AELE LAW LIBRARY OF CASE SUMMARIES:
Corrections Law for
Jails, Prisons and Detention Facilities
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Monthly
Law Journal Article: Prisoner Mail Legal
Issues, 2007 (6) AELE Mo. L.J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Article: Prisoners
and Sexually Explicit Materials, 2010 (2)
AELE Mo. L. J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Article: Prisoners and Foreign
Language Mail, 2016 (12) AELE Mo. L. J. 301.
Monthly Law Journal Article: Constitutionality of Postcard-Only Policy for Incoming Prisoner Mail, 2018 (2) AELE Mo. L. J. 301.
A prisoner sued, claiming
that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) violated its own policies and
procedures in three ways: (1) failing to deliver his magazine subscriptions
while he was confined in special housing units (SHUs), (2) depriving him of
outside exercise while he was confined in SHUs, and (3) depriving him of
meaningful access to the administrative remedy procedures. In this case, the
trial court dismissed the pleadings on the basis that the plaintiff’s transfer
from the SHU rendered inapplicable the capable of repetition, yet evading
review exception as a matter of law. A federal appeals court overturned the
dismissal on mootness grounds, however, because the allegations in the
complaint logically fell within a mootness exception for claims capable of
repetition yet evading review. The court held that there was no logical flaw in
the theory of why the mootness exception could apply. The plaintiff adequately
alleged that the challenged action was too fleeting to be fully litigated, and
there was no logical deficiency in his allegation that he reasonably expects to
be subjected to the same challenged deprivations in the future. Reid v. Inch, #17-5012, 2019 U.S. App. Lexis 3523, 2019 WL 436904 (D.C. Cir.)
A correspondent sent at least ten books, plus magazines and newspapers to a man serving a 300-day sentence in a county jail. More than 30 books were seized from the prisoner’s cell. Both the correspondent and the prisoner sued, claiming that limiting prisoners to three pieces of reading material violated the First Amendment. After the trial court rejected this claim, a federal appeals court upheld this result as to the correspondent, finding that she lacked standing as the prisoner received everything that she sent. But it vacated as to the claims of the prisoner, noting that he challenged the policy, rather than the particular seizure, and that the policy provides for no pre-deprivation process. Lyons v. Dart, #17-3170, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 23861 (7th Cir.).
It was inappropriate to decide that a state prison’s anti-pornography policy was facially unconstitutional before deciding whether the policy was unconstitutional as applied to a prisoner. Determining the as-applied challenge first would reflect the deference owed to corrections officials and could allow for the fashioning of more limited relief. The trial court’s as-applied analysis was erroneous because it improperly evaluated the prisoner’s claims under the prison’s former pornography policy, which had been superseded by the policy the prisoner challenged. The differences between the policies were significant, and application of the former policy required guessing what the prison would or would not have censored. Acting under the 2014 policy, prison staff rejected a number of items that were mailed to the plaintiff. The prohibited materials included two erotic novels, Thrones of Desire and Pride and Prejudice: The Wild and Wanton Edition, as well as four Japanese manga comics from a series called Pretty Face, nine images of Renaissance artworks depicting nudity, a book on Matisse and Picasso, and a poster featuring an iconic Coppertone suntan-girl advertisement. Because the injunction granted against the 2014 policy was based on the superseded 2000 policy, the ruling below was vacated for further proceedings. Sisney v. Kaemingk, #16-4313, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 8059 (8th Cir.).
An Idaho prisoner filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming that prison
employees on four occasions had opened legal mail before it was delivered to
him rather than opening it in his presence. He asserted that there was a policy
or custom of ignoring the improper handling of legal mail. The trial court dismissed the complaint at the
pre-screening stage under 28 U.S.C. 1915A. A federal appeals court found that
two of the four claims should not have been dismissed. Prisoners do have a
protected First Amendment interest in having properly marked legal mail opened
only in their presence and a plaintiff need not allege a longstanding practice
of violating his First Amendment rights in order to state a claim for relief on
a direct liability theory. Additionally, a plaintiff need not show any actual
injury beyond the free speech violation itself to state a constitutional claim.
The other two claims were properly dismissed, as the prisoner had not met the
burden of showing that those items were legal mail. Mail from the United States
courts, as opposed to from an attorney, is not legal mail that must be opened
in the prisoner’s presence. Hayes v. Idaho Correctional Center, #14-35078,
2017 U.S.App. Lexis 3851 (9th Cir.).
A
prisoner serving a 65-year sentence for murder placed an order for the death
certificate of the woman he killed. The death certificate arrived in the mail
from the county clerk's office, along with an unsigned note that stated
"There is a place in hell waiting for you, as you must know you will reap
what you have sowed!" Prison staff members confiscated the certificate as
posing a threat to prison safety and security and for having a negative impact
on the prisoner's rehabilitation. A federal trial court upheld this action,
finding that it would decrease the risk that other prisoners would retaliate
against "boasting inmates" such as the plaintiff, and would protect
the victim's family from being identified. A federal appeals court reversed,
except for claims against a staff member not involved in the confiscation. It
ruled that prisoners have a clearly established right to read the mail they
receive so long as it would not infringe on legitimate interests. The prison
needed to show "some evidence" justifying the restriction. While the
prison had a legitimate safety interest in preventing boasting inmates displaying
