Judge to hear arguments in Central Prison lawsuit

U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle planned to consider whether there is enough evidence already presented in court documents to go ahead with the lawsuit on behalf of eight inmates at Central Prison in Raleigh.

The inmates accuse 19 correctional officers of taking handcuffed and shackled inmates from solitary confinement cells where they were placed for disciplinary reasons to blind spots out of view of security cameras, then severely beating them. Former prison administrators Gerald Branker and Kenneth Lassister are accused in the lawsuit of failing in their duties for not developing policies on investigating inmate abuse complaints and to preserve video tapes that might contain evidence from being erased.

"For years, the inmates of Unit One have pursued every avenue available to them to put an end to the violence that is routinely inflicted upon them. They have filed grievances, engaged in letter writing campaigns to public officials, gone on hunger strikes, and exhausted all of the administrative remedies available to them. The violence has not stopped," wrote Elizabeth Simpson, an attorney for North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services representing the inmates.

State attorneys say there is no merit to the allegations. Corrections officers use force with inmates relatively rarely, but have to have the option with the nearly 200 inmates who can be housed in the prison's solitary confinement block, called Unit One, state attorneys wrote in one court filing.

"The inmates housed on Unit One are violent, unpredictable and exhibit little impulse control, so that they are extremely difficult to control," state attorneys wrote. Seven of the eight inmates alleging beatings have collected a total of 583 disciplinary infractions, state attorneys said.

That can't justify systematic beatings that violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment, the inmates' lawyers contend. Medical records document that inmates who were segregated from other prisoners suffered blunt-force injuries, including broken bones, and concussions, attorneys said.

One violent beating on Dec. 3, 2012, left inmate Jerome Peters in a wheelchair, according to the lawsuit. Peters, 48, was handcuffed and escorted by two correctional officers from his cell to an outdoor recreation area when the lawsuit said one of the guards punched him in the face while the other grabbed a leg and pulled him the ground. The lawsuit said a third correctional officer then helped the other two kick, stomp and punch Peters.

Peters suffered a broken right hip and fractured bones in his hand and face. He underwent surgery, but remained unable to walk months later.

Lassiter was promoted in May to director of 12 prisons in the state's central region. Branker retired in 2011 after The Associated Press obtained a copy of a scathing internal review that found inmates with serious mental disorders were often kept in isolation for weeks, sometimes nude, in roach-infested cells smeared with human waste.

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Emery Dalesio can be reached at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio .