Replacement Opening Brief for Plaintiff-Appellant Mona Salcida Murillo

Authors

Elise Chigier
Bilal Mubarack
Daniel Siemers
Erin Hunter
Madeline H. Meth, Boston University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Brief

Publication Date

5-23-2025

Publisher

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Language

en-US

Abstract

When Mona Murillo tried to assert her rights to be free from sex discrimination and physical threats from prison officials at Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP), those officials conspired to punish her and obstruct her efforts to remedy these harms. Murillo is a transgender woman who, while incarcerated at SVSP, repeatedly complained about unsafe working conditions (created and maintained because of her sex) and sex-based harassment perpetrated by Defendants Lopez, Garcia, Lepe, and Castillo. In return, Murillo was subjected to threats, fabricated disciplinary charges, and deliberate efforts to deny her access to necessary work gear by these same Defendants and other prison officials, Defendants Williams, Foss, and Sullivan.

To take just one example of the cycle of discrimination and retaliation: When Murillo requested safety equipment for her kitchen assignment from the prison laundry supervisors Garcia and Lopez, Garcia yelled at her to “get away from the window fag.” Lopez then pressed an alarm that led to Murillo being slammed to the ground and confined for nineteen hours simply because she had promised to complain about the laundry supervisors’ sex discrimination.

Later, Castillo and Lepe (Murillo’s supervisors at work in the kitchen) joined the campaign to prevent Murillo from accessing safety equipment. When Murillo was sent back to the laundry window to retrieve her prison-designated work boots, Lopez laughed, closed the window, and told her: “I will never have boots for you or fags like you.” Wardens Sullivan and Foss knew about this sex-based and retaliatory denial but sat idly by. Forced to work without boots, Murillo fell on the job in the kitchen, sustaining severe back and knee injuries and partial facial paralysis. Murillo is now unable to walk unassisted.

Murillo sued Defendants under the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, naming several correctional officers and supervisors. The district court, however, dismissed most Defendants at the screening stage, holding that they were misjoined, and later granted summary judgment on the remaining claims for failure to exhaust under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA).

These decisions are wrong. As for the purported misjoinder, Murillo’s claims do not reflect isolated episodes, but, rather, are deeply intertwined, involving conspiring Defendants, shared unlawful motives, and factually similar adverse actions. As to PLRA exhaustion, Murillo managed to exhaust grievances sufficient to alert prison officials to the laundry supervisors’ and Williams’ misconduct but faced dead ends in seeking remedies against Lepe, Castillo, Sullivan, and Foss because of improper rejections of her grievances and threats including that she could have her property taken, be stabbed, or placed in solitary confinement for exercising her rights to redress. This Court should reverse.

Recommended Citation

Elise Chigier, Bilal Mubarack, Daniel Siemers, Erin Hunter & Madeline H. Meth, Replacement Opening Brief for Plaintiff-Appellant Mona Salcida Murillo (2025).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4171