"trophies," the prisoner claimed that he had a need for the death
certificate in connection with state court post-conviction proceedings, and the
defendants presented no evidence to dispute it. Williams v. Hansen, #15-2236,
2016 U.S. App. Lexis 17183 (7th Cir.).
An inmate claimed that
officials violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by improperly
censoring and confiscating his mail. The trial court failed to issue a ruling
as to whether an official was entitled to qualified immunity. When a defendant
official properly and timely files a motion for dismissal or for summary
judgment asserting qualified immunity as a defense, they are entitled to a
reviewable order either granting or denying qualified immunity before being
required to progress further in the litigation. The trial court was ordered to
issue such a ruling. Payne v. Britten, #12-3872, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 7055 (8th
Cir.).
A federal district court judge ruled that a
county jail that adopted a rule that restricted incoming and outgoing personal
inmate mail to only postcards was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
The court ruled that it violated the rights of the inmates themselves,
individuals who write to them, and the publishers of the Prison Legal News
publication. The interest in keeping contraband out of the facility and
reducing costs in screening mail did not outweigh the free speech rights
involved. Prison Legal News v. Columbia County, #3:12-cv-00071, 2013 U.S. Dist.
Lexis 58669 (D. Ore.).
U.S. Supreme Court overturns an appeals court
decision that a prison policy forbidding certain very dangerous and
"recalcitrant" prisoners access to newspapers, magazines, and
photographs violated the First Amendment as a matter of law. Policy was
justified by prison officials' legitimate interest in providing such prisoners
with incentives for improvement of their behavior. Beard v. Banks, #04-1739
2006 U.S. Lexis 5176. [2006 JB Aug]
Court held that
prison regulations prohibiting inmate to inmate correspondence rule was reasonably
related to legitimate security concerns but that regulations prohibiting inmate
marriages unless warden determines that there were compelling reasons for the
marriage, was not reasonably related to any legitimate penological objective.
Turner v. Safley, 107 S.Ct. 2254 (1987). The court set forth a four point test
to determine "reasonableness". See 107 S.Ct. at 2262.
Restrictions on
mail privileges were unconstitutional; restrictions on law students and
paralegals as inmate legal counsel also were improper. Procunier v. Martinez,
416 U.S. 396, 94 S.Ct. 1800 (1974).
» For earlier
case discussions see: Guarjardo v. Estelle, 580 F.2d 748 (5th Cir. 1978); Ford
v. Schmidt, 577 F.2d 408 (7th Cir. 1978); Zaczek v. Hutto, 448 F.Supp. 155
(W.D. Va. 1978); Smith v. Shimp, 562 F.2d 423 (7th Cir. 1977); Cofone v.
Manson, 409 F.Supp. 1033 (D. Conn. 1976); Morgan v. LaVallee, 526 F.2d 221 (2d
Cir. 1975); Tate v. Kassulke, 409 F.Supp. 651 (W.D. Ky. 1975); Berch v. Stahl,
373 F.Supp. 412 (W.D. N.Car. 1974); Barlow v. Amuss, 477 F.2d 896 (5th Cir.
1973); Wilkinson v. Skinner, 462 F.2d 670 (2d Cir. 1972); Goodwin v. Oswald,
462 F.2d 1237 (2d Cir. 1972); Sostre v. McGinnis, 442 F.2d 178 (2d Cir. 1971);
Gates v. Collier, 349 F.Supp. 881 (N.D. Miss. 1972).
Nonlegal:
Incoming
A prisoner sued, claiming that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) violated its own policies and procedures in three ways: (1) failing to deliver his magazine subscriptions while he was confined in special housing units (SHUs), (2) depriving him of outside exercise while he was confined in SHUs, and (3) depriving him of meaningful access to the administrative remedy procedures. In this case, the trial court dismissed the pleadings on the basis that the plaintiff’s transfer from the SHU rendered inapplicable the capable of repetition, yet evading review exception as a matter of law. A federal appeals court overturned the dismissal on mootness grounds, however, because the allegations in the complaint logically fell within a mootness exception for claims capable of repetition yet evading review. The court held that there was no logical flaw in the theory of why the mootness exception could apply. The plaintiff adequately alleged that the challenged action was too fleeting to be fully litigated, and there was no logical deficiency in his allegation that he reasonably expects to be subjected to the same challenged deprivations in the future. Reid v. Inch, #17-5012, 2019 U.S. App. Lexis 3523, 2019 WL 436904 (D.C. Cir.)
A woman claimed that a county jail’s new mail policy that permitted only postcards for incoming non-privileged mail violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by impermissibly restricting her ability to communicate with her son who was then an inmate there. A federal appeals court upheld the trial court’s exclusion from evidence of incoming-mail policies from other institutions that permitted inmates to receive multi-page letters, holding that the exclusion of the other institutions’ mail policies was harmless error and the postcard-only incoming-mail policy was constitutional. The court ruled that the postcard-only policy was rationally related to the legitimate penological interests of an efficiently run and secure institution. Additionally, alternative means of communications were available such as collect calls, and visits, and the policy did not limit the number of cards that could be sent. The court explained that accommodating the plaintiff would result in a significant reallocation of resources and would interfere with the jail’s ability to maintain security and efficiency. Simpson v. County of Cape Girardeau, #17-3782, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 13 (8th Cir.).
