Yesterday, Georgia prisoners filed a class-action lawsuit “contending that Georgia corrections officers have systematically beaten restrained inmates in prisons throughout the state, leaving two dead and dozens of others injured,” according to the Macon Telegraph.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Valdosta, names 25 guards and other corrections officials as culprits in routine beatings and torture of restrained inmates. It also claims they subsequently covered up the abuses by inflicting even more beatings on prisoners who file complaints.
The phrase “”neither banishment beyond the limits of the state nor whipping shall be allowed as a punishment for a crime” in the Georgia Constitution is being used as a basis for arguing that the beatings are “unconstitutional.”
I didn’t realize the Constitution had to used to prove that beating people — including prisoners — was wrong or illegal, but so be it.