WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Monday unanimously restored a verdict against two Ohio prison officials who did not protect a woman inmate from a guard's sexual assault.
The ruling on technical grounds restores a $625,000 judgment against the two officials.
Michelle Ortiz was serving a one-year sentence for aggravated assault against her husband in 1996 when she said a corrections officer walked into the washroom and grabbed one of her breasts. Ortiz said she complained to one of the officials but that official did not act. Ortiz said she was sleeping the next day when the same guard cupped one of her breasts and inserted a finger into her vagina.
The second official had her shackled and confined without heat when she wouldn't retract her accusations, Ortiz said.
Ortiz filed suit under federal civil rights law and won at trial, where a judge rejected the Ohio officials' claims of immunity before the trial. A federal appeals court reversed, saying the officials had immunity.
But the Supreme Court reversed the appeals court. Writing for the high court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said once the officials did not appeal the judge's rejection of immunity and let the case go to trial, and did not challenge the judge's finding that evidence in dispute made it impossible to determine immunity, then the appeals court was powerless to review the evidence necessary to claim that immunity.
The case was sent down for a new hearing and ruling based on the high court's opinion.
