" that
Kosilek may not have had a real-life experience in prison and faced
no other extrinsic obstacles to surgery. As explained above, in
doing so the court improperly supplanted a question of medical
opinion -- on which experts may differ -- with its own decision
based on a layman's view, and terming all contrary views imprudent.
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2. Adequacy of the DOC's treatment plan
Regarding the medical adequacy of Kosilek's treatment,
the district court held that psychotherapy and antidepressants
alone would not adequately treat Kosilek's GID. This finding
mischaracterizes the issues on appeal and unduly minimizes the
nature of the DOC's preferred treatment plan. The DOC does not
claim that treating Kosilek's GID merely with therapy and
antidepressants alone would constitute adequate care. Cf. Fields
v. Smith, 653 F.3d 550, 556 (7th Cir. 2011) (accepting, in the
absence of contrary evidence, expert testimony that "psychotherapy
as well as antipsychotics and antidepressants . . . do nothing to
treat the underlying disorder [of GID]"). In fact, since Kosilek
I the DOC has acknowledged the need to directly treat Kosilek's
GID. Beginning in 2003, it has provided hormones, electrolysis,
feminine clothing and accessories, and mental health services aimed
at alleviating her distress. The parties agree that this care has
led to a real and marked improvement in Kosilek's mental state.
There is also no dispute that this care would continue, whether or
not SRS is provided.
The question before our court, therefore, is not whether
antidepressants and psychotherapy alone are sufficient to treat
GID, or whether GID constitutes a serious medical need. Rather,
the question is whether the decision not to provide SRS -- in light
of the continued provision of all ameliorative measures currently
-54-
afforded Kosilek and in addition to antidepressants and
psychotherapy -- is sufficiently harmful to Kosilek so as to
violate the Eighth Amendment. It is not. See Smith v. Carpenter,
316 F.3d 178, 186 (2d Cir. 2003) ("[I]t's the particular risk of
harm faced by a prisoner due to the challenged deprivation of care,
rather than the severity of the prisoner's underlying medical
condition, considered in the abstract, that is relevant for Eighth
Amendment purposes."); see also Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106 (requiring
proof of "acts or omissions sufficiently harmful" as to illustrate
deliberate indifference to a serious medical need); Estate of
Bearden ex rel. Bearden v. Anglin, 543 F. App'x 918, 921 (11th Cir.
2013); Leavitt, 645 F.3d at 497.
Kosilek admits that the DOC's current treatment regimen
has led to a significant stabilization in her mental state.
Kosilek's doctors testified to the same, highlighting her "joy
around being feminized." This claim is also borne out by the
passage of significant time since she exhibited symptoms of
suicidal ideation or attempted to self-castrate. In addition to
alleviating her depressive state, this treatment has also resulted
in significant physical changes and an increasingly feminine
appearance.
The significance of a future risk of suicidality is not
one that this court takes lightly, and Kosilek is right to note
that a clear risk of future harm may suffice to sustain an Eighth
-55-
Amendment claim. See Helling, 509 U.S. at 35 (determining that an
"unreasonable risk" of future harm may amount to an Eighth
Amendment violation); Baze, 553 U.S. at 49; Roe, 631 F.3d at 858.
Nonetheless, the risk of suicidal ideation is born from Kosilek's
GID-related mental distress. Therefore an assessment of the
gravity of that risk, and its appropriate treatment, must encompass
the entirety of the DOC's treatment plan, not merely the potential
addition of psychotherapy and antidepressants.
Kosilek is provided hormones, facial hair removal,
feminine clothing and accessories, and access to regular mental
health treatment. The DOC also stands ready to protect Kosilek
from the potential for self-harm by employing its standard and
accepted methods of treating any prisoner exhibiting suicidal
ideation. Trial testimony established that this plan offers real
and direct treatment for Kosilek's GID. It employs methods proven
to alleviate Kosilek's mental distress while crafting a plan to
minimize the risk of future harm. See Carpenter, 316 F.3d at 186.
It does not wantonly disregard Kosilek's needs, but accounts for
them. See Torraco, 923 F.2d at 235.
The law is clear that where two alternative courses of
medical treatment exist, and both alleviate negative effects within
the boundaries of modern medicine, it is not the place of our court
to "second guess medical judgments" or to require that the DOC
adopt the more compassionate of two adequate options. Layne v.
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Vinzant, 657 F.2d 468, 474 (1st Cir. 1981) (quoting Westlake v.
Lucas, 537 F.2d 857, 860 n.5 (6th Cir. 1976)); Bismark, 213 F.
App'x at 897; Medrano v. Smith, 161 F. App'x 596, 599 (7th Cir.
2006); Sanchez v. Vild, 891 F.2d 240, 242 (9th Cir. 1989); Bowring,
551 F.2d at 48.
That the DOC has chosen one of two alternatives -- both
of which are reasonably commensurate with the medical standards of
prudent professionals, and both of which provide Kosilek with a
significant measure of relief -- is a decision that does not
violate the Eighth Amendment.12
Kosilek warns, however, that upholding the adequacy of
the DOC's course of treatment in this case -- despite her medical
12 This holding in no way suggests that correctional administrators
wishing to avoid treatment need simply to find a single
practitioner willing to attest that some well-accepted treatment is
not necessary. We do not establish here a per se rule allowing a
dissenting medical opinion to carry the day. Rather, our
determination is limited to the particular record on appeal, which
involves a medical condition that admits of a number of valid
treatment options. This fact was testified to by Dr. Levine,
recognized by the UMass doctors in their correspondence with the
DOC, and corroborated by Dr. Forstein in his written report.
The DOC did not engage in a frenzy of serial consultations aimed
at finding the one doctor out of a hundred willing to testify that
SRS was not medically necessary. Rather, it made a considered
decision to seek out a second opinion from an expert previously
considered in its initial selection process. Our opinion rests on
the facts presented in this record, and we find merely that the
regimen of care provided by the DOC -- which includes hormonal
treatments as well as feminine products, clothing, and hair
removal, and which has successfully alleviated the severity of a
prisoner's distress -- is not sufficiently harmful to Kosilek to
constitute an Eighth Amendment violation.
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history and record of good behavior -- will create a de facto ban
against SRS as a medical treatment for any incarcerated individual.
We do not agree. For one, the DOC has specifically disclaimed any
attempt to create a blanket policy regarding SRS. We are confident
that the DOC will abide by this assurance, as any such policy would
conflict with the requirement that medical care be individualized
based on a particular prisoner's serious medical needs. See, e.g.,
Roe, 631 F.3d at 862-63 (holding that the failure to conduct an
individualized assessment of a prisoner's needs may violate the
Eighth Amendment).
For another, this case presents unique circumstances; we
are simply unconvinced that our decision on the record before us
today will foreclose all litigants from successfully seeking SRS in
the future. Certain facts in this particular record -- including
the medical providers' non-uniform opinions regarding the necessity
of SRS, Kosilek's criminal history, and the feasibility of postoperative
housing -- were important factors impacting the decision.
D. The Subjective Prong: Deliberate Indifference
1. The DOC's reliance on medical experts
The subjective element of an Eighth Amendment claim for
injunctive relief requires not only that Kosilek show that the
treatment she received was constitutionally inadequate, but also
that the DOC was -- and continues to be -- deliberately indifferent
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to her serious risk of harm. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 844-45.13 On
the record presented, this is a burden Kosilek cannot meet. Even
if the district court had been correct in its erroneous
determination that SRS was the only medically adequate treatment
for Kosilek's GID, the next relevant inquiry would be whether the
DOC also knew or should have known this fact, but nonetheless
failed to respond in an appropriate manner. See Wilson v. Seiter,
501 U.S. 294, 298 (1991). In answering this question, it is not
the district court's own belief about medical necessity that
controls, but what was known and understood by prison officials in
crafting their policy. Id. at 300 (requiring a showing of
purposefulness or intent on the part of prison administrators).
In this case, the DOC solicited the opinion of multiple
medical professionals and was ultimately presented with two
alternative treatment plans, which were each developed by different
medical experts to mitigate the severity of Kosilek's mental
distress. The choice of a medical option that, although disfavored
by some in the field, is presented by competent professionals does
13 Although the DOC has not specifically argued that the
conflicting medical opinions preclude a finding of subjective
deliberate indifference, we do not find this argument waived. As
we have explained above, the subjective and objective analyses
overlap. See supra note 7; see also Leavitt, 645 F.3d at 498. The
DOC's contention that the district court erred in deeming SRS
medically necessary and in rejecting Dr. Schmidt's approach as
imprudent necessarily entails the DOC's subjective belief that SRS
was unnecessary. The contrary position -- i.e., that SRS is not
objectively necessary but that the DOC did not disagree as to the
need for SRS -- would be wholly illogical.
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not exhibit a level of inattention or callousness to a prisoner's
needs rising to a constitutional violation.14 Cf. Torraco, 923 F.2d
at 234 ("[T]his court has hesitated to find deliberate indifference
to a serious need '[w]here the dispute concerns not the absence of
help, but the choice of a certain course of treatment,' [but]
deliberate indifference may be found where the attention received
is 'so clearly inadequate as to amount to a refusal to provide
essential care.'" (internal citations omitted)). Moreover, a later
court decision -- ruling that the prison administrators were wrong
in their estimation of the treatment's reasonableness -- does not
14 If the prison itself should have been aware that some of the
medical advice it was receiving was imprudent -- that is, if any
layperson could have realized that the advice was imprudent -- then
the decision to still follow that advice may qualify as deliberate
indifference. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 846 n.9 ("If, for example,
the evidence before a district court establishes that an inmate
faces an objectively intolerable risk of serious injury, the
defendants could not plausibly persist in claiming lack of
awareness . . . ."); Hadix v. Johnson, 367 F.3d 513, 526 (6th Cir.
2004) ("If [the challenged prison conditions] are found to be
objectively unconstitutional, then that finding would also satisfy
the subjective prong because the same information that would lead
to the court's conclusion was available to the prison officials.").
The facts of this case, however, are highly distinct from such a
scenario.
Nor did the district court's conclusion render the DOC's
continued refusal to provide SRS deliberately indifferent. On the
contrary, the evidence was conflicting as to the medical need for
SRS. The choice between reasonable medical views was not for the
district court to make, and the DOC remained entitled to reasonably
rely on Schmidt's and Osborne's expert opinions. Moreover, even
assuming arguendo that the DOC was on notice that its treatment was
insufficient, the DOC's continued refusal also rested on valid
security concerns, discussed below, such that its actions did not
amount to deliberate indifference in any event.
