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The court in a
panel decision said Arkansas prison officials had heeded the
advice of their medical professionals in declining to provide
the inmate with hormone therapy and thus did not display
"deliberate indifference" to her complaint, the court said.
The inmate, Andrew Reid, 31, is serving a 30-year sentence for
murder. The appeals court used the feminine pronoun "she" in
discussing Reid.
Reid attempted to castrate herself in February 2013 and was
rushed from prison to a hospital, where doctors saved one
testicle. Reid later succeeded in severing the remaining
testicle, according to court documents.
In affirming the lower court's finding, the appeals judges
agreed that the state and its prison employees enjoyed sovereign
immunity from lawsuit absent substantial proof of a
constitutional rights violation.
"Reid does not suggest any actions that the defendants could
have taken to prevent her from inflicting self harm other than
providing estrogen-replacement therapy, treatment to which she
is not entitled under the law," the appeals court said.
The majority noted that the prison had continued to provide Reid
with mental health care.
A dissenting judge wrote that prison officials "deliberately
ignored the high risk Reid would harm herself" following the
first attempt at castration and should not be immune to
litigation.
(Additional writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Jacqueline
Wong)
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