Assault on an inmate — serious bodily injury — sufficiency of the evidence

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Assault on an inmate — serious bodily injury — sufficiency of the evidence

Where a federal inmate broke the neck of another inmate, the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for assault, causing serious bodily injury.

“We reject the argument that no reasonable jury could have found that the defendant’s assault on Rodriguez inflicted serious bodily injury as defined in section 1365(h)(3). Indeed a jury could find all four sub-definitions satisfied. One cellmate testified that he told the defendant during the fight to stop lest he kill Rodriguez and that in reply the defendant had said that that was what he was trying to do. The medical personnel were sufficiently alarmed by Rodriguez’s symptoms to take precautions against the possibility that he had trauma to his head, bleeding inside his skull, and a broken neck. The beating, and the stomping with steel-toe boots, could well be found to have inflicted extreme pain until Rodriguez lost consciousness (if he did); facial scars present after six months could be found to be ‘protracted and obvious disfigurement’; and the impairment of his ‘mental faculty’ also had not dissipated over that period. Cf. United States v. Peneaux, 432 F.3d 882, 890-91 (8th Cir. 2005); United States v. Two Eagle, 318 F.3d 785, 791-92 (8th Cir. 2003).”

Affirmed.

12-1878 U.S. v. Wilson

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Murphy, J., Posner, J.