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somehow convert that choice into one exhibiting the sort of
obstinacy and disregard required to find deliberate indifference.
Cf. Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 561 F.2d 411, 417 (1st Cir. 1977) (refusing
to "substitute the values and judgment of a court for the values
and judgment of the . . . prison administration").
2. The DOC's security concerns
The subjective prong also recognizes that, in issues of
security, "[p]rison administrators . . . should be accorded wideranging
deference in the adoption and execution of policies and
practices that in their judgment are needed to preserve internal
order and discipline and to maintain institutional security."
Bell, 441 U.S. at 547. Although we cannot "abdicate our
responsibility to ensure that the limits imposed by the
Constitution are not ignored," Blackburn v. Snow, 771 F.2d 556, 562
(1st Cir. 1985), we do not sit to substitute our own judgment for
that of prison administrators, see Nadeau, 561 F.2d at 417. As
long as prison administrators make judgments balancing security and
health concerns that are "within the realm of reason and made in
good faith," their decisions do not amount to a violation of the
Eighth Amendment. Battista, 645 F.3d at 454.
The DOC officials explained that they believed SRS would
create new security issues, the most significant being the
provision of safe housing options for Kosilek after her surgery.
They further explained the importance of keeping other inmates from
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believing that they could use threats of suicide to extract
concessions from the prison administration. Nonetheless, rather
than deferring to the expertise of prison administrators, the
district court ignored the DOC's stated security concerns,
reasoning both that Kosilek could be housed safely and that the DOC
had not acted out of a legitimate concern for Kosilek's safety and
the security of the DOC's facilities. As explained below, this was
in error.
a. The DOC's concerns about safety and security
were reasonable
Recognizing that reasonable concerns would arise
regarding a post-operative, male-to-female transsexual being housed
with male prisoners takes no great stretch of the imagination. See
Farmer, 511 U.S. at 848-49 (summarizing evidence that a prison's
refusal to provide segregated housing to a pre-operative
male-to-female transsexual could pose significant security
concerns). At the same time, as particularly relevant in Kosilek's
case, the DOC's security report reflected that significant concerns
would also arise from housing a formerly male inmate -- with a
criminal history of extreme violence against a female domestic
partner -- within a female prison population containing high
numbers of domestic violence survivors. Nonetheless, in dismissing
the DOC's concerns, the district court relied heavily on the fact
that security issues have not yet arisen within MCI-Norfolk's
general population. Rejecting the testimony of multiple
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individuals with decades of penological experience -- all of whom
acknowledged the risk of housing a female prisoner at MCI-Norfolk
-- the district court reasoned that Kosilek's past safety was
indicative of a likelihood that she could reside safely at the
prison after her operation.
This reasoning wrongly circumvents the deference owed to
prison administrators: the appropriate inquiry was not whether the
court believed that Kosilek could be housed safely, but whether the
DOC has a reasoned basis for its stated concerns. Indeed, that
Kosilek had so far been safe within MCI-Norfolk's prison population
does not negate the DOC's well-reasoned belief that safety concerns
would arise in the future after SRS. Cf. Jones v. N.C. Prisoners'
Labor Union, 433 U.S. 119, 132-33 & n.9 (1977) (holding, in the
First Amendment context, that the rights of prisoners may be
abridged based on a reasonable belief that future harm or
disruption may occur); cf. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526-27
(1984) (requiring prison administrators to implement prophylactic
solutions to foreseeable security issues reasonably within the
scope of their expertise). Moreover, the fact that, preoperatively,
Kosilek has not been subject to assault or threats
does not vitiate the concern that she would be victimized after
receiving SRS.15
15 These concerns were obvious to more than just those individuals
within the DOC with significant penological experience. The
likelihood that issues surrounding secure housing would arise after
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The district court also reasoned that "the DOC [could]
reasonably assure the safety of Kosilek and others after sex
reassignment surgery by housing Kosilek in a segregated protective
custody unit." It then noted, however, that there existed a strong
argument that such isolation would amount to "a form of
extrajudicial punishment that is prohibited by the Eighth
Amendment." This warning echoes the very concerns highlighted by
the DOC, which expressed disagreement with the use of long-term
isolation as a housing solution for Kosilek, based on its potential
negative effects on her mental health. See also Battista, 645 F.3d
at 454 (explaining that creating a segregated treatment center to
house a GID prisoner would "pose administrative difficulties and be
isolating"). The deference awarded to prison administrators cannot
be defeated by such circular reasoning, which dismisses the DOC's
concern in one breath only to recognize its validity in the next.
The prison administrators in this case have decades of
combined experience in the management of penological institutions,
and it is they, not the court, who are best situated to determine
what security concerns will arise. See Bell, 441 U.S. at 548
("[J]udicial deference is accorded [in part] because the
administrator ordinarily will . . . have a better grasp of his
domain than the reviewing judge . . . ."). The DOC's judgment
SRS was also acknowledged by Kosilek's treating psychologist, Mark
Burrows, and by the Fenway Center doctors in their initial report.
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regarding post-operative housing is without doubt "within the realm
of reason," Battista, 645 F.3d at 454, and the district court's
alternative belief as to the possibility of safely housing Kosilek
does not suffice to undermine this reasonableness.
The DOC officials also expressed concern that providing
Kosilek SRS would incentivize the use of suicide threats by
prisoners as a means of receiving desired benefits. Although the
district court determined that, in this case, Kosilek's risk for
suicidal ideation was very real, this finding does not invalidate
the DOC's reasonable belief that providing SRS might lead to
proliferation of false threats among other prisoners.
The DOC's concern -- regarding the unacceptable precedent
that would be established in dealing with future threats of suicide
by inmates to force the prison authorities to comply with the
prisoners' particular demands -- cannot be discounted as a minor or
invalid claim. Such threats are not uncommon in prison settings
and require firm rejection by the authorities, who must be given
ample discretion in dealing with such situations. Given the
circumstances presented here, we cannot say that the DOC lacks
reasonable security concerns.
b. Deference to the DOC's reasonable concerns
about safety and security
The district court ultimately dismissed the DOC's
concerns as pretextual, reasoning that DOC was in fact acting in
response to "public and political criticism." The primary evidence
-65-
on record tending to support this theory includes a press interview
by Commissioner Dennehy, Dennehy's relationships with a state
senator and the lieutenant governor, and the acknowledgment that
the DOC was aware of negative news coverage regarding Kosilek's
request for surgery.
In her testimony, Dennehy denied being influenced by such
media and political pressures, and stated that the decision not to
provide SRS was founded in bona fide security concerns alone. The
district court, however, found this testimony non-credible, and
this credibility finding is the sort of determination to which our
court gives deference. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a)(6). Even
accepting that Dennehy's motivations were colored by political and
media pressure, however, does not take Kosilek's claim as far as it
needs to go.
As an initial matter, the fact that Dennehy was motivated
in part by concerns unrelated to prison security does not mean that
the security concerns articulated by the DOC were irrelevant,
wholly pretextual, or -- most importantly -- invalid on the merits.
In Battista, our court held that deference to the decisions of
prison administrators could be overcome where those administrators
admittedly relied on inflated data, identified a security concern
only several years after refusing to provide treatment for an
acknowledged medical need, and engaged in a pattern of changing
positions and arguments before the court. Battista, 645 F.3d at
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455. Such gross delays and misstatements were not present here.16
Rather, the DOC testified consistently that it believed the postoperative
security concerns surrounding Kosilek's treatment were
significant and problematic.17 Even if not entitled to deference,
see id., those concerns still matter insofar as they are reasonable
and valid, and Kosilek did not put on any evidence showing that
they wholly lacked merit.18
16 Great weight was placed on the fact that Dennehy told a reporter
that there were significant security concerns about post-operative
housing three days before she met with Superintendents Spencer and
Bissonnette. The record reveals, however, that discussions about
housing had previously occurred at Executive Staff Meetings, and
Dennehy testified that she had conducted phone calls with both
Superintendents prior to meeting to formalize their security
report. This timeline, therefore, is far from sufficient to
establish that the DOC's security assessments were unprincipled or
invalid.
17 That the DOC may have, in the district court's assessment,
engaged in a pattern of prevarication regarding whether they
understood that SRS was being recommended by UMass as medically
necessary, does not undercut the consistency with which they
identified safety and security concerns -- concerns which are
within their expert province -- that would arise from the surgery.
18 Kosilek did cross-examine Commissioner Clarke to show that a
transgendered prisoner had safely been housed in a Washington State
prison under his supervision. Left unexplored, however, were the
numerous ways in which MCI-Norfolk's environment, facilities, or
population might be distinct from this prison in Washington.
Neither was there a comparison between that prisoner's criminal
history and the criminal history of Kosilek. That an individual
was housed safely by Commissioner Clarke while employed in another
state does not rebut Superintendent Bissonnette's testimony that
moving her to MCI-Framingham would cause climate problems in that
particular prison. See Feeley v. Sampson, 570 F.2d 364, 371 (1st
Cir. 1978) (rejecting uniform housing conditions for detainees,
without regard to their disparate criminal history, because
"Constitutional rights cannot be defined in terms of literal
comparisons of this nature").
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Second, when determining the appropriateness of
injunctive relief, our focus must include "current attitudes and
conduct." Farmer, 511 U.S. at 845 ("'[D]eliberate indifference[]
should be determined in light of the prison authorities' current
attitudes and conduct': their attitudes and conduct at the time
suit is brought and persisting thereafter." (quoting Helling, 509
U.S. at 36)). Dennehy has not served as DOC Commissioner since
2007. Given the age of this litigation and the changes in DOC
leadership that have occurred since the suit was filed, the
district court's assumption that Dennehy's attitudes necessarily
carried over to her successors and governed their actions is
unsupported by the record. Although consideration of Dennehy's
motivation is surely relevant, it is insufficient to show that the
DOC continued to be motivated by public pressure even after her
departure, or that this is what motivates the DOC presently.
