U.S. v. Avila, 53 M.J. 99

First Principles: Constitutional Matters: Cruel and Unusual Punishment

1. a servicemember is entitled, both by statute and the Eighth Amendment, to protection against cruel and unusual punishment; the court will apply the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Eighth Amendment to claims raised under Article 55, UCMJ, except in circumstances where there is a legislative intent to provide greater protections under the statute
2. in order to find a violation of the Eighth Amendment, two requirements must be met: (1) viewed objectively, a deprivation must be “sufficiently serious” to result in the denial of “the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities”; and (2) prison officials must have a “sufficiently culpable state of mind”, one of “deliberate indifference” to inmate health and safety
3. appellant’s status as a maximum custody confinement or segregation prisoner, alone, did not per se violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause; this status was a factor to consider, but appellant failed to demonstrate that the conditions of his confinement were more adverse than those faced by civilian prisoners whose claims of cruel and unusual punishment have been rejected by other courts
4. the fact that confinement regulations were not followed does not, alone, demonstrate that the actual conditions of confinement rose to a level of cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment