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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 12-15427
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 4:11-cv-00290-MP-CAS
TONYA L. SIMMONS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
WARDEN,
RODNEY KING,
Officer,
Defendants-Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
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(January 2, 2014)
Before HULL, MARCUS and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Tonya Simmons, a federal prisoner, appeals the dismissal of her amended
complaint that her constitutional rights were violated by the Warden of the Federal
Correctional Institute in Tallahassee, Florida, and a prison guard, Rodney King.
See 28 U.S.C. § 1331; Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of
Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S. Ct. 1999 (1971). The district court dismissed
Simmons’s complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). We affirm.
The district court did not err by dismissing Simmons’s complaint. Simmons
failed to “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,” that is, from which the
district court could “draw the reasonable inference” that King violated Simmons’s
constitutional rights. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S. Ct. 1937,
1949 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Simmons alleged that she was
defamed when King imitated her “pigeon-toed walk” and waved his arms while
making “monkey sounds,” but “[d]efamation, by itself, is . . . not a constitutional
deprivation,” Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 233, 111 S. Ct. 1789, 1794 (1991).
Simmons complained that King’s conduct violated the First Amendment, but
Simmons failed to allege that she was punished for or prevented from engaging in
a constitutionally protected expression. See U.S. Const. Amend. I. Simmons also
complained that King discriminated against her based on her disability in violation
of her right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, but Simmons
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failed to allege that King’s conduct resulted in a “deprivation . . . of [any] liberty or
property interest guaranteed by the Constitution,” Emory v. Peeler, 756 F.2d 1547,
1553 (11th Cir. 1985). See Harris v. Ostrout, 65 F.3d 912, 916 (11th Cir. 1995)
(recognizing that a prisoner’s allegations that he had been twice cited for
disciplinary violations because of his race and had his recreational privileges
suspended as a result “state[d] a[] . . . Fourteenth Amendment equal protection
claim”). Simmons further complained that King “hurt” her feelings and made her
“angry and depressed,” but we cannot say that her injuries are objectively and
sufficiently serious to constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth
Amendment. See Boxer X v. Harris, 437 F.3d 1107, 1111 (11th Cir. 2006).
We AFFIRM the dismissal of Simmons’s complaint.
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