Indeed, it was Commissioner Clarke -- and not Dennehy --
who made the decision here. And the only evidence tending to show
that Commissioner Clarke may have considered public and political
criticism were two letters received by Clarke -- who did not
respond -- from Massachusetts legislators. These letters, however,
relate almost in their entirety to concerns about the cost of SRS,
and the district court soundly rejected any argument that the DOC,
or Clarke specifically, had adopted its safety and security
measures as a pretextual means of addressing the cost concerns
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raised by state legislators. Moreover, Clarke was never found by
the court to be noncredible.19
The district court improperly imputed its belief that
Commissioner Dennehy had acted out of concern for public and
political pressure to its assessment of the motivations of future
DOC Commissioners. This error ignores the requirement, in cases of
injunctive relief, that a court consider the attitudes and beliefs
of prison administrators at the time of its decision. Id. at 845-
46. The effect of this error is particularly clear given that
Clarke has now been replaced by Commissioner Spencer, so that
Dennehy is now several administrations and more than seven years
removed from the decisionmaking process. Without proof that the
DOC remains motivated by pretextual or improper concerns with
public pressure, even if it was assumed that Dennehy was improperly
motivated, the district court's finding that injunctive relief was
required is unsupportable.
III. Conclusion
We are not tasked today with deciding whether the refusal
to provide SRS is uncompassionate or less than ideal. Neither
finding would support Kosilek's claims of a constitutional
violation. The Eighth Amendment, after all, proscribes only
medical care so unconscionable as to fall below society's minimum
19 We further note that the DOC has not defended this case based
on cost considerations relating to the provision of SRS.
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standards of decency. See Estelle, 429 U.S. at 102-05. In this
case, the DOC has chosen to provide a form of care that offers
direct treatment for Kosilek's GID. Cf. Leavitt, 645 F.3d at 498
(acknowledging that the effects of treatment decisions may be
relevant to consideration of the subjective component of the Eighth
Amendment). Moreover, it has done so in light of the fact that
provision of SRS would create new and additional security concerns
-- concerns that do not presently arise from its current treatment
regimen.
Given the positive effects of Kosilek's current regimen
of care, and the DOC's plan to treat suicidal ideation should it
arise, the DOC's decision not to provide SRS does not illustrate
severe obstinacy or disregard of Kosilek's medical needs.
DesRosiers, 949 F.2d at 19 ("[T]he complainant must prove that the
defendants had a culpable state of mind and intended wantonly to
inflict pain."). Rather, it is a measured response to the valid
security concerns identified by the DOC. Battista, 645 F.3d at 454
("Medical 'need' in real life is an elastic term: security
considerations also matter at prisons. . . ."); Cameron, 990 F.2d
at 20 ("Nothing in the Constitution mechanically gives controlling
weight to one set of professional judgments."). Having reviewed
the record before us, we conclude that Kosilek has failed, on these
facts, to demonstrate an Eighth Amendment violation. Accordingly,
we reverse the district court's order of injunctive relief and
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remand this case to the district court with instructions to dismiss
the case.
Reversed and Remanded.
-Dissenting Opinions Follow-
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THOMPSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting. The majority turns
a blind eye to binding precedent, opting instead to cobble together
law from other circuits and non-Eighth Amendment jurisprudence to
formulate a standard of review that, though articulated as one of
variable exactitude, amounts to sweeping de novo review. Armed
with the ability to take a fresh look at findings that clearly
warranted deference, the majority easily steps into the trial
judge's shoes -- the inarguable superiority of the judge's ability
to marshal facts, assess motive, and gauge credibility all but
forgotten. The parameters set by the majority foretold the result.
It concludes that the Massachusetts Department of Correction did
not violate Michelle Kosilek's constitutional rights. That
conclusion is erroneous, the majority's analytical path to it is
misguided, and the fact that this case is even subject to en banc
scrutiny in the first place is wrong. And so I dissent.
I. En Banc Grant
The criteria for en banc relief are clear: it is not a
favored form of relief, and ordinarily should not be ordered unless
"(1) en banc consideration is necessary to secure or maintain
uniformity of the court's decisions; or (2) the proceeding involves
a question of exceptional importance." Fed. R. App. P. 35(a). My
colleagues' reasons for granting en banc review are not
articulated, but it seems clear that the maintenance of uniformity
piece is not in play. Therefore I can only assume they perceive an
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issue of exceptional importance. This justification is
problematic.
As my colleague has explained in a series of thoughtful
dissents, in this circuit there has been what some might see "as
the recurring unprincipled denial and granting of petitions for
rehearing en banc, without any attempt to define and apply a set of
objective criteria to determine when a case is of exceptional
importance." Kolbe v. BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP, 738 F.3d 432,
474 (1st Cir. 2013) (Torruella, J., dissenting); see also Igartúa
v. United States, 654 F.3d 99, 105 (1st Cir. 2011) (Torruella, J.,
filing opinion concerning denial of en banc consideration); United
States v. Vega-Santiago, 519 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2008) (Torruella,
J., dissenting). I am at a loss to see what objective criteria
warranted review in this case.
While the relief ordered by the district court, and
affirmed by a majority of the original panel, was unprecedented,
Kosilek's case is not a legally complicated one. Rather it is a
fact-intensive dispute, which required the original panel to
determine whether the district court's take on the significant
amount of evidence, and its ultimate holding as to the existence of
an Eighth Amendment violation, was erroneous. I fail to see what
in this framework made this case worthy of en banc review.
I am not implying this case is unimportant. This
litigation is significant to Kosilek, the DOC, and many others, and
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the rights afforded under the Eighth Amendment are crucial. But if
those things alone were enough, nearly every case would attract the
full court's attention. And a good deal more cases would be heard
en banc if disagreeing with the result reached by the original
panel, or simply desiring to weigh in, were valid grounds for
awarding en banc review. They are not, but unfortunately I suspect
they were the grounds that carried the day here. See, e.g., Kolbe,
738 F.3d at 474 (Torruella, J., dissenting) ("En banc consideration
is not for the purpose of correcting panel decisions.") (citing
Calderón v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 569 (1998) (Souter, J.,
dissenting)).
This case does not satisfy the well-settled requirements
for a grant of en banc. Lamentably, a majority of this court
decided otherwise. Similarly, a majority has decided that the
district court got it wrong. That conclusion is fundamentally
flawed, starting with the level of scrutiny paid to the lower
court's decision.
II. Standard of Review
The issue of what standard of review should be employed
is a significant point of divergence for me, and indeed one that
permeates the entirety of my discord with the majority. The
majority, undoubtedly aware that it could more handily toss aside
the district court's findings if it utilized a non-deferential
standard of review, formulates its standard by borrowing liberally
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from other circuits and non-Eighth Amendment jurisprudence while
disregarding on-point case law from this circuit. The end result
is a standard that, in theory, afforded minimal deference to the
lower court's finding, and in the majority's actual application,
afforded essentially none.
Let me start with our common ground. I agree with the
majority that different standards of review are in play. When
deciding a post-bench-trial appeal, this court takes up questions
of law de novo, but reviews findings of fact for clear error only.
Wojciechowicz v. United States, 582 F.3d 57, 66 (1st Cir. 2009).
On the latter point, this means we accept the court's factual
findings, and the inferences drawn from those facts, unless the
evidence compels us to conclude a mistake was made. Janeiro v.
Urological Surgery Prof'l Ass'n, 457 F.3d 130, 138 (1st Cir. 2006).
With inquiries that are more of a mixed bag, there is a continuum.
Johnson v. Watts Regulator Co., 63 F.3d 1129, 1132 (1st Cir. 1995).
The more fact-intensive the question, the more deferential our
review. Id. Conversely, the more law-dominated the query, the
more likely our review is de novo. Id.
That is where the congruity ends. The majority,
undoubtedly with a certain end result in mind, maneuvers the
standard of review into its most favorable form. While it
correctly acknowledges that factual and legal issues are
implicated, the majority utterly favors the de novo end of the
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spectrum.20 This approach does not accord with our case law
(although to read the majority you would think we had very little
on-point jurisprudence in this circuit).
For one, the majority posits that the issue of deliberate
indifference is a legal one to be reviewed de novo. It relies on
Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, citing criminal cases that, in the
context of deciding the validity of searches and seizures, hold
that reasonable suspicion and probable cause determinations should
receive de novo appellate review. See Ornelas v. United States,
517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996); United States v. Camacho, 661 F.3d 718,
724 (1st Cir. 2011). I do not see how these cases are analogous to
Kosilek's challenge, nor why we should look to Fourth Amendment
cases rather than our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.
In the context of the Eighth Amendment, we have explained
that the existence of deliberate indifference is a "state-of-mind
issue" that usually presents a jury question, Torraco v. Maloney,
923 F.2d 231, 234 (1st Cir. 1991), or in other words, an issue for
20 The majority's decision to give little deference to the district
court is undoubtedly a boon to the DOC, and given the DOC's
garbled treatment of the standard of review issue on appeal, it is
a downright windfall. In violation of our rules, the DOC did not
include a standard of review in its opening brief. See Fed. R.
App. P. 28(a)(8)(B). In its reply brief, the DOC gave us a bit
more, arguing that the appropriateness of medical care called for
de novo review but neglecting to indicate what scrutiny a
deliberate indifference finding necessitated. In its petition for
en banc review, the DOC's position continued to evolve. It
contended that a heightened standard of review should be applied
because this case involves intertwined issues of law and fact.
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the finder of fact. This makes sense. Often intertwined in stateof-
mind issues are determinations about credibility and motivation;
those are classic examples of the judgment calls to which we give
deference. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a)(6) ("[T]he reviewing court
must give due regard to the trial court's opportunity to judge the
witnesses' credibility."); Monahan v. Romney, 625 F.3d 42, 46 (1st
Cir. 2010). See also Janeiro, 457 F.3d at 138-39 (explaining that,
following a bench trial, "if the trial court's reading of the
record [with respect to an actor's motivation] is plausible,
appellate review is at an end") (alteration in original).
The majority recognizes Torraco, citing it for the narrow
proposition that "issues of culpability in a deliberate
indifference inquiry are usually questions for a jury," in
connection with its discussion about what standard of review
findings of fact garner. But this is a mischaracterization of what
Torraco held. Rather, the case states that "the existence of
deliberate indifference," is a state-of-mind issue, which makes it
a typical juror question. Torraco, 923 F.2d at 234 (emphasis
added). The majority's slight spin on this holding allows it to
ignore Torraco, and lean on Fourth Amendment jurisprudence instead
to support the notion that deliberate indifference gets a fresh
look from this court.