A lawsuit challenged a county jail’s policy of prohibiting the delivery of unsolicited commercial mail to inmates. The plaintiff publisher of a magazine aimed at inmates claimed that this violated the First Amendment. A federal appeals court evaluated the mail policy under the test established for reviewing constitutional challenges to prison regulations in Turner v. Safley, #85-1384, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), and found that the ban was rationally connected to a legitimate government interest. Electronic kiosks were an adequate alternative, and distributing the physical magazine itself would have a significant impact on the allocation of jail resources, and the jail’s mail policy was not an exaggerated response to those problems. Crime, Justice & America, Inc. v. Honea, #15-16119, 2017 U.S. App. Lexis 24167 (9th Cir.).
A federal district court judge ruled
that a county jail that adopted a rule that restricted incoming and outgoing
personal inmate mail to only postcards was unconstitutional under the First
Amendment. The court ruled that it violated the rights of the inmates
themselves, individuals who write to them, and the publishers of the Prison
Legal News publication. The interest in keeping contraband out of the facility
and reducing costs in screening mail did not outweigh the free speech rights
involved. Prison Legal News v. Columbia County, #3:12-cv-00071, 2013 U.S. Dist.
Lexis 58669 (D. Ore.).
Prisoners convicted of sex crimes were kept
incarcerated long after their sentences ended, remaining in state custody as
sexually violent civil detainees. They claimed that their civil rights were
violated because they were denied the ability to have face to face social
opportunities with civil detainees in other pods of their facility and because
they were not allowed to contact other civilly committed detainees using the
facility's own internal mail system, instead being required to use the U.S.
mail for that purpose. The limits on direct socialization were justified as a
security measure. Due process did not require input from health professionals
before restrictions were put on the in-person association opportunities of the
detainees. There was no violation of First Amendment rights in requiring the
plaintiffs to use the U.S. mail rather than the facility's internal mail system
to communicate with other civil detainees. Lane v. Williams, #11-3373, 2012
U.S. App. Lexis 17922 (7th Cir.).
A prisoner convicted of terrorism-related crimes
involving the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kenya was subjected to
special administrative measures forbidding him from receiving two Arabic
language newspapers he had previously received and prohibiting him from
corresponding with his nieces and nephews. A federal appeals court rejected a
claim that these measures violated his First Amendment rights. The government's
interestin restricting his rights was reasonably related to legitimate
penological interests, and the prisoner had the burden of showing that there
was no legitimate, rational basis for the increased communication restrictions.
Given the belief that the prisoner had a "proclivity for violence"
based on his conviction for acts of terrorism, the warden expressed the concern
that “communications or contacts with persons could result in death or serious
bodily injury to persons.” This was a rational basis for the restrictions. The
restriction on the Arabic newspaper was similarly upheld as justified by the
need to prevent him from receiving information and instructions in a manner
difficult to detect. Al-Owhali v. Holder, #11-1274, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 16401
(10th Cir.).
A man who completed his sentence for multiple
sexual crimes against children was then civilly committed. The staff at the
psychiatric facility to which he was sent seized CDs and DVDs numbering in the
hundreds from him, and he claimed that they took too long before returning them
after screening them for possible sexually explicit material, in violation of
his First and Fourth Amendment rights. Staff members were entitled to qualified
immunity from liability, since it was objectively reasonable to believe that
their actions were legal. The interest of the state in security, order and
treatment of the plaintiff outweighed any property interest the plaintiff had
in quickly getting back his things or receiving a detailed explanation at the
time of the seizure. The court also rejected the plaintiff's claim that some of
his incoming non-legal mail was withheld. He had not shown that it was withheld
without justification, and there was a strong interest in preventing him from
obtaining inappropriate images which outweighed his weak interest in
immediately receiving commercial mail seized for screening. Ahlers v.
Rabinowitz, #10-1193, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 7035 (2nd Cir.).
A prison did not violate the First Amendment,
Eighth Amendment, or Fourteenth Amendment rights of a prisoner suffering from
chronic medical conditions by refusing to permit him to possess copies of the
books "Physician's Desk Reference," and "the Complete Guide to
Drugs." While the prisoner argued that he should be allowed to have these
books to learn about possible side effects to medications he was prescribed for
his medical problems, it was reasonable to limit prisoner access to books about
drugs. Munson v. Gaetz, # 11–1532, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 4960 (7th Cir.).
Wisconsin prison officials did not violate the First
Amendment in preventing inmates from receiving copies of "The New
Abolitionist," (subsequently renamed Wisconsin Prison Watch), a prison
reform newsletter mailed to them, since the record showed that they could
properly conclude that it contained "misleading information, encourages
distrust of prison staff, and could potentially undermine the prison's
rehabilitative initiatives." The plaintiffs failed to show that
classifying the publication as harmful was unreasonable. Van Den Bosch v.
