UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
for the Fifth Circuit
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No. 95-30019
Summary Calendar
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TONY WHITAKER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
VERSUS
WILLIAM MIKE GILLIAM, Warden, Winn Correctional Center;
STAFF MEMBERS OF WINN CORRECTIONAL CENTER
Defendants-Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Louisiana
(CA 93 1807)
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August 3, 1995
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, DUHÉ, and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:1
Appellant, a prisoner in Louisiana's Winn Correctional Center,
brought this civil rights suit against the warden and unnamed
employees of the prison alleging that the eating utensils were
unsanitary resulting in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights.
The district court granted summary judgment for Defendants. We
affirm.
1
Local Rule 47.5 provides: "The publication of opinions that
have no precedential value and merely decide particular cases on
the basis of well-settled principles of law imposes needless
expense on the public and burdens on the legal profession."
Pursuant to that Rule, the Court has determined that this opinion
should not be published.
The summary judgment record makes clear that all eating
utensils used at Winn are washed in approved dishwashing machines
after each use and thereby sanitized. Appellant argues that
occasionally plastic utensils are utilized and that plastic cannot
be sanitized, but he offers no evidence to contradict the
affidavits submitted by the Defendants. To carry his burden to
show an Eighth Amendment violation Appellant must show that the
risk that the prisoner complains of is so grave that it violates
contemporary standards of decency to expose anyone unwillingly to
such a risk. Helling v. McKinney, 113 S. Ct. 2475, 2482 (1993).
Appellant has created no such issue of fact. He has also failed to
carry his burden under Farmer v. Brennan, 114 S. Ct. 1970, 1979
(1994), to show that Defendants were deliberately indifferent to a
serious risk of harm.
AFFIRMED.
2