Similarly erroneous is the majority's position that we
review de novo the district court's ultimate determination as to
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whether an Eighth Amendment violation occurred. For support it
cites to a series of Eighth Amendment cases from other circuit
courts. See, e.g., Thomas v. Bryant, 614 F.3d 1288, 1307 (11th
Cir. 2010); Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 744 (9th Cir. 2002).
At first blush, there is some surface appeal to this position. If
nothing else, the existence of a constitutional violation sounds
like something that would fall closer to the question-of-law end of
the spectrum. The problem though is that the ultimate
constitutional question is inextricably tied up with the factual
details that emerged at trial, the credibility of the witnesses,
and the questions of motivation. This counsels against pure de
novo review and our own case law supports this notion.
As explained above, a state-of-mind issue such as the
existence of deliberate indifference is typically left to the
finder of fact. Torraco, 923 F.2d at 234. And when reviewing a
trial judge's determination on the adequacy of medical treatment
following a bench trial, this court has applied the deferential
clearly erroneous standard. DesRosiers v. Moran, 949 F.2d 15, 19-
20 (1st Cir. 1991). On top of this, it is well established that
"elusive issues of motive and intent" (relevant here in connection
with the Eighth Amendment's subjective prong) are typically factbound
ones subject to the clearly erroneous rule. Fed. Refinance
Co. v. Klock, 352 F.3d 16, 27-28 (1st Cir. 2003); see also McIntyre
ex rel. Estate of McIntyre v. United States, 545 F.3d 27, 40 (1st
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Cir. 2008). Thus the major pieces of the puzzle in an Eighth
Amendment inquiry -- adequacy of medical care, the existence of
deliberate indifference, and the parties' motive and intent -- are
subject to the clearly erroneous standard, making unqualified de
novo review a bad fit.
Policy concerns do not counsel otherwise, making the
majority's reliance on Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 690, a Fourth Amendment
case, not particularly persuasive.21 Ornelas, which characterized
the ultimate reasonable suspicion and probable cause determination
as a mixed question of law and fact, decided that de novo review
was the best fit for its resolution. Id. at 696-97. The Supreme
Court, as the majority points out, emphasized that "[i]ndependent
review" by appellate courts can help "to maintain control of, and
to clarify, the legal principles" in reasonable suspicion and
probable cause cases. Id. at 697. While I do not disagree that as
an appellate court we are often required to clarify legal
21 The majority also relies on United States v. Bajakajian, 524
U.S. 321 (1998), an Eighth Amendment excessive punishment and fines
case, for the same proposition it cites Ornelas for. Specifically,
the majority states that in Bajakajian, the Supreme Court reasoned
that the "'application of a constitutional standard to the facts of
a particular case' . . . may appropriately require de novo
appellate review to ensure consistency in the law's development."
Bajakajian does not say this. The Court there did not address the
concept of consistency of the law; it simply cited Ornelas for the
narrower proposition that de novo review attaches to the issue of
whether a fine is constitutionally excessive. See id. 336, n.10.
For that reason I focus on Ornelas.
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principles and ensure continuity of the law's development, this is
not a persuasive justification for employing de novo review here.
As noted by the dissent in Ornelas, "[l]aw clarification
requires generalization, and some issues lend themselves to
generalization much more than others." Id. at 703 (Scalia, J.,
dissenting). The issues here do not. Cases dealing with the
constitutional adequacy of medical care under the Eighth Amendment
are incredibly fact-specific, resulting in distinctive issues. The
trial judge must, among other things, have a handle on the
prisoner's medical condition, the treatment sought, the treatment
provided (if any), what treatment medical providers recommended,
what the defendant knew and when, and what motivated its decisions.
This court cannot hope to match the district judge's expertise in
these areas, nor can I fathom why we would want to try. The
"extremely fact-bound nature" of these cases means that "de novo
review [will] have relatively little benefit," id. at 700 (Scalia,
J., dissenting), leaving us unmoved by the uniformity-of-the-law
considerations raised by the majority.
So where does all this leave us with regard to the
standard that attaches to the determination of whether the Eighth
Amendment has been violated? It is clear (and the majority agrees)
that with questions of varying exactitude, the "standard of review
applied depends, in the last analysis, on the extent to which a
particular question is fact-dominated or law-dominated." Turner v.
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United States, 699 F.3d 578, 584 (1st Cir. 2012) (internal
quotation marks omitted); see also In re IDC Clambakes, Inc., 727
F.3d 58, 64 (1st Cir. 2013); Dugas v. Coplan, 506 F.3d 1, 8 (1st
Cir. 2007). Drawing the distinction between law-heavy versus factheavy
questions is sometimes a tricky thing to do, and given that
establishing an Eighth Amendment claim involves a mixed question of
law and fact, it is a thicket into which we must enter. Luckily,
I do not think it is a particularly thorny one in this case.
Here, before reaching its ultimate constitutional
conclusion, the trial court heard testimony from no fewer than
nineteen witnesses (e.g., medical providers, medical experts,
prison officials, and Kosilek) over the course of a trial that
ultimately extended two years. The court scrutinized events that
had transpired over a twenty-year period, including those relating
to what treatment Kosilek had requested, what treatment had been
recommended, and what care was ultimately provided. The court
considered evidence about the DOC's security review, how it was
conducted, and the concerns it raised. It assessed the credibility
of Kosilek, DOC officials, and the medical experts. The court
reviewed a copious amount of exhibits, such as Kosilek's medical
records, Kosilek's prison records, DOC policies, DOC contracts, DOC
manuals, reports from Kosilek's medical providers, reports penned
by each side's experts, DOC staff meeting notes, security reports,
medical literature, correspondence, and deposition testimony. The
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end result was pages upon pages of factual findings made by the
trial judge.22
In other words, the district court "engaged in a careful
and close analysis of the trial evidence," Turner, 699 F.3d at
584, to make its ultimate determination that the DOC, without any
valid penological purpose, refused to provide medically necessary
treatment for Kosilek's life-threatening condition. Given the
clearly fact-intensive nature of the court's review, our own
examination into whether the court was correct that the DOC
violated the Eighth Amendment should be deferential, as opposed to
the fresh look the majority proposes.23 See id.; Fed. Refinance
Co., 352 F.3d at 27 (explaining that the more fact-intensive the
question, the more deferential our review). As ably said by the
Supreme Court, "deferential review of mixed questions of law and
fact is warranted when it appears that the district court is better
positioned than the appellate court to decide the issue in
22 Indeed the majority dedicates over thirty pages of its opinion
to the factual and procedural background in this case. This is not
surprising; those facts are integral to the resolution of the
constitutional question. What is surprising is the majority's
failure to see the significance of the factually concentrated
nature of this case.
23 Plus, even assuming that the conclusion that the DOC's refusal
to provide care constituted an Eighth Amendment violation lands
closer to the law side of the mixed-question spectrum, a measure of
deference is still appropriate. See Battista v. Clarke, 645 F.3d
449, 454 (1st Cir. 2011) ("The legal labels applied to facts are
reviewed on appeal more closely than a district court fact-finding,
but often with some deference to the district judge.").
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question, or that probing appellate scrutiny will not contribute to
the clarity of legal doctrine." Salve Regina Coll. v. Russell, 499
U.S. 225, 233 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The majority's articulation of a standard of review that
runs afoul of our case law is not the only problem. There is also
its application. While the majority's skewed standard allows
minimal aspects of the lower court's decision to garner clear error
review, namely factual findings and credibility determinations, in
actual application essentially no deference was paid. The only
conclusion of the district court that the majority concedes
warranted deference was the judge's determination that Commissioner
Kathleen Dennehy's testimony was not credible.24 Given the
voluminous record in this case, and the breadth of the lower
court's findings, it is simply unfathomable that the majority did
not consider a single other fact-drawn inference, credibility
finding, or motive determination, all of which warrant deference.
For instance, the district court drew inferences from the
various medical providers' testimony to decide what constituted a
prudent approach. It also considered what Commissioner Harold
Clarke's motivations were for denying sex reassignment surgery. It
drew inferences from the DOC's conduct (e.g., the timing of
security reviews and the DOC's communications with Kosilek's
24 Of course the majority then goes on to explain why the court's
adverse credibility determination does not matter, a point I will
get into later.
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medical providers) to determine that the DOC had engaged in
prevarication and delay. The majority; however, does not appear to
adjust its consideration of these issues to reflect any deference
to the trial judge. Rather it decides anew what inferences should
be drawn from the facts attested to at trial. Even under the
majority's standard, this is not proper.
Without doubt, the level of scrutiny applied by a court
permeates its analysis and guides the outcome. The impact here is
clear. The Eighth Amendment is violated when prison officials fail
to provide an inmate with adequate medical care, such that "their
'acts or omissions [are] sufficiently harmful to evidence
deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.'" Leavitt v.
Corr. Med. Servs., Inc., 645 F.3d 484, 497 (1st Cir. 2011) (citing
Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976)). The district court
concluded that the evidence established the DOC had committed such
a violation. The majority says otherwise but its analysis is
plagued with flaws, starting with its determination as to the
objective prong.
III. Eighth Amendment: Objective Prong
Whether the so-called objective component of the Eighth
Amendment inquiry is satisfied turns on whether the alleged
deprivation is "objectively, sufficiently serious." Farmer v.
Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994) (internal quotation marks
omitted); Leavitt, 645 F.3d at 497. In this context, a prisoner
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with a "serious medical need," Mahan v. Plymouth Cnty. House of
Corr., 64 F.3d 14, 17-18 (1st Cir. 1995), is entitled to adequate
medical care, i.e, "services at a level reasonably commensurate
with modern medical science and of a quality acceptable within
prudent professional standards." United States v. DeCologero, 821
F.2d 39, 43 (1st Cir. 1987).
That gender identity disorder is a serious medical need
which warrants treatment, is not, as the majority notes, disputed.
The disagreement -- both between the parties and amongst this en
banc court -- centers around whether the district court correctly
found that the DOC's proffered regimen of care was inadequate, and
that sex reassignment surgery is the only appropriate treatment for
Kosilek. Based on the record, and when one employs the proper
standard of review, that conclusion was generously supported by the
evidence.