Raemisch, #09-4112, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 19031 (7th Cir.).
Prison personnel might be liable to a prisoner
for violating his First Amendment rights by prohibiting him from receiving mail
containing a comic book deemed too violent in its depicted story. While
material that might incite violence may be screened out, the prisoner asserted
that the comic book in question did no such thing. He noted that the comic book
depicted stories that Japanese children watch on television, and argued that
the prison allows other publications depicting violence, including wrestling,
boxing, karate, and gun magazines. Kaden v. Slykhuis, #10-2751, 2011 U.S. App.
Lexis 17747 (8th Cir.).
A prison's prohibition on inmates advertising for
pen pals or receiving information from publications and websites that publish
such ads did not violate their rights under the First Amendment. The regulation
was reasonably related to a legitimate objective of preventing inmates from
committing fraud through the mail. Woods v. Commissioner of the Indiana Dept.
of Corrections, #10-3339, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 14732 (7th Cir.).
Upholding a jury's rejection of a prisoner's lawsuit
banning his receipt of certain gift publications, a federal appeals court ruled
that there was evidence from which the jury could find that that the private
prison's policy was necessary to promote security and administrative interests.
The jury was properly instructed that prisoners have a First Amendment right to
receive mail and gift publications, but that a policy barring receipt of some
such publications could be legal if reasonably related to legitimate
penological or correctional goals. Blaisdell v. Corr. Corp. of Am., #09-17795,
2011 U.S. App. Lexis 7600 (Unpub. 9th Cir.).
A Wyoming prisoner, as chairman of the Wyoming
Prisoners' Association and an official of the Wyoming chapter of the Citizens
United for Rehabilitation, published a combined newsletter for these
organizations, reporting on legal issues of interest to prisoners. He shipped
693 copies of the newsletter together in one box addressed to the Wyoming State
Penitentiary. Inside the box, each newsletter was addressed to an individual
prisoner. The warden refused to deliver the newsletters to prisoners, while he
would deliver newsletters which were individually addressed and sent. A
federal appeals court upheld as constitutional the rule in question, which
prohibited all bulk mailings, regardless of content. The policy was reasonably
related to prison security, and unsolicited bulk mailings could increase
tensions and result in disruptive behavior. The policy did not violate the
plaintiff's First Amendment rights. Parkhurst v. Lampert, #10-8078, 2011 U.S.
App. Lexis 6567 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
A prisoner classified as a sex offender was
denied a number of issues of subscription music publications such as Rolling
Stone, Maxim, Blender, and Spin, based on the presence of photos of females
thought to be sexually oriented, in violation of restrictions on the types of
materials he could receive. He failed to show how such restrictions violated
his First Amendment rights, and the defendants were entitled to qualified
immunity. The prisoner was allowed numerous issues of such publications, and
only those containing materials believed to be adverse to his rehabilitation as
a sex offender were withheld. Frazier v. Ortiz, #10-1133, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis
6381 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
The publisher of "Crime, Justice &
America," which addresses criminal justice topics of interest to inmates,
challenged mail policies at two California county jails, under which officials
refused to distribute to prisoners unsolicited copies of the publication sent
through the mail. Reversing summary judgment for the defendants, a federal
appeals court found that there were unresolved material questions of fact as to
whether the distribution of the mailed materials would have required the
defendants to expend "significant" additional resources. Hrdlicka v.
Reniff, #09-15768, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 1914 (9th Cir.).
A Louisiana prisoner claimed that his right to
religious freedom had been violated by withholding from him a publication sent
to him by the religious organization "Yahweh Ben Yahweh" Prison
officials determined the publication to be detrimental to security and racist.
Rejecting the prisoner's claim, the court found that regulations that bar
publications that advocate racial, religious, or nation hatred, creating a
serious risk of violence, are valid. The appeals court examined the material at
issue, and agreed with prison authorities that it was racially inflammatory.
Toliver v. Travis, #2010 CA 0279, 2010 La. App. Lexis 1239 (Unpub. 1st Cir.).
A Wisconsin inmate claimed that his First
Amendment rights were violated by a prison policy denying prisoners access to
commercially produced photos, and limiting to 50 the number of photos inmates
may possess, as well as by prison officials' actions in not delivering to him a
number of photos that he claimed were not within the definition of prohibited
pornography, although they were "risque." A Wisconsin appeals court
found that defendant officials were entitled to qualified immunity, as the
prisoner had no clearly established constitutional right to receive
commercially sold photos, or to possess in excess of 50 photos. The prison had
a legitimate interest in conserving staff resources that would be needed to
screen such photos, and there were alternate ways of prisoners seeing such
things as celebrity photos, such as in magazine subscriptions. Examining the
particular photos withheld, the court also concluded that the majority were
properly withheld under rules prohibiting material that is pornographic or
features nudity. Four photos, however, were improperly withheld under the
pornography ban, prior to the ban on commercial photos being adopted, as they
were found to be mere "swimsuit" pictures in which the swimsuits
fully covered each model's pubic area, and areola. But because the swimsuits
were "skimpy," and composed of thin fabric, and the models were
provocatively posed, they came "so close" to pornography and nudity
that a prison official might reasonably come "to a different conclusion"
when reviewing them, so the individual defendants were also entitled to
qualified immunity on this claim. Lacy v. Huibregtse, #2008AP1870, 2010 Wisc.
