AKRON — A federal judge ordered state officials to draft new rules within one month on sending inmates to its super-maximum security prison.

        U.S. District Judge James Gwin said prison authorities must give adequate notice, hearings and appeal opportunities to inmates to be sent to the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown.

        The judge on Tuesday gave state officials 30 days to revise the rules.

        The judge said the state must get court permission to send inmates to the prison pending approval of new inmate classification rules.

        The ruling expanded on a Feb. 25 decision by the judge in favor of inmates who challenged the way supermax prisoners are selected.

        Greg Trout, general counsel for the state prison system, said the state would appeal its right to decide which prisoners are sent to and kept at the supermax prison.

        Mr. Trout said the state tries to notify prisons of pending transfers and believes the Youngstown facility makes other prisons safer by sending the toughest prisoners to the supermax.

        The judge's ruling stemmed from an American Civil Liberties Union suit filed last year that accused prison officials of failing to provide adequate medical, mental and humane treatment for Ohio's most restricted prisoners.

Officer Roach off Evendale's streets
Chronology of Evendale's hiring of Stephen Roach
Attack casts pall on seder
Changes for police outlined in draft
Differences in Justice, Cincinnati police drafts
Courts act after fatal domestic stabbing
Newport's attraction afloat three years
Vigil to press suit on racial profiling
Dorothy DeLay is survived by legacy
Good Friday takes new tone
Greenhills mom relieved son is home
Luken vetoes housing study
New zoning code would reflect city's changes
Officials studying files on priests
Preschoolers explore artwork
Tristate A.M. Report
HOWARD: Some Good News
PULFER: Sex abuse
RADEL: Readers respond
Chief's past case news to council
Lakota response to criticism quiet
Mason won't add lanes to U.S. 42
Sexual predator faces new charge
Suspect describes girl's fatal beating
Man guilty in death of trooper
Ohio ordered to revise inmate-transfer rules
Ravens told to pay up
Rehab center found 'out of control'
A tale of two cities likely to stay that way
Judge Bunning takes bench
Ky. offers tax-free tuition plan
Ragland guilty of killing UK player
Senate vote on cloning reverses
Wal-Mart store debated among local residents