A. Dr. Schmidt's Prudence
To start, despite the majority's qualms, the district
court's conclusion that the DOC's expert, Dr. Chester Schmidt, was
not a prudent professional was not clearly erroneous. In his
testimony, Dr. Schmidt expressed a good deal of disagreement with
the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care, which were widely relied upon
by the other medical providers who testified below and which have
been generally accepted by courts. See, e.g., De'Lonta v. Johnson,
708 F.3d 520, 522-23 (4th Cir. 2013) (describing the Standards of
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Care as "the generally accepted protocols for the treatment of
GID"); Soneeya v. Spencer, 851 F. Supp. 2d 228, 231 (D. Mass. 2012)
(noting that the "course of treatment for Gender Identity Disorder
generally followed in the community is governed by the 'Standards
of Care'"); O'Donnabhain v. Comm'r of Internal Revenue, 134 T.C.
34, 65 (U.S. Tax Ct. 2010) (indicating that the Standards are
"widely accepted in the psychiatric profession, as evidenced by the
recognition of the standards' triadic therapy sequence as the
appropriate treatment for GID and transsexualism in numerous
psychiatric and medical reference texts").
While, as the majority notes, the Standards of Care have
a built-in flexibility, that pliancy appears to stem from the
uniqueness of patient needs and the evolution of the gender
identity disorder field.25 Dr. Schmidt's departure from the
Standards appeared more fundamental. For instance, the Standards
of Care explained that sex reassignment surgery is not
"experimental, investigational, elective, cosmetic, or optional in
any meaningful sense." Standards of Care, Version 6, at 18. Dr.
Schmidt disagreed. In his expert report, he wrote that sex
reassignment surgery was a "voluntary, elective choice[] and
procedure[]," calling the steps towards reassignment "equivalent to
25 The Standards state: "Clinical departures from these guidelines
may come about because of a patient's unique anatomic, social, or
psychological situation, an experienced professional's evolving
method of handling a common situation, or a research protocol."
Standards of Care, Version 6, at 2.
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a variety of elective cosmetic non-surgical procedures and elective
cosmetic surgical procedures." Another example: the Standards of
Care provide that, for persons with severe gender identity
disorder, sex reassignment surgery is effective, and when paired
with hormone therapy and a real-life experience, "medically
indicated and medically necessary." Standards of Care, Version 6,
at 18. Dr. Schmidt again was not on board. He testified that
generally he does not believe that sex reassignment surgery is
medically necessary and his practice manifests this philosophy. In
the approximately 300 patients he had evaluated, Dr. Schmidt never
recalled seeing even one case of gender identity disorder serious
enough to warrant surgery.26
For Dr. Schmidt, there was an additional wrinkle. In Dr.
Schmidt's opinion, a real-life experience living as the opposite
gender could not be effectively replicated in prison, and this
counseled against surgery for Kosilek. The district court found
that this viewpoint was not prudent. The majority claims that in
doing so the court "relied on its own -- non-medical -- judgment
26 The majority makes much of the district judge faulting Dr.
Schmidt for not writing letters of recommendation for patients
seeking sex reassignment surgery, suggesting that the judge did not
appreciate the nuance between opening the door for surgery and
advocating for it. I suspect the judge was more broadly concerned
with the fact that Dr. Schmidt did not think sex reassignment was
ever medically necessary, nor had he ever seen a case where it was
warranted. And despite having this strident perspective, Dr.
Schmidt nonetheless opened the door for patients to undergo this
major medical procedure.
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about what constitutes a real-life experience." This is not
accurate.
The court based its determination, back in Kosilek I, on
the testimony of Dr. Marshall Forstein and Dr. George Brown, who
"convincingly testified [that] Kosilek's 'real life' is prison."
Kosilek v. Maloney, 221 F. Supp. 2d 156, 167 (D. Mass. 2002). Then
in Kosilek II, the court found the "credible evidence in the
instant case confirmed the conclusion in Kosilek I that a person
can have a 'real life experience' in prison." Kosilek v. Spencer,
889 F. Supp. 2d 190, 232 (D. Mass. 2012). Evidence before the
court in Kosilek II included an expert report from Dr. Forstein,
and testimony from Dr. Randi Kaufman, both of whom indicated that
Kosilek had undergone a real-life experience in prison. There was
also the February 24, 2005 report from the Fenway doctors, Dr.
Kevin Kapila and Dr. Kaufman, which explained that Kosilek had
moved successfully through the steps outlined by the Standards of
Care. Then, in their October 7, 2005 report, the Fenway doctors
explained at length why Cynthia Osborne's review subtly distorted
the concept of the real-life experience, and why Kosilek had
completed the real-life test -- a test made even more stringent by
the fact that she was living as a female in an all-male prison.
Dr. Brown echoed a similar sentiment. He testified that Kosilek
had not only met the minimum real-life experience but had exceeded
it. Dr. Brown focused on the significant amount of information
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that existed regarding Kosilek's time in prison, a record that his
patients in the outside world would never have.27
The record is clear. The district court's determination
that Dr. Schmidt's viewpoint about the feasibility of a real-life
experience in prison was not based on the judge's own lay opinion.
It was, as the district court alluded to, grounded in a significant
amount of evidence offered by competent medical professionals, all
of whom disagreed with Dr. Schmidt.28
The same can be said about what course of treatment was
appropriate for Kosilek. Dr. Schmidt testified that Kosilek had
"made an excellent adaptation" on her current treatment regimen and
that surgery would not "confer any additional functional
capability." Surgery was not, according to Dr. Schmidt, medically
necessary for Kosilek. To minimize the risk of future harm to
27 The majority mentions that none of the experts who opined that
Kosilek completed a real-life experience considered that she might
be housed in a female facility post-surgery. This is hardly
surprising as this is a theory of my colleagues' own making. The
DOC never made any argument that a potential post-surgery housing
change rendered Kosilek unable to complete the real-life
experience, nor did any provider opine that it was even a
consideration.
28 The Seventh Version of the Standards of Care came out in 2011.
Notably it contains a new section devoted to scenarios where
persons with gender identity disorder are living in institutional
environments such as prisons or long-term care facilities.
Standards of Care, Version 7, at 67. It provides that those
individuals' health care "should mirror that which would be
available to them if they were living in a non-institutional
setting" and that "[a]ll elements of assessment and treatment as
described in the [Standards of Care] can be provided to people
living in institutions." Id.
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Kosilek, Dr. Schmidt thought employing psychotherapy and medication
to reduce her dysphoria and, if needed, placing Kosilek in a
medical facility would be effective. A majority of the testifying
medical providers said otherwise though. When asked what they
thought about Dr. Schmidt's suggested regimen, Drs. Kapila,
Kaufman, Appelbaum, and Forstein all thought it unreasonable.29 The
common thinking was that Dr. Schmidt's approach was not likely to
effectively reduce Kosilek's risk of self harm, given that the
source of her dysphoria was her male genitalia.
In the Eighth Amendment context, the adequacy of medical
care is "measured against 'prudent professional standards.'" Nunes
v. Mass. Dept. of Corr., 766 F.3d 136, 142 (1st Cir. 2014) (quoting
DeCologero, 821 F.2d at 43). The district court here concluded
that Dr. Schmidt was not a prudent professional. Given the above,
I am not convinced that this determination was clearly erroneous.
Dr. Schmidt's significant disagreement with widely accepted
guidelines and the sharp contrast between his and the other wellcredentialed
providers' opinions, offer strong support for the
court's finding.
29 Court-appointed expert, Dr. Stephen Levine, ultimately testified
that from a purely medical perspective (absent considerations
relative to the prison environment), a prudent professional would
not deny Kosilek sex reassignment surgery. However, Dr. Levine
initially opined that Dr. Schmidt's view was reasonable (if not
popular), a discrepancy that apparently arose from Dr. Levine
disregarding the district court's order to treat Kosilek as a
patient in free society. Considering this incongruity, I do not
list Dr. Levine as one of Dr. Schmidt's critics.
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B. Adequacy of the DOC's Treatment
In light of the court's determination as to Dr. Schmidt's
prudence, the question remains whether the evidence supported its
conclusion that the DOC's treatment was not medically adequate.
The majority's consideration of this issue begins with a faulty
premise. It states that the "district court held that
psychotherapy and antidepressants alone would not adequately treat
Koslilek's GID," a finding the majority calls an incorrect
characterization of the issues, and a minimization of the DOC's
proffered treatment plan. It is the majority who is wrong.
The district court was of course well aware that the DOC
was suggesting a more comprehensive treatment plan beyond therapy
and medication. Nonetheless, as it repeatedly explained, it found
that all treatment other than sex reassignment surgery was
inadequate for Kosilek. See, e.g., Kosilek, 889 F. Supp. 2d at
202, 233, 236, 238, 240. This included the DOC's past treatment,
as well as its intended treatment going forward. In other words,
the court did not minimize the DOC's regimen. Based on the
testimony and evidence presented, it simply found the regimen did
not, and would not going forward, adequately treat Kosilek's gender
identity disorder. This finding was well within the court's
purview to make. The fact that the DOC fashioned some treatment,
in the form of hormone therapy, electrolysis, and access to
feminine items does not insulate it from liability. In De'Lonta v.
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Johnson, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that an inmate,
who sought sex reassignment surgery after her gender identity
disorder failed to resolve despite receiving hormones, stated a
plausible deliberate indifference claim. 708 F.3d at 522, 525.
The court concluded that, though the Virginia Department of
Corrections had provided the inmate with hormone therapy and
psychological counseling consistent with the Standards of Care, "it
does not follow that they have necessarily provided her with
constitutionally adequate treatment." Id. at 522, 526 (emphasis in
original).
The majority nonetheless would have us believe the care
provided by the DOC can withstand constitutional scrutiny. It
endeavors to convince by giving little weight to the attested to
shortcomings in Kosilek's treatment plan, and instead focusing
heavily on the improvement Kosilek has made since being provided
hormones, electrolysis, feminine garb and gear, and mental health
treatment. This is not in dispute; Kosilek has indeed progressed.
However, despite the short shrift the majority pays it, there was
ample evidence supporting the district court's conclusion that this
improvement was not sufficient to ease Kosilek's suffering to a
point where she was no longer facing a life-threatening risk of
harm.