App. Lexis 568 (Unpub. 4th Dist.).
A newspaper that reports on prison legal issues
claimed that California prison officials violated its First Amendment rights by
refusing to deliver its publications to some prisoners, and by refusing to
deliver certain hardcover books that the publisher wished to send to prisoners.
The parties reached a settlement agreement which included delivery of the
publications to prisoners, and the payment of $65,100 in damages. Ultimately
$458,000 in attorneys' fees and costs were also paid by the state. A federal
appeals court has now upheld a trial court award of an additional $137,502.46
in attorneys' fees and costs for work done monitoring the state's compliance
with the settlement agreement, including corresponding with inmates. Prison
Legal News v. Schwarzenegger, #09-15006, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 11690 (9th Cir.).
A prisoner claimed that correctional employees
violated his rights when they refused to deliver to him and other inmates
copies of a newsletter that were sent together in a single box but which were
addressed to individual recipients. The material was rejected under a prison
policy barring non-privileged mail containing material intended for other
persons than the addressees. Because the prisoner could not show that his right
to receipt of a newsletter sent in this manner was clearly established, the
individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on the money damages
claims. Further proceedings were ordered on the claim for injunctive relief.
Parkhurst v. Lampert, #08-8069, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 15850 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
Massachusetts inmates challenged a state
regulation that banned their receipt of sexually explicit publications or
publications featuring nudity, as well as a correctional policy against
displaying such materials in their cells. Rejecting the plaintiffs' First
Amendment claims, the federal appeals court found that there was a rational
connection between legitimate governmental interests and the means used to
further them. Prison security concerns supported the cell display policy.
Josselyn v. Dennehy, #08-1095, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 12272 (1st Cir. Cir.).
A prison policy that only allowed the receipt of
books that were sent directly from a publisher or that had a publisher's
invoice enclosed was a legitimate one, aimed at preventing the introduction of
contraband into the facility. The plaintiff prisoner was denied the receipt of
two religious books sent to him by his sister because there was no publisher's
invoice enclosed, not because of any intent to interfere with his religious
freedom rights. Even though there was an eight-month delay in him receiving the
books, prison employees did deliver the books to him as soon as it was
determined that the publisher's invoices were received. Additionally, the
prisoner had access to similar religious books through the prison's library.
Heleva v. Kramer, #08-3408, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 11021 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
Prison regulations providing for censorship of
sexually explicit material and materials promoting violence were not facially
violative of the First Amendment, as they were intended to promote legitimate governmental
interests. A prisoner could, however, pursue his claim that officials
improperly applied the regulations to exclude publications that were not
inflammatory. He could also pursue claims concerning a prohibition on
publications because they contained posters, stickers, or other free items,
since the defendant officials failed to state their justification for this
prohibition, and the prisoner further claimed that it was unevenly applied,
leading to improper content-based decisions. The defendants also failed to show
why the suggested alternative of removing these items from the publications
would be burdensome. Dean v. Bowersox; #08-1558, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 8477
(Unpub. 8th Cir.).
The fact that a Kansas regulation banning
sexually explicit materials from being mailed to prisoners covered a broader
range of materials in its definition of nudity than regulations at other prison
systems was not a sufficient basis to invalidate it. Strope v. Collins.
#08-3188, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 3713 (10th Cir.).
Federal prisoner failed to show that the Ensign
Amendment, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 530C(b)(6) violated his First Amendment rights in
restricting his access to sexually explicit publications, specifically certain
magazines and a book that were sent to him. Restricting such materials was
reasonably related to legitimate penological interests in security and
rehabilitation. The court did rule, however, that Federal Bureau of Prisons
(BOP) Program Statement 5266.10, Sec. 7 was unconstitutional in allowing a rejected
publication to be returned to the publisher before an administrative review was
completed, and the enforcement of that Program Statement was enjoined. Jordan
v. Sosa, Civil Action #05-cv-01283, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 53006 (D. Colo.).
Prisoner's claims concerning the opening and
reading of his mail by prison authorities was frivolous, as these actions did
not violate his constitutional rights. He also could not pursue a
constitutional claim regarding the alleged deprivation of his SSI benefits check,
because there were adequate post-deprivation remedies available under Texas
state law for deprivations of property. Malone v. Pedigo, #07-11025, 2008 U.S.
App. Lexis 13006 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
Prisoner failed to show that he suffered any
injury because of the prison's failure to deliver mail on Saturday, or from his
inability to go to the law library on the day he was notified of a filing
requirement in a pending legal case. The court also noted that it was
established by prior caselaw that the prisoner's nonprivileged outgoing mail
could be opened and inspected. Caldwell v. Beard, #08-2432, 2008 U.S. App.
