An attorney for an inmate in the Western Regional Jail filed a lawsuit this week asking a judge to require the West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority to turn over photos and videos involving an alleged incident with his client.
Charleston attorney Paul Stroebel said the jail authority's reasoning isn't sufficient to withhold some of the information he requested in a Freedom of Information Act request on July 15.
According to a lawsuit filed in Kanawha Circuit Court on Thursday, Stroebel filed a FOIA request asking for copies of any and all records from Shane R. Marcum's stay at the Western Regional Jail. Specifically, the lawsuit states, copies of videotapes of an incident involving Marcum and correctional officers, as well as "the video of Marcum having flash bang grenades or other types of grenades thrown into his holding cell."
Stroebel represents Marcum and another inmate in lawsuits against the regional jail authority and members of its "special-response team." Those lawsuits allege the team is subjecting prisoners to cruel and unusual punishment.
Marcum alleges he received severe burns earlier this year at the Western Regional Jail. He claims he was on the floor of his cell after getting into an altercation with two correctional officers when members of the special-response team threw a "flash bang grenade and a stinger grenade" inside.
Michael Harshaw Jr. alleges he was shot with a projectile inside his cell at Southern Regional Jail after members of the response team claimed they could not see his hands.
Harshaw pleaded guilty in federal court in Beckley in 2013 to distributing oxycodone; Marcum is one of three defendants indicted in connection to a slaying last year in Wayne County.
In a response to his FOIA request, state Assistant Attorney General Cynthia Gardner and Charleston attorney Bill Murray wrote that the Regional Jail Authority is exempt from disclosing the video and Marcum's personnel file. They could not be immediately reached late Friday.
Stroebel argues that the Regional Jail Authority still wouldn't hand over any photos of Marcum's burns after Stroebel provided a release from Marcum to obtain his personnel and medical files.
The lawsuit also states that the video Stroebel requested doesn't relate to the design of the jail or contain other information that could be used by an inmate to escape and therefore, he should be provided copies.
"The Respondent's refusal to provide this information is willful, wanton and malicious, and with absolute disregard of the rights of the petitioner herein, and the respondent's actions are imposed merely for the purpose of harassing the Petitioner, causing unnecessary expense and aggravation, and hiding its inappropriate conduct," Stroebel wrote in the lawsuit.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.