The Southern Center for Human Rights won
the largest amount of money ever paid by the Georgia Department of
Corrections in an inmate lawsuit in winning compensation for prisoners
beaten and abused during "shakedowns" at several Georgia prisons
in July 1996.
United States District Judge Harold Murphy approved resolution of the case of Anderson
v. Garner on April 23, 1998. The terms approved by the judge provide for $283,500 in
damages and fees, protection of employees whose testimony supported the inmates, and class
relief in the form of ongoing monitoring by the Center of any future institutional
shakedowns.
The suit was filed by Center's lawyers against Georgia's Commissioner
of Corrections, Wayne Garner, and other high-ranking officials of the
Department of Corrections, who led members of the Department's tactical
squad on raids though the prisons in which unresisting and often
restrained inmates were beaten and abused. Garner, a mortician, had no
experience in corrections before being appointed to the job by Georgia
Governor Zell Miller.
In depositions taken by the Center's attorneys during the suit, twenty employees of the
Department of Corrections testified that they witnessed some kind of excessive force
during the raids.