Lexis 27027 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
Prison officials did not violate the plaintiff
prisoner's First Amendment rights or "censor" his mail in opening his
mail, as it was properly subject to inspection in order to prevent the
introduction of contraband into the facility. Ransom v. Greenwood, #06-56500,
2008 U.S. App. Lexis 16754 (9th Cir.).
A newspaper's refusal to accept a paid
subscription from a prisoner based on a corporation policy against supplying
subscriptions to prisoners did not violate his First Amendment rights, and the
corporate action was not compelled by a city resolution that "urged"
the corporation to adopt such a policy. Henderson v. Huibregtse, #07-2571, 2008
U.S. App. Lexis 12671 (Unpub. 7th Cir.).
Court upholds Massachusetts state regulation
banning all sexually explicit publications and items from prisons. The rule
banned the receipt, possession, and display of almost all materials with nude
or semi-nude images or other sexually explicit content, except in a medical,
educational, or anthropological context. The court ruled that there was a
rational relationship between the rule and the legitimate interest that
correctional facilities had in safety and rehabilitation. Under the rule,
publications were individually reviewed to determine whether their content fell
within the scope of the ban. Moses v. Dennehy, #06-10164, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis
85359 (D. Mass.).
A prison's ban on inmates receiving
commercially-produced pictures of celebrities, including actresses such as
Jennifer Aniston, did not violate a prisoner's First Amendment rights. The
court found that the prison's economic interest in saving staff resources that
would otherwise be needed to process incoming individual commercial photographs
and to screen them for possible inappropriate content was legitimate. The
prisoner had adequate alternative means of exercising any right he had to see a
photo of Jennifer Aniston by subscribing to a magazine which might, in some
issue, contain a photo of her. The court commented, in a footnote: "If
possessing a photo of a movie star in a prison cell can even be deemed a
'right' protected by the First Amendment." The ban on celebrity photos was
found to be reasonably related to legitimate penological objectives. The rules
in place did allow prisoners to receive photos of family members. Jackson v.
Frank, #07-2314 (7th Cir.).
Prisoner who was formerly in a maximum-security
unit in a prison, and then subjected to a policy barring him from receiving
publications in the mail, was not entitled to continue his pursuit of claims
challenging that policy when he had been released from maximum security and not
returned there in over two years. He would not benefit from the declaratory and
injunctive relief sought in his lawsuit, since he was no longer subjected to
the policy in question. His challenge was now moot, and a ruling on the policy
would now be an unconstitutional "advisory opinion." Incumaa v.
Ozmint, #04-7824, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 25309 (4th Cir.).
Federal appeals court rejects challenge to county
jail's regulations barring prisoner receipt and access to both sexually
explicit and technical publications, but orders further proceedings on a ban on
receipt of catalogs. Jones v. Salt Lake County, #04-4185, 04-4186 2007 U.S.
App. Lexis 22990 (10th Cir.).
While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit in 2004 ruled that prison policies prohibiting all prisoner access to
mail containing materials downloaded from the internet was unconstitutional in
Clement v. California Department of Corrections, #03-15006, 364 F.3d 1148 (9th
Cir. 2004), there was no clearly established law on the subject in 2001, when
this plaintiff prisoner's mail containing such materials was returned, so that
the prison warden was entitled to qualified immunity. Butler v. Yarborough,
#03-5420, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 56667 (E.D. Cal.).
U.S. Supreme Court overturns an appeals court
decision that a prison policy forbidding certain very dangerous and
"recalcitrant" prisoners access to newspapers, magazines, and
photographs violated the First Amendment as a matter of law. Policy was
justified by prison officials' legitimate interest in providing such prisoners
with incentives for improvement of their behavior. Beard v. Banks, #04-1739
2006 U.S. Lexis 5176. [2006 JB Aug]
Prison officials' actions in preventing prisoner from
receiving mail containing legal materials bought for him by a person with a relationship
to another prisoner did not violate his rights. The restriction imposed was
justified by legitimate interest in prevention of extortion, contraband
smuggling, and unauthorized bartering among prisoners assisted by persons
outside the facility. Wardell v. Maggard, No. 05-1210, 2006 U.S. App.
Lexis 29404 (10th Cir.). [N/R]
North Dakota state prison rules prohibiting
inmates from possessing property, such as religious magazines, received from
other prisoners, and classifying such "passed-on" property as
contraband, upheld as reasonable. Larson v. Schuetzle, #20050418, 712 N.W.2d
617 (N.D. 2006). [2006 JB Aug]
Correctional officials offered no evidence
showing a legitimate penological interest to support a policy of preventing
prisoners from receiving free, softbound religious materials from the plaintiff
religious organization. The Department's voluntary change of its policy,
allowing the receipt of the softbound materials following an inspection did not
make the lawsuit moot. Jesus Christ Prison Ministry v. Calif. Dept. of
Corrections, #CIV-S-05-0440, 2006 U.S. Dist. Lexis 73813 (E.D. Cal.). [N/R]
Federal appeals court rules that, in pro se
lawsuit filed by prisoner over denial of access to a controversial religious
text, the trial court should have considered whether the prisoner had a claim
under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a federal law
requiring the showing of a compelling governmental interest before infringing
on free exercise of religion, even though the plaintiff did not refer to that
statute in his complaint. Summary judgment for prison officials is upheld,
however, under the less stringent First Amendment legal standard. Smith v.
