A federal judge in Denver has tossed a civil lawsuit in which a Rifle woman said her constitutional rights were violated during a weekend stay in the Garfield County Jail, the Sheriff’s Department said today.
Shelley Carani, 54, had been arrested by the Rifle Police Department in November 2007. Domestic violence and stalking charges against her were later dropped, however.
According to her lawsuit, the charges stemmed from Carani’s suspicion that her husband, a city of Rifle public works employee, was having an affair with a co-worker, whom Shelley Carani and her friends were then accused of harassing and threatening.
Carani was in the jail from Friday night until charges were dropped after a hearing on Monday afternoon, according to the lawsuit.
She sued Sheriff Lou Vallario and other public officials, claiming her confinement constituted cruel and unusual punishment and deprived her of due process of law. The suit cited the jail’s bad food, overcrowding, lack of privacy, the fact she could not smoke, that she was forced to remain barefoot in her cell and other conditions, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
U.S. District Judge Marcia S. Krieger’s summary judgment stated “none of the conditions cited by Ms. Carani, individually or in concert, constitute conditions that could be said to amount to unconstitutional punishment.”
The judge further stated the incarceration did not “rise to a constitutional deprivation, particularly in light of the very brief period she was detained.”
Krieger said similar conditions and restrictions are common in jails across the country.
