By Kate White
The Charleston Gazette-Mail
HUTTONSVILLE, W.Va. — A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of an inmate who claims officials at a prison in West Virginia forced him to have a procedure to remove his penile implants.
The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent a lawsuit filed by Adrian King back to U.S. District Judge Gina Groh, in Martinsburg, to review. Groh had dismissed the case at the request of jail officials, but the appeals court wrote that King should have the chance to prove that his constitutional rights have been violated.
King sued several corrections officers, medical personnel and prison administrators for alleged violations of his constitutional rights after he underwent surgery to remove marbles from his penis while incarcerated at Huttonsville Correctional Complex.
King claims prison administrators threatened to segregate him from other prisoners and take away his chance for parole if he didn’t consent to have the surgery to remove two marbles, according to the ruling published Tuesday with the court in Richmond.
Prior to being incarcerated, King had marbles implanted in and tattoos drawn on his penis in 2008, the filing states. King and his then-fiance, who has since died, decided to have the implants done during the “body modification” craze, thinking it would heighten their sexual experience.
King went to jail in March 2012. In January 2013, he was called to report to the medical unit at the jail after an inmate reported seeing King and another inmate implanting marbles into their penises, the judges wrote. A nurse confirmed, though, that King’s marbles hadn’t been implanted recently and that there wasn’t any sign of infection.
Still, King was placed in segregation, according to the filing. An officer told him the marbles weren’t described in his personnel file. King said he informed officials while being processed at the jail.
A doctor at Ruby Memorial Hospital examined the implants and determined there wasn’t any medical need to remove them, but that jail officials still threatened to punish him if they weren’t removed, according to the filing.
“King gave in on June 19, 2013 and let them remove the marbles at Ruby Memorial,” the judges write. “The surgery was done ‘practically against [his] will.’”
As a result of the surgery, King’s lawsuit claims he experiences tingling and numbness in his penis; pain in the area where the marbles were removed and pain when it rains, snows or gets cold, among other symptoms.
King’s lawsuit alleges that he’s now unable to urinate in front of the other inmates in his cell and is ridiculed by staff and other prisoners.
Staff refer to him as “Marble Man” and when they search him, “they ask where his marbles are,” the appeals court filing states.
Copyright 2016 The Charleston Gazette