Gov. Jim Justice says the state isn’t finished assessing its own oversight of jails and prisons.
“We had people that went and looked and came back and reported and said ‘All’s good in the neighborhood. And we had people that purposefully covered stuff up,” Justice said at a news briefing today in response to a question by reporter Mark Curtis of WOWK television.
“And we have tried and we are still looking that if we can find others that did exactly that, we’ll terminate them. We’ve already terminated some, and we’ll terminate more.”
The governor’s chief of staff described a newly-launched internal investigation.
Justice’s administration last week fired a top official in the corrections system and the lead attorney in the Department of Homeland Security after a federal magistrate judge blasted the handling of potential evidence in a class action lawsuit over conditions at Southern Regional Jail.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Omar Aboulhosn, in a filing that recommended default judgment in the lawsuit, expressed outrage over testimony about lost or destroyed potential evidence — including emails, cell phone messages, security video and inmate grievances — that could shed light on what jail conditions truly are and how seriously state officials take those conditions.
“We’ve since learned that staff at the jail weren’t doing the things they needed to do,” said Brian Abraham, Justice’s chief of staff.
“The governor has instructed me to now conduct another internal investigation regarding any other potential employees that might be implicated in this. We’ve done that already, already initiated that. As the governor has indicated, there’s been two high-level individuals that have lost their employment as a result of this. There may be others coming. There may be some that already left employment with the department.”
The lawsuit filed in September 2022 is a class action against Southern Regional Jail, the West Virginia Division of Corrections and every county commission that pays Southern Regional to house inmates.
A filing by U.S. District Judge Frank Volk this week alludes to a possible resolution to be discussed at a 12:30 p.m. Thursday status hearing in Beckley.
The class action lawsuit alleges a range of inhumane conditions at Southern Regional Jail including overcrowded spaces, crumbling plumbing, inmates sleeping on mats soaked with water from leaks, some being forced to sleep on concrete floors, poor air quality because of black mold and food that is spoiled or spread
The conditions — particularly the crowding — results in heightened risk of violence or sexual assault, the lawsuit contends. And the lawsuit alleges inmates are beaten regularly for attempting to file a grievance, for talking back, for refusing orders or for voicing complaints.
A state Homeland Security investigation that concluded earlier this year that allegations of water deprivation, failure to provide toilet paper, and inmates having to sleep on hard floors without a mattress are false.
“Without question,” Justice said today, “these folks have rights and they absolutely deserve to have their rights in every way. Now they’ve probably done some tough stuff and they probably made some real mistakes. But that doesn’t mean that you absolutely need to live in any kind of inhumane situation at all.
“What I have done is I have continued to say ‘hold on here; hold on’ to the families when they come and they complain about something and they say something’s bad, we go look. Now from my standpoint, I can’t go look at every single thing. But as we go look and they’re reported back that things are OK and they’re not OK, that doesn’t work with me.
He continued, “So I kept sending them. I kept sending them. That’s exactly what I did. I kept saying, ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s got to be some fire. And absolutely, this doesn’t feel right.’ And I really believe that these folks that I’ve talked to, the families, absolutely I was convinced that we needed to keep looking. And what we found wasn’t very pretty.”