Though the DOC has been treating Kosilek for many years,
the district court found that she "continues to suffer intense
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mental anguish." Kosilek, 889 F. Supp. 2d at 202. The court
chronicled the evidence: Kosilek's own testimony about her
continued distress,30 the Fenway Center report indicating Kosilek's
ongoing angst over her male genitalia and the high likelihood of
another suicide attempt, and the along-the-same-lines testimony of
Kosilek's treating psychologist, Mark Burrowes. See id. at 226.
There was also Dr. Kaufman's testimony that, even with the
treatment the DOC provided, Kosilek still suffered from clinically
significant distress and severe dysphoria, a fact she found "quite
notable." Dr. Brown testified similarly, explaining that Kosilek's
treatment to date, including the hormones, had not obviated her
need for surgery. Further, there was evidence that Kosilek's
improvement was tangled up in her continuing hope that sex
reassignment surgery would be provided. Dr. Brown testified: "And
without that hope, the [DOC's] treatments are -- I wouldn't say for
naught, but they are not going to continue her level of improvement
where she is now."
Thus, even with Kosilek's documented improvement, Drs.
Brown, Kaufman, Forstein, Kapila, and Appelbaum all testified
unequivocally that sex reassignment surgery was medically necessary
and the only appropriate treatment for Kosilek. They further
30 The court found Kosilek testified credibly that although hormone
treatments had helped, she was distressed by her male genitalia and
believed that she needed surgery. Antidepressants and
psychotherapy, according to Kosilek, would not alter the fact that
she did not want to continue living with her male genitalia.
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agreed that there was a serious risk of harm, most likely suicide,
should Kosilek not receive the surgery, which was a concern the
Fenway doctors voiced as early as 2005. As the majority says, this
potentiality matters because the Eighth Amendment's protections
extend beyond present suffering to future harm. See Helling v.
McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 33-34 (1993); Leavitt, 645 F.3d at 501.
The DOC's assertion that this future risk could be curbed
with medication and psychotherapy cannot carry the day. As the
district court found, treating the underlying disorder and its
symptoms are two very different things, a distinction also drawn by
the Seventh Circuit. See Fields v. Smith, 653 F.3d 550 (7th Cir.
2011). In Fields, the court found a Wisconsin statute that
prohibited the state's correctional department from providing
transgender inmates with hormones and sex reassignment surgery
unconstitutional. Id. at 552-53, 559. The court, discussing how
some patients require hormone therapy, found the department of
corrections had not effectively rebutted the evidence that an
offering of medication and psychotherapy would "do nothing to treat
the underlying disorder." Id. at 556. In the instant matter, Drs.
Appelbaum and Kapila testified that the preferred approach is to
treat the underlying problem -- Kosilek's gender identity disorder
-- as opposed to the symptoms it might produce. As chronicled
above, the consensus was that the only way to adequately treat that
problem was with sex reassignment surgery.
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Lest we forget, the procedural posture of this case bears
another mention. The DOC is challenging the district court's grant
of injunctive relief following a bench trial, meaning that due
regard is paid to the judge's factual findings and credibility
determinations. See Monahan, 625 F.3d at 46. When the evidence
yields competing inferences or two permissible views, we cannot
second guess, "even if, had we been sitting as triers of the facts,
we might have arrived at a different set of judgments." N. Ins.
Co. of N.Y. v. Point Judith Marina, LLC, 579 F.3d 61, 67 (1st Cir.
2009). Here the judge concluded that the DOC's present treatment
regimen, with the added medication and therapy to cushion the postsurgery-
denial fallout, would not reduce Kosilek's suffering to the
point where she did not have a major medical need. Rather, sex
reassignment surgery was the only adequate treatment for Kosilek's
life-threatening disorder. As detailed above, these findings were
supported by the un-objected to testimony of multiple eminently
qualified doctors, by widely accepted, published standards, and by
the testimony of Kosilek herself. The factfinder found this
evidence convincing; he found the DOC's evidentiary offering less
so. It is not for us to re-weigh the evidence and second-guess
this determination, but that is exactly what the majority does.
What's more, by upholding the adequacy of the DOC's
course of treatment, the majority in essence creates a de facto ban
on sex reassignment surgery for inmates in this circuit. Its
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attempt to repudiate this notion is not compelling. For instance,
the fact that the DOC has "disclaimed any attempt to create a
blanket policy regarding SRS" is a non-starter. The issue is not
whether correctional departments will voluntarily provide the
surgery, it is whether the precedent set by this court today will
preclude inmates from ever being able to mount a successful Eighth
Amendment claim for sex reassignment surgery in the courts.
Equally unconvincing is the majority's assertion that the "unique
circumstances" presented by Kosilek's case will prevent any de
facto ban. The first so-called anomaly cited by the majority --
the divergence of opinion as to Kosilek's need for surgery -- only
resulted from the DOC disregarding the advice of Kosilek's treating
doctors and bringing in a predictable opponent to sex reassignment
surgery. It is no stretch to imagine another department of
corrections stealing a page from this play book, i.e., just bring
in someone akin to Osborne. It is hardly a matchless scenario.
The same goes for Kosilek's criminal history and post-surgical
housing options, which the majority also points to. Rare will be
the prisoner who does not pose some type of security concern, or
harbor some potential for causing climate unrest. So the question
remains, if Kosilek -- who was time and again diagnosed as
suffering from severe gender identity disorder, and who was
uniformly thought by qualified medical professionals to require
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surgery -- is not an appropriate candidate for surgery, what inmate
is?
In sum, the majority's conclusion that the district court
wrongly found that Kosilek satisfied the objective component of the
Eighth Amendment inquiry is, in my opinion, flatly incorrect. I am
no more convinced by the majority's examination of the subjective
component.
IV. Eighth Amendment: Subjective Prong
A satisfied subjective prong means that prison officials
had "a sufficiently culpable state of mind" in that they showed
deliberate indifference to an inmate's health and safety. Farmer,
511 U.S. at 834; Leavitt, 645 F.3d at 497. The officials were both
"aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a
substantial risk of serious harm exists" and they drew that
inference. Ruiz-Rosa v. Rullán, 485 F.3d 150, 156 (1st Cir. 2007).
The majority posits that the DOC, because it was faced with
conflicting medical opinions about what treatment was appropriate
for Kosilek, and because it proffered reasonable security concerns,
was not deliberately indifferent to Kosilek's risk for serious
harm. Both theories fail to convince.
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A. Conflicting Medical Opinions
The idea that incompatible medical opinions serve to
insulate the DOC from a deliberate indifference finding is a
concept not advanced by the DOC, which rests on several faulty
propositions and has very problematic implications.
The majority concedes that the DOC never made this
particular argument, but charitably claims it is not waived because
"[t]he DOC's contention that the district court erred in deeming
SRS medically necessary and in rejecting Dr. Schmidt's approach as
imprudent necessarily entails the DOC's subjective belief that SRS
was unnecessary."31 This is a stretch. An argument advanced on
appeal years after surgery was denied is not the equivalent of the
DOC's subjective belief that sex reassignment surgery was
unnecessary when it denied it. Moreover, the mere existence of
contradictory medical opinions does not necessarily mean that the
DOC did not deny Kosilek surgery for purely pretextual reasons. It
is certainly conceivable that a correctional department could seize
on an opinion from a medical provider, whether or not it found it
compelling, as a means to justify denying treatment.
31 When the DOC first informed the district court that it would not
be providing Kosilek with surgery (back in June 2005 under
Dennehy's watch), Dr. Schmidt had not even evaluated Kosilek let
alone communicated his findings. At the time, the DOC was only
armed with the report of Cynthia Osborne who had not met with
Kosilek but rather had simply peer reviewed the Fenway Report.
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Another even more serious flaw in the majority's theory
is that it is contradicted by the evidence. Commissioner Dennehy
testified multiple times, and submitted a report to the same
effect, that it was security concerns that motivated her decision
to deny Kosilek surgery. During Dennehy's first round of
testimony, when she was still claiming ignorance about whether
UMass (the DOC's contracted health-services provider) was
recommending surgery, she testified that based "strictly [on]
safety and security concerns" she would still veto the surgery even
if UMass told her that it was medically necessary. Then, once
UMass's position that surgery was medically necessary became
pellucid to Dennehy, she submitted a report to the court indicating
that she was standing firm in her decision to deny surgery based on
"alarming and substantial" safety and security concerns. Her final
time on the stand, Dennehy testified that the only thing, in her
view, preventing surgery for Kosilek was safety and security
concerns; absent such concerns, Dennehy would have no reason to
interfere with any medical order for treatment.
The evidence with regard to Commissioner Clarke's stance
on the issue was similar. In his report to the court, Clarke
disclaimed any ability to render an opinion on the validity of the
medical opinions expressed at trial, and went on to explain his
view that "the safety and security concerns presented by the
prospect of undertaking sex reassignment surgery for Michelle
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Kosilek are insurmountable." Clarke then hammered home his
security concerns on the stand. Therefore, even though there was
contradictory opinions on whether surgery was medically necessary
for Kosilek, both Dennehy's and Clarke's decision to deny the
procedure was, as they put it, based solely on security concerns.
The majority's presumption that the existence of varying
medical opinions should insulate the DOC is not only an
unpreserved, unsupported argument but it has very troubling
implications. It gives correctional departments serious leeway
with the Eighth Amendment. If they do not want to provide a
prisoner with care recommended by one or more than one medical
provider, they need only find a doctor with a differing mind set
(typically not a difficult task). It is no stretch to think that
might be what happened here. The DOC had the treatment
recommendation of Drs. Kaufman and Kapila, a local psychiatrist and
psychologist who had evaluated Kosilek. The doctors themselves
were recommended by the DOC's own medical provider, UMass. Yet the
DOC took the unusual step of having the Fenway doctors'
recommendation peer reviewed by Cynthia Osborne, an out-of-state
social worker with a known opinion about sex reassignment surgery.
It seems highly unlikely that the DOC was simply looking for a more
complete picture of Kosilek's treatment options, and that Osborne's
predictable opposition to Kosilek being provided with surgery was
a non-factor. The DOC knew that Osborne was working with the
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Virginia and Wisconsin departments of corrections to help defend
lawsuits filed by transgender prisoners, and internal DOC meeting
minutes noted that Osborne "may do more objective evaluations" and
was "[m]ore sympathetic to DOC position." Predictably, Osborne was
one-hundred percent sympathetic.
