Inmates at the Huttonsville Correctional Center in West Virginia filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the West Virginia Department of Corrections in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. The prisoners asked the court to grant them unconditional release from their confinement, alleging that prison officials had responded to a prison riot by violating their rights under the U.S. Constitution and the West Virginia State Constitution through verbal harassment, physical abuse, denial of religious activities, intimidation, denial of due process in disciplinary proceedings, humiliating treatment, denial of access to legal counsel, denial of mail, denial of sufficient food, and double celling.

On October 7, 1980, the Supreme Court of West Virginia (Judge Sam Harshbarger) held that the prisoners' rights had been violated by the denial of due process in disciplinary proceedings and the use of unnecessary physical force, and the court ordered the defendants to expunge all inmate records of references to the prison riot, subject all correctional officers to psychological testing, discharge any officers who practice brutality, and provide a plan to reduce the degree of restraint to which each inmate was subject. Harrah v. Leverette, 271 S.E.2d 322 (W.Va. 1980). We have no further information on the proceedings in this case.

Kristen Sagar - 04/12/2006


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