AELE LAW LIBRARY OF CASE SUMMARIES:
Corrections Law for
Jails, Prisons and Detention Facilities
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Computers, E-Mail, Internet Issues
Monthly
Law Journal Articles: Prisoners, Parolees, Sex
Offenders, Computers, and the Internet - Part 1, 2015 (5) AELE Mo. L.
J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Articles: Prisoners, Parolees, Sex
Offenders, Computers, and the Internet - Part 2, 2015 (6) AELE Mo. L.
J. 301.
A juvenile defendant involved in a fight appealed an order declaring him a ward of the juvenile court and placing him on probation after the trial court sustained a petition for battery with serious bodily injury. An intermediate California state appeals court upheld a probation condition prohibiting the defendant from discussing his case on social media, ruling that the condition was neither overbroad nor in violation of the defendant’s First Amendment rights. In this case, the defendant posted on social media “bragging” about being a 16-year-old felon. The appeals court held that the juvenile court had broad discretion in imposing probation conditions and that the restriction on social media postings was precise, narrow, and reasonably tailored to address the defendant’s posting conduct and rehabilitation. In re A.A., #B289821, 30 Cal. App. 5th 596, 2018 Cal. App. Lexis 1186, 2018 WL 6695839.
A man convicted of rape and
diagnosed with paraphilia (sexual attraction to non-consenting women) was
civilly committed to a treatment center as a Sexually Violent Person. He sued
the facility's officials and clinical staff for violation of his First
Amendment constitutional rights in restricting their access to movies and video
games. The facility barred them from watching all R-rated movies or play
M(mature)-rated video games displaying intense violence, blood and gore, sexual
content, or "strong language." Subsequently, the policy was altered
to only prohibit 353 specified movies and 232 specific games. When the facility
later discovered that at least two residents had used a video game console to
access the Internet for the purpose of viewing prohibited content, all such consoles
capable of accessing the Internet were also prohibited. A federal appeals court
ruled that the record was insufficient to show that the ban on movies and video
games was reasonably related to the state's interest in rehabilitation and
security. The court also found that a bare assertion that the ban on all sexual
material promoted treatment was insufficient to support granting summary
judgment for the defendants on the First Amendment claim. The court did agree,
however, that the ban on video game consoles capable of accessing the Internet
was rationally related to the facility's interest in security. Brown v.
Phillips, #14-3325, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 16346 (7th Cir.).
An Indiana state
statute that broadly prohibited most registered sex offenders from using
instant messaging services, social media sites and chat programs violated their
First Amendment rights. While the state justifiably wished to protect children
from inappropriate sexual communication, and the law was content neutral, the
law placed a burden on more speech than was necessary to achieve that purpose.
The court found that a sex offender's use of social media was not dangerous as
long as they did not engage in improper communication with minors. Such
communication was a tiny subset of the "universe of social media."
The state could have, without substantial diffioculty, more precisely targeted
the evil it wanted to prevent. Doe v. Prosecutor, Marion County, #12-2512, 2013
U.S. App. Lexis 1528 (7th Cir.).
A federal trial court has struck down a Nebraska
state law barring registered sex offenders from using the Internet for most
purposes, including social media. The court said that by severely limiting
"even benign" uses of the Internet, the law raised First Amendment,
due process, Fourth Amendment and ex post facto issues. The law, the judge
found, did not leave open ample alternative channels for communication of
information. A portion of the statute that applied to those registered as sex
offenders but who were not on probation, parole, or court monitored supervision
violated the Fourth Amendment. The court said the law wrongly bars offenders
"from using an enormous portion of the Internet to engage inexpressive
activity." and "potentially restricts the targeted offenders from
communicating with hundreds of millions and perhaps billions of adults and
their companies despite the fact that the communication has nothing whatsoever
to do with minors." Further, the law "is not narrowly tailored to
target those offenders who pose a factually based risk to children through the
use or threatened use of the banned sites or services. The risk posited by the
statute is far too speculative when judged against the First Amendment."
Doe v. State of Nebraska, #8:09CV456, 2012 U.S. Dist. Lexis 148770 (D. Neb).
California prison ban on mail containing
printed-out downloads from the Internet violated the First Amendment. Clement
v. California Department of Corrections, #03-15006, 2004 U.S. App. Lexis 7576
(9th Cir.). [2004 JB Jun]
Federal court strikes down as unconstitutional
Arizona statute prohibiting prisoners from communicating with Internet websites
through the mails or otherwise or receiving mail from them. Court finds that
prohibition is not reasonably related to a legitimate penological purpose and
that other statutes and policies already prohibit communication involving
fraud, harassment of victims, communication with minors, and other purported
purposes of the ban on communication with Internet service providers. Canadian
Coalition Against the Death Penalty v. Ryan, 269 F. Supp. 2d 1199 (D. Ariz.
2003). [2003 JB Nov]
293:67 California prison rule prohibiting
the receipt, through U.S. mail, of Internet generated material, including
e-mail, was rationally related to prison's legitimate security concerns;
appeals court overturns order allowing prisoner to receive printouts of e-mails
sent to his internet web page, created via an arrangement with an outside
company. Collins, In Re, 86 Cal. App. 4th 1176, 104 Cal. Rptr. 2d 108 (2001).
267:35 West Virginia Supreme Court upholds state
policy barring prison inmates from possessing computers in their cells; prior
practice allowing such possession did not create any vested right to continue
to possess them, and deprivation of computer possession did not result in
denial of meaningful access to the courts. West Virginia, State of, Ex Rel.
Anstey v. Davis, 509 S.E.2d 579 (W. Va. 1998).
231:35 Federal appeals court rules that
inmate/prison law librarian, allowed computer in his cell by prison officials,
had a right to aid mentally retarded inmate in preparing legal documents;
prison employees not entitled to qualified immunity for seizing legal documents
from law librarian's cell and disciplining him for possessing them. Newell v.
Sauser, 64 F.3d 1416 (9th Cir. 1995).
218:23 Federal trial judge, hoping to make the
"message" clear to prisoner who filed multiple frivolous lawsuits,
confiscates any computer, word processor or typewriter prisoner has, imposes
$5,000 monetary sanction (to be collected by attachment of prisoner's
commissary funds and future prison earnings), and orders that prisoner state,
on the outside of each envelope of outgoing mail, that he has been
"enjoined from asserting fraudulent personal injury claims." Williams
v. Revlon Co., 156 F.R.D. 39 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).
Prisoner's rights were not violated by prison's
confiscation of unauthorized computer disks on which he had placed legal
materials pertaining to his appeal; prisoner was not allowed to possess the
disks or use prison computers, so prison authorities properly confiscated the
disks. Bryant v. Muth, 994 F.2d 1082 (4th Cir. 1993).
Warden's decision to deprive prisoner of his
television set and personal computer because of refusal to sign an
"individual performance plan" agreeing to keep himself and cell clean
did not violate prisoner's rights. Jensen v. Powers, 472 N.W.2d 223 (N.D.
1991).
Michigan prisoners had a protected property
interest in possessing computers in their cells, but were not entitled to a
hearing on denial of that interest. Spruyette v. Dept. of Corrections, 459
N.W.2d 52 (Mich. App. 1990).