Three corrections officers allegedly “piled on” an inmate at Hawaii Community Correctional Center as a fourth officer directed the blows, kicking and punching him around the head and body, and pinning him facedown, lying in a pool of blood.

One of the alleged attackers in the 2015 incident testified against the others in federal court last week, as they face charges of depriving the inmate of the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and conspiring to obstruct justice. That type of violence should never occur or be tolerated in a Hawaii jail or prison.

It shouldn’t take seven years to bring such cases to trial, either.