Suit alleging off-camera jail beatings revived

By KEVIN McGILL
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court has cleared the way for a lawsuit to proceed against guards and officials at a privately run north Louisiana jail where an inmate died with a fractured skull in 2015. The lawsuit includes allegations that guards at Monroe’s Richwood Correctional Center sometimes beat and pepper-sprayed handcuffed prisoners in an area without security cameras. A federal judge had thrown out much of the lawsuit but a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reinstated it last month. On Friday the appeals court issued an order denying a rehearing, sending the case back to the district court.