In 1977, an inmate at the Attica Correctional Facility in New York filed a pro se lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the New York State Department of Corrections in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. The inmate asked the court for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that his constitutional rights had been violated when he was deprived of food for four days due to his refusal to return a drink cup to the prison guards.

On May 4, 1978, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York (Judge John Thomas Elfvin) denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment, holding that the conduct of the prison officials, and the prison superintendent in particular, violated the plaintiff's Eighth Amendment rights. The court further held that since the parties' pleadings did not address the issue of governmental immunity, the court would hold a hearing at which the superintendent could explain his actions. The court then held that the defendant prison guards had been reasonable in their use of gas to control the prisoner in an effort to obtain a piece of electrical conduit that he had ripped from the ceiling of his cell. Moss v. Ward, 450 F.Supp. 591 (W.D.N.Y. 1978). We have no further information on the proceedings in this case.

Kristen Sagar - 10/31/2006


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