B. Security Concerns
There is no dispute that "security considerations . . .
matter at prisons," leaving "ample room for professional judgment."
Battista v. Clarke, 645 F.3d 449, 453, 454 (1st Cir. 2011). "Any
professional judgment that decides an issue involving conditions of
confinement must embrace security and administration and not merely
medical judgments." Id. at 455 (quoting Cameron v. Tomes, 900 F.2d
14, 20 (1st Cir. 1993) (emphasis in original)). But it is also
true that at some point a defendant forfeits the advantage of
deference, for instance following a "pattern of delays, new
objections substituted for old ones, misinformation and other
negatives."32 Id. The district court determined that the DOC had
done just this, causing undue delay in Kosilek's treatment regimen,
32 The pattern in Battista -- a case in which a transgender inmate
sued the Massachusetts DOC for failing to provide doctorrecommended
hormones -- included an initial failure to take the
inmate's diagnosis and hormone request seriously, the years it took
for a solid security justification to be made, and the DOC's claim
that withholding hormones or placing the inmate in severely
constraining protective custody were the only two options. In
other words, there are some marked similarities between that case
and this one. That is, apart from their outcomes. In Battista,
this court affirmed the district court's deliberate indifference
determination.
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manufacturing security concerns, and orchestrating a half-hearted
security review. The record amply supported these conclusions, yet
the majority too easily discounts them, especially given the
deferential look this issue warrants. See, e.g., Torraco, 923 F.2d
at 234 (explaining that deliberate indifference is usually a jury
question); Monahan, 625 F.3d at 46 (providing that due regard is
given to credibility calls); Fed. Refinance Co., 352 F.3d at 27-28
(noting that a clear error look makes sense when there are
questions of motive and intent).
Of course, it has been many years since medical providers
began considering the propriety of surgery for Kosilek. Back
during Kosilek I, Dr. Forstein recommended that Kosilek be allowed
to consult with a surgeon who specialized in sex reassignment
surgery. Then in 2003, Dr. Seil said Kosilek should be allowed to
meet with a specialist after a year on hormones. But right when
she started as commissioner, Dennehy made a curious move. She
reassessed the care being provided to all inmates suffering from
gender identity disorder, despite the DOC's contract with UMass
placing that medical care squarely in UMass's purview. Then once
the Fenway doctors opined in 2005 that Kosilek should be allowed to
have surgery, the DOC frittered away time claiming not to
understand that UMass recommended surgery for Kosilek. The
majority does not quibble with the court's finding that the DOC
prevaricated in this respect because it "does not undercut the
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consistency with which they identified safety and security
concerns." This misses the point. To establish a subjective
intent, "it is enough for the prisoner to show a wanton disregard
sufficiently evidenced 'by denial, delay, or interference with
prescribed health care.'" Battista, 645 F.3d at 453 (quoting
DesRosiers, 949 F.2d at 19); see also Johnson v. Wright, 412 F.3d
398, 404 (2d Cir. 2005) (A "deliberate indifference claim can lie
where prison officials deliberately ignore the medical
recommendations of a prisoner's treating physicians."). That is
precisely what the district court found happened here, and the
evidentiary support for this determination is in the record.
The same goes for the court's conclusion that the DOC's
security reviews were rushed and results-driven. Dennehy told a
news outlet that the DOC would deny Kosilek's request for surgery
despite only having "generalized discussions" and phone calls with
the relevant players; she had not yet received written reports or
convened a formal security meeting. When the DOC did meet, there
was just a week left before its court-ordered security report was
due -- a report that was then penned predominantly by trial counsel
and reviewed by Dennehy only a day or two before its filing. Once
trial was underway, the hurriedness continued. A mere nine days
before expert disclosures were due, Dennehy contacted the director
of the Federal Bureau of Prisons looking for a security expert.
And the experts the DOC ultimately did present at trial seemed ill
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prepared, failing to take into account important details about
Kosilek's medical and disciplinary history.
For the district court, another reason not to esteem the
DOC's proffered security concerns was the fact that they were
"largely false" and "greatly exaggerated." This finding is not
clearly erroneous. Yet the majority easily dismisses it, in part
by limiting its focus to what it presumably perceives as the DOC's
more valid security concerns -- where to house Kosilek postoperatively
and the deterrence of false suicide threats by inmates.
The majority is conveniently forgetting the throw-it-up-and-seewhat-
sticks approach taken by the DOC below. It was this approach,
in part, that led the court to question whether the DOC could be
trusted to give an accurate picture of security concerns consequent
to surgery.
For instance, the DOC repeatedly claimed that
transporting Kosilek to surgery out of state would pose an
insurmountable security risk. It is hardly surprising the district
court thought this was an embellished concern. Kosilek had been
transported to multiple doctor's appointments without issue, and it
is illogical to think Kosilek would attempt to flee en route to the
surgery she has dedicated decades of her life to obtaining. Also
eminently unlikely is that during the transport home from highly
invasive surgery, a sixty-five-year-old, recovering Kosilek would
be able to escape the grasp of DOC personnel. Even Clarke thought
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it near certain that Kosilek could safely be transported to and
from surgery.
With regard to housing Kosilek in a female prison, the
DOC painted Kosilek as a highly-polarizing escape risk who could
not possibly safely reside in MCI-Framingham's general population.
It pointed to the comparatively weaker perimeter of MCI-Framingham,
alleging that Kosilek's superior male strength and life sentence
made her a flight risk. One can easily see why the district court
was not buying this. Kosilek was advanced in age, physically
slight, had taken female hormones for years, and had an excellent
disciplinary record. And MCI-Framingham successfully housed
approximately forty life offenders. The court also had reason to
be skeptical of the DOC's adamant contention that Kosilek would
cause inmate climate issues at MCI-Framingham due to the fact that
she murdered her wife. Undoubtedly inmates find other inmates
offensive for a plethora of reasons, such as, race, religion, gang
affiliation, sexual orientation, or the crime committed. Prisons
deal with these situations on a routine basis and the evidence
established that MCI-Framingham had procedures in place to do just
that.
The DOC even admitted at oral argument that had a postoperative,
transgender person out in free society committed murder,
the DOC would have to figure out where to house that person. The
DOC; however, did not think this a particularly important point,
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protesting that Kosilek presents unique concerns that separate her
from this hypothetical inmate. I am unmoved. The fact that
Kosilek's crime was one of violence against a woman could equally
apply to another potential inmate. And the fact that Kosilek
gained notoriety by litigating against the DOC all these years --
in other words, successfully pursuing her constitutional right to
adequate medical care -- hardly seems a compelling consideration.
For the district court, also blunting the DOC's fervent
cries of overwhelming security concerns were the alternatives to
placing Kosilek in the general population of a Massachusetts
prison. There was the option of transferring Kosilek to an out-ofstate
prison (though this scenario appears to have been left
largely unexplored by the DOC). In fact, the evidence established
that Clarke's former employer, the Washington Department of
Corrections, housed a post-operative female transgender inmate,
also serving a life sentence for murdering a female relative,
without security or climate issues. The inmate's housing was so
unremarkable that Clarke was not even aware of it during his tenure
in Washington. Further, there was evidence that Kosilek's safety
could be ensured by placing her in a segregated housing unit.
The DOC's past conduct was also relevant to the district
court's credibility assessment. In connection with Kosilek I, then
Commissioner Michael Maloney hammered the serious security concerns
surrounding Kosilek remaining at MCI-Norfolk while receiving
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hormones, theorizing that an inmate living as a female (with female
attributes) among sex offenders would create a risk of violence.
However, once the DOC actually stopped to conduct a security
review, it determined there were no current security concerns with
Kosilek being provided estrogen therapy. Indeed no security issues
ever arose. Kosilek has been safely housed at MCI-Norfolk for many
years presenting herself as female. The DOC's reversal on this
issue calls into question its stance before this court about the
non-feasibility of housing a post-surgical Kosilek at MCI-Norfolk.
The DOC also expressed concern that providing Kosilek
with surgery would encourage inmates to utilize suicide threats to
receive a desired benefit, and the majority deems this concern
reasonable. I am not convinced, and neither was the district
court. Not only is there absolutely no evidence that Kosilek is
trying to game the system, but the DOC, as it emphasized at trial,
employs mental health professionals and has policies in place to
deal with suicidality. Presumably, these tools can be used by the
DOC to assess whether an inmate's particular suicide threat is
manufactured or real, and it can be dealt with accordingly. That
the DOC does not want to be inundated with a hypothetical influx of
false suicide threats hardly seems a valid reason to deny a
prisoner care deemed medically necessary.
For the district court, the public and political
disapproval of Kosilek's surgical pursuit was another factor. It
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did not believe Dennehy's and Clarke's claims that the avoidance of
controversy played no role in the DOC's decision to deny surgery.
The majority concedes that it must give deference to the court's
finding that Dennehy's motivations were colored by public pressure
and so, instead, the majority hypes up the role of Commissioner
Clarke by characterizing him as the ultimate decision maker. I see
a few flaws with the majority's reasoning.
For one, the majority says the district court improperly
imputed Dennehy's motivations to Clarke, thus ignoring the
injunctive-relief requirement that it take into account the DOC's
then present-day stance.33 See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 845 (quoting
Helling, 509 U.S. at 36) (The court considers deliberate
indifference "'in light of the prison authorities' current
attitudes and conduct,' . . . their attitudes and conduct at the
time suit is brought and persisting thereafter."). The majority
has it wrong. The court took testimony from Clarke, reviewed his
written report, and spoke extensively in its decision about why it
was not convinced that Clarke denied Kosilek surgery based on
33 While a defendant's attitudes and conduct at the time a decision
is rendered are relevant, what motivates the DOC today is not.
This fact may be less than clear given the majority's reference to
the DOC's present stance ("proof that the DOC remains motivated by
pretextual or improper concerns") and the fact that Dennehy is now
seven years removed from the decision-making process. To be clear,
we are reviewing the district court's decision that the DOC,
through Dennehy and Clarke, denied Kosilek surgery based on
pretextual reasons. Indeed it would be an amazing feat of
prescience for the district court to anticipate what the DOC's
viewpoint would be two years after penning its decision.
