More prison woes.(Whispers)

The Arkansas Department of Correction is facing more bad news. A trial is scheduled to start today

in U.S. District Court in Little Rock involving a former inmate. Jason Palton charges that several prison employees failed to protect him from a rape by a prison guard. Palton, who had been in the Varner Supermax Unit in 2005 on a robbery conviction, also said in his lawsuit that the defendants, Steven Jackson, Thomas Hurst and Greg Moore, sexually harassed him and inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on him. The prison guard who had the sexual encounter with Palton, Antonio Remley, is also a defendant. Remley pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual assault in 2007 in connection with having a sexual encounter with Palton. Remley maintains in his court filings that contact was consensual.

The Arkansas Attorney General's Office is defending the prison employees and denied the allegations in its court documents.

The attorney representing Palton, Patrick lames of James & House P.A. of Little Rock, declined to comment.

Courtroom observers say inmates flood the courthouse with lawsuits against prison officials all the time and they are usually dismissed. So this one is rare because it will actually make it to a jury.

The trial will add to the steady stream of bad news about the prison system, including the escape of two murderers.

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