Johnson, #03-2014, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 27178 (3rd Cir.). [2006 JB Dec]
Prison officials were entitled to qualified
immunity in former prisoner's lawsuit claiming that they improperly restricted
his ability to subscribe to certain newspaper, magazine, and newsletter
publications based on his classification status, which was based on his
behavior, as their actions did not violate any clearly established right. Calia
v. Weholtz, #05-3201, 426 F. Supp. 2d 1210 (D. Kan. 2006). [N/R]
Requirement that prisoner's exhaust available
administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit over prison conditions applies
to a claim by a prisoner in a privately run prisoner over the alleged
confiscation of several magazines by a prison employee. Roles v. Maddox,
#04-35280, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 5037 (9th Cir.). [2006 JB Apr]
First Amendment right of prisoners to receive gift
publications was not "clearly established" in the middle of 2000,
when a Kansas state prison rule barred such receipt, so that prison officials
were entitled to qualified immunity from damages in lawsuit filed by inmates
and the non-profit publisher of a periodical focusing on legal issues of
interest to prisoners. Prison Legal News, Inc. v. Simmons, #02-4054, 401 F.
Supp. 1181 (D. Kan. 2005). [N/R]
Pennsylvania Supreme Court upholds
constitutionality of regulations prohibiting prisoners from receiving incoming
publications found to be obscene, as well as of statute criminalizing the
importation of such publication into prisons or their possession by prisoners.
Inmates' lawsuit challenged the withholding of Penthouse magazine and several
others available to the general adult public. Payne v. Commonwealth Dept. of
Corrections, J-83-2004, 871 A.2d 795 (Pa. 2005). [2005 JB Dec]
Prison policy that barred prisoners placed in
long term security unit based on their past behavior from possessing any
newspapers or magazines except for religious or legal publications, and that
further barred possession of family photos, was subject to First Amendment
challenge. Appeals court panel overturns trial court decision upholding policy
without trial. Banks v. Beard, #03-1245, 399 F.3d 134 (3d Cir. 2005) [2005 JB
Jun]
Alleged failure of prison supervisory personnel
to properly supervise and train officers in proper distribution of mail to
prisoners was not a violation of a prisoner's rights when he failed to show
that he had been deprived of his mail, that other inmates' possession of some
of his mail caused him any actual harm, or that the alleged violation of the
prison's mail policy prevented him from filing a specific legal document with
the court. Sandoval v. Fox, #04-41251, 135 Fed. Appx. 691 (5th Cir. 2005).
[N/R]
Prison officials could not punish an inmate for
writing a letter to a private company informing them of what he believed to be
an illegal program planned at the prison which would damage its business as a
supplier to the facility. The statements, while critical or unflattering, did
not damage institutional security, and punishing him for their content would
violate the First Amendment. Gandy v. Ortiz, #04-1225, 122 Fed. Appx. 421 (10th
Cir. 2005). [2005 JB May]
Ban on non-subscription bulk mail and catalogs
was not rationally related to a legitimate penological interest and therefore
violated the First Amendment, but correctional officials were entitled to
qualified immunity. Prison Legal News v. Lehman, #03-35608, 397 F.3d 692 (9th
Cir. 2005) [2005 JB Apr]
Prisoner's First Amendment rights were not
violated by denying him receipt and possession of a racist magazine, Pagan
Revival, which the inmate himself admitted contained "hatred."
Censoring such publications, a federal appeals court held, was reasonably
related to legitimate penological interests in institutional order and
security. Lindell v. McCaughtry, #03-4094, 115 Fed. Appx. 872 (7th Cir. 2004).
[N/R]
Prison officials actions in preventing an
inmate from corresponding with a former prisoner with whom he had formed a
romantic attachment did not violate his rights. Nasir v. Morgan, #01-2519 ,
2003 U.S. App. Lexis 24013, 350 F.3d 366 (3rd Cir.) [2004 JB Jan]
California State Department of Corrections
administrative bulletin banning sexually explicit materials depicting frontal
nudity did not violate a prisoner's First Amendment rights. Correctional
officials properly sought to reduce sexual harassment of female guards and
prevent the development of a hostile work environment and also enhance prison
security. Further, depriving prisoners of such sexually explicit materials did
not impose an "atypical and significant hardship" in relation to the
"ordinary incidents of prison life," and was therefore not a
violation of due process. Additionally, the prisoner did not successfully show
a violation of equal protection rights, as he did not claim that he was treated
any differently than similarly situated prisoners with respect to the
possession of such materials. Munro v. Tristan, No. 03-16770, 116 Fed. Appx.