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legitimate penological concerns. Of note, it was Kosilek who
sought to have Clarke inform the court of his position, and the
DOC, which stipulated at trial that Dennehy was the operative
decision maker, actually objected to Clarke even testifying as he
was simply "maintain[ing] the position set forth by the DOC through
former Commissioner Dennehy."
Furthermore, though the majority defers to the court's
take on Dennehy, it refuses to do so for Clarke, claiming that
"Clarke was never found by the court to be non-credible." This is
not entirely accurate. Clearly the import of the court's
conclusion that Clarke's articulated security concerns were either
false or exaggerated as a pretext to deny surgery means that the
court did not think Clarke a completely credible witness. See
Kosilek, 889 F. Supp. 2d at 241 ("[T]he purported security
considerations that Dennehy and Clarke claim motivated their
decisions to deny Kosilek sex reassignment surgery are largely
false and any possible genuine concerns have been greatly
exaggerated to provide a pretext for denying the prescribed
treatment.") In fact, the court specifically found certain claims
made by Clarke not to be credible. See id. at 244 (finding that
"neither Dennehy nor Clarke has provided a credible explanation for
their purported belief that if Kosilek's genitalia are altered the
risk to him and others at MCI Norfolk will be materially magnified"
and "[t]he claims of Dennehy and Clarke that they have denied sex
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reassignment surgery for Kosilek in part because MCI Framingham is
not sufficiently secure to prevent an escape by Kosilek, who has
never attempted to flee, are not credible.") Therefore, as it did
with Dennehy, the majority should be giving due regard to the
court's conclusion that Clarke was not believable.
The majority also misses the mark with its contention
that the "only evidence" tending to show Clarke may have considered
public and political criticism were the two letters from the
unhappy Massachusetts legislators. This is not the whole picture.
In addition to the letters, what convinced the court that Clarke
was improperly motivated was his advancing inflated security
concerns following a hasty review, suggesting that he did not
operate with an open mind. Having already detailed the evidence
supporting the court's distrust of the DOC's proffered security
concerns, I will not rehash.
As for the thoroughness of Clarke's review, the court
criticized Clarke for not consulting with Luis Spencer, who was
Superintendent of MCI-Norfolk at the time, and for not reviewing
the DOC's security-expert trial testimony, prior to deciding
whether to deny surgery. The DOC counters that Clarke, pursuant to
the court's order, was not required to do either of those things.
It is both conceivable that Clarke's review was too cursory, or
that he felt constrained by the court's order, though the fact that
Clarke did not know significant details such as Kosilek's age and
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excellent disciplinary record favors the former possibility.
Either way, both views are permissible, which means that the
district court's choice of one of them cannot be clearly erroneous.
See Monahan, 625 F.3d at 46. Nor is it appropriate for us to
second-guess the court's tenable perception of Clarke's
motivations, as deference extends to "inferences drawn from the
underlying facts, and if the trial court's reading of the record
[with respect to an actor's motivation] is plausible, appellate
review is at an end." Janeiro, 457 F.3d at 138-39 (internal
quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original).
Ultimately, there was adequate evidentiary support for
the court's determination that the DOC was deliberately
indifferent. The court did not obviously err in concluding the DOC
delayed implementing medical treatment recommended by its own
providers, sought out a more favorable medical opinion, engaged in
a hasty, result-driven security review, offered a host of poorly
thought out security concerns, and then denied surgery based not on
any legitimate penological concerns but on a fear of controversy.
Whether I, or any of my colleagues, would have drawn these same
conclusions had we been presiding over this trial is irrelevant;
our review is circumscribed. It is enough that the district court
had a reasonable basis for its judgment. The district court's
determination that the Eighth Amendment's subjective prong was
satisfied should stand.
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V. Conclusion
I am confident that I would not need to pen this dissent,
over twenty years after Kosilek's quest for constitutionally
adequate medical care began, were she not seeking a treatment that
many see as strange or immoral. Prejudice and fear of the
unfamiliar have undoubtedly played a role in this matter's
protraction. Whether today's decision brings this case to a close,
I cannot say. But I am confident that this decision will not stand
the test of time, ultimately being shelved with the likes of Plessy
v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), deeming constitutional state laws
requiring racial segregation, and Korematsu v. United States, 323
U.S. 214 (1944), finding constitutional the internment of Japanese-
Americans in camps during World War II. I only hope that day is
not far in the future, for the precedent the majority creates is
damaging. It paves the way for unprincipled grants of en banc
relief, decimates the deference paid to a trial judge following a
bench trial, aggrieves an already marginalized community, and
enables correctional systems to further postpone their adjustment
to the crumbling gender binary.
I respectfully dissent.
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KAYATTA, Circuit Judge, dissenting. Reading the
majority's lengthy and oft-revisited discussion of the applicable
standard of review, one would think that this case posed issues of
law or application of law to fact. This is plainly not so.
There is not a comma, much less a word, of the applicable
law that the district court did not expressly and correctly explain
and apply. All the parties and all the judges in this case,
including the trial judge, agree on the controlling principles of
law, long ago established by the Supreme Court. See Estelle v.
Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976); Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825,
837 (1994); see also United States v. DeCologero, 821 F.2d 39, 43
(1st Cir. 1987). Under that law, a prison must supply medical care
to its prisoners "at a level reasonably commensurate with modern
medical science and of a quality acceptable within prudent
professional standards." DeCologero, 821 F.2d at 43. The failure
to provide such care, moreover, does not constitute an Eighth
Amendment violation unless it rises to the level of "deliberate
indifference" to a "serious medical need." "Deliberate
indifference" means that the prison official "knows of and
disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety." Farmer,
511 U.S. at 837. A "serious medical need" is defined as, among
other things, "one that has been diagnosed by a physician as
mandating treatment." Gaudreault v. Municipality of Salem, Mass.,
923 F.2d 203, 208 (1st Cir. 1990).
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Our decision in this case therefore necessarily turns on
the facts themselves. And we begin our review knowing that Kosilek
does indeed have a serious medical need, and the prison's own
doctors, as well as the specialists retained by those doctors,
informed DOC that treatment of Kosilek's medical condition in
accordance with prudent professional standards requires sex
reassignment surgery (SRS).34 That leaves only two factual
questions: (1) Are the DOC's doctors correct that SRS is the only
treatment for Kosilek's condition that is commensurate with modern
medical science as practiced by prudent professionals;35 and, if so,
(2) Did prison officials nevertheless deny that treatment not
because they disbelieved their own doctors, and not because of
prison security considerations, but rather simply because they
feared public ridicule. If the answer to each of these two
questions is "yes," Kosilek should win. Otherwise, she loses.
Were I the trial judge charged with answering these two
factual questions based solely on the written record, I would
likely find against Kosilek on the first question for the reasons
stated by the trial court's appointed independent expert, Dr.
Levine. In a nutshell, Dr. Levine, who participated in drafting
34 None of these witnesses face challenge on the grounds that their
opinions are outside the bounds of accepted science. See Daubert
v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589-90 (1993).
35 In the majority's words, "whether SRS is a medically necessary
component of Kosilek's care, such that any course of treatment not
including surgery is constitutionally inadequate." Slip Op. at 46.
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the Standards of Care, provided carefully nuanced and persuasive
testimony that medical science has not reached a wide,
scientifically driven consensus mandating SRS as the only
acceptable treatment for an incarcerated individual with gender
dysphoria. But I am not the trial judge in this case. Nor are my
colleagues. And that is the rub.
The experienced jurist who was the trial judge in this
case, and who actually sat and listened to the live testimony,
found as a matter of fact that:
(1) Commensurate with modern medical science, no prudent
professional would recommend any treatment for Kosilek other than
SRS; and
(2) Prison officials nevertheless denied the treatment
not because they rejected the accuracy of the medical advice
tendered by their own doctors, and not because of security issues,
but rather because they feared public ridicule. Their reasons for
denying the necessary treatment were thus in bad faith.
The majority never explains why these two findings are
not pure findings of fact, and are not therefore subject solely to
review for clear error. Nor can it. After all, we are talking
about, first, what the medical--not legal--standard of care is for
a particular affliction, and second, whether Dennehy and Clarke
were truthful in describing their security objections, such as
their claim that they feared that Kosilek, after trying to get this
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surgery for twenty years, would escape on the way to the operating
room or, fresh from the surgeon's knife, overpower her guards and
run away. Let me be plain on this point: Until today, there was
absolutely no precedent (and the majority cites none) for reviewing
such quintessentially factual findings under anything other than
the clear error test.
As Judge Thompson carefully explains, there is a
considerable amount of evidence that directly supports the trial
court's findings on these two points, depending on which witnesses
one believes. I write separately only to stress that even if one
agrees with the majority that the district court got the factfinding
wrong, we should defer unless the result is clearly
erroneous. Of course, deferring to the trial judge's fact-finding
happens to produce a result in this case that some of us find
surprising, and much of the public likely finds shocking.
Scientific knowledge advances quickly and without regard to settled
norms and arrangements. It sometimes draws in its wake a reluctant
community, unnerved by notions that challenge our views of who we
are and how we fit in the universe. The notion that hard-wired
aspects of gender may not unerringly and inexorably correspond to
physical anatomy is especially unnerving for many.
The solution, I think, is to trust our trial judges to
resolve these factual issues when the evidence supports a finding
either way. Some will get it wrong; most will get it right. The
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arc of decision-making, over time, will bend towards the latter.
For each instance of error in fact-finding, such as possibly this
case itself, $25,000 or so may be lost. But doctors and lawyers
will refine their presentations and other trial judges will make
their own findings, not bound in any way by the fact-finding in
this case.
Instead, by deciding the facts in this case as an
appellate court essentially finding law, the majority ends any
search for the truth through continued examination of the medical
evidence by the trial courts. It locks in an answer that binds all
trial courts in the circuit: no prison may be required to provide
SRS to a prisoner who suffers from gender dysphoria as long as a
prison official calls up Ms. Osborne or Dr. Schmidt.36
Acknowledging that the majority may well be correct on the facts,
I nevertheless decline the invitation to join the majority in
embracing the authority to decide the facts. I suspect that our
court will devote some effort in the coming years to distinguishing
this case, and eventually reducing it to a one-off reserved only
for transgender prisoners.
36 No prisoner is likely to have a more favorable record than
Kosilek.
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Outcome: Reversed and Remanded.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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