Prison Murder was predictable family says

12-28-2006 Nevada:

LAS VEGAS (CN) - Nevada prison officials put a Native American-Latino inmate in the same cell as a white supremacist, who stabbed him to death, the late man's family claims in Clark County Court.

Anthony Beltran, 33, died of chest wounds inflicted by his cellmate, Douglas Potter, on Dec. 28, 2006, according to the Oct. 30 lawsuit from his three minor children and their guardian.

Beltran's family claims that prison officials improperly classified Beltran as a "white supremacist" himself, despite his racial heritage. Potter killed him eight days after he was placed in the cell; he had demanded a single-prisoner cell and said he would main or kill anyone placed as his cellmate, according to the complaint.

Around 8:10 a.m. that day, a prison guard handcuffed Beltran to the cell door and waited outside while Potter stabbed Beltran several times with a shiv, his family says in the lawsuit. Beltran was pronounced dead at 8:48 a.m.

Michael DeWayne Walker: Lawsuit Over Child Rapist's Prison Death Allowed to Continue

See original record HERE

9-12-2011 Texas:

Michael DeWayne Walker was serving a 21-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a child when he was put in a cell with Wilbert "Peanut" Hamilton in 2006.

Hamilton beat him to death, and Walker's parents have sued on the grounds that guards and prison officials knew Hamilton was a violent psychotic and that he was allowed to have steel-toed boots in his cell.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees have sought to have the suit dismissed on grounds of immunity, but federal judge Kenneth Hoyt has ruled the parents' claims can be heard.

There's a factual dispute over how long the beating went on -- Walker's parents say it lasted five hours, and guards should absolutely have been able to hear it, while the defendants in the suit say it was only a few minutes.

The guards also say there was no formal policy made clear to them that child-sex offenders should be kept isolated from the general prison population for their safety, or that the steel-toed boots had to be left in the prison work area and not taken into the cell.