820 (9th Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Notifying only the prisoner, and not the
publisher, when a periodical was not delivered to a prisoner, was inadequate to
protect the publisher's First Amendment rights. Federal appeals court also
orders further proceedings on constitutionality of policies limiting inmates'
monthly spending on publications to $30 and prohibiting gift subscriptions. Jacklovich
v. Simmons, #03-3227, 2004 U.S. App. Lexis 26550 (10th Cir. 2004). [2005 JB
Feb]
Regulations banning gift subscriptions of
publications to prisoners and limiting their own purchase of such subscriptions
was rationally related to legitimate interests in rehabilitation and
institutional security. Rice v. State of Kansas, #89,759, 95 P.3d 994 (Kan.
2004). [2004 JB Nov]
Prison did not violate inmate's rights by
limiting his ability to correspond with family members in Spanish. Prisoner was
fluent in English, and was allowed to correspond in Spanish with a family
member who only knew that language. Rule limiting correspondence in foreign
languages, subsequently abandoned, had been reasonably related to legitimate
security concerns. Ortiz v. Fort Dodge Correctional Facility, #03-1868, 2004
U.S. App. Lexis 10200 (8th Cir.).[2004 JB Jul]
While a prisoner stated a claim under the First
Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act
(RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000cc, for money damages and injunctive relief based
on refusal to allow him to use his Islamic religious name to send or receive
mail, trial court declined to issue a preliminary injunction requiring that he
be allowed to use that religious name on his mail because the merits of his
claims were "tenuous," and he could obtain damages if he prevailed.
Further, any harm he suffered was not "irreparable," since he could
still receive mail under his incarceration name, and could use his religious
name inside the mail. Shidler v. Moore, #3:05-CV-804, 409 F. Supp. 2d 1060
(N.D. Ind. 2006). [N/R]
Prisoner's lawsuit alleging that prison officials
tampered with his outgoing mail was insufficient to state a claim and
frivolous, when it was clearly shown that his mail was actually sent out and
that he even received responses, in many instances, from courts to which he
sent correspondence. Smith v. Bruce, #04-3043, 103 Fed. Appx. 342 (10th Cir.
2004). [N/R]
New York prisoner's claim that correctional
employees deliberated tampered with his mail, including both incoming and
outgoing legal, personal, and political mail, without cause or justification,
adequately asserted a claim for violation of his First Amendment rights. Nash
v. McGinnis, 315 F. Supp. 2d 318 (W.D.N.Y. 2004). [N/R]
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 properly rejected prisoner's
federal civil rights claim since the First Amendment rights of inmates to
receive commercial bulk mail was not "clearly established" when he
was refused receipt of a "Green Lantern" comic book, so that prison officials
were entitled to qualified immunity. Court upholds rejection of other magazines
with sexual ads or "role-playing content." Further proceedings
ordered, however, on state law free speech claims. Bahrampour v. Lamper,
#02-3519, 356 F.3d 969 (9th Cir. 2004). [2004 JB May]
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]
Federal appeals court rules that prison's
requirement that books received from vendors have special shipping labels
attached or else not be delivered to prisoners unduly burdened inmates' First
Amendment rights. Policy was unreasonable and arbitrary, as it was applied to
packages of books and other publications but not to other packages that could
just as easily contain contraband. Ashker v. California Department of
Corrections, #02-17077, 350 F.3d 917 (9th Cir. 2003). [2004 JB Mar]
Prison security and rehabilitation goals were not
sufficient to justify a complete ban on gifts of periodicals to prisoners. Rice
v. State of Kansas, No, 89,759, 76 P.3d 1048 (Kan. App. 2003). [2004
JB Feb]
Refusal of West Virginia prison officials
to allow prisoner to receive or possess certain books found to be obscene did
not violate his First Amendment or due process rights. Policy applied advanced
legitimate penological interests in security and rehabilitation. Cline v. Fox,
266 F. Supp. 2d 489 (N.D.W. Va. 2003). [2003 JB Nov]
Prison policies prohibiting the receipt of free
or gift subscriptions to publications, preventing some inmates in a lower
offender classification from purchasing publications, and limiting other
inmates to spending no more than $30 per month to purchase publications did not
violate prisoners' First Amendment or due process rights and were rationally
related to legitimate interests in controlling, managing, and tracking property
in order to identify prohibited activities, promote institutional order through
privileges and incentives, and making sure there were sufficient assets to
collect inmates' other financial obligations, such as restitution and child
support. Failure to notify publishers when prisoners were denied receipt of
mailed publications did not violate the publishers' constitutional due process
rights. Zimmerman v. Simmons, 260 F. Supp. 2d 1077 (D. Kan. 2003). [N/R]
Prisoner failed to present any evidence that
prison employees, rather than the postal system, were responsible for the
failure to deliver his outgoing or incoming mail. Further, one specific
incident where he allegedly did not receive the full contents of a letter from
his wife was "such a random and isolated incident" that it was
"insufficient to establish" a constitutional violation. Okoro v.
Scibana, #02-1439, 63 Fed. Appx. 182 (6th Cir. 2003).[N/R]
Magazines sent to prisoner through the mails were obscene
despite not showing sexual penetration when they did depict simulated sexual
activity and discharged sexual fluids, but factual issues remained as to
whether prison mail room employees improperly censored or returned to sender
non-obscene letters and photographs sent to inmate by individual female
correspondent and whether some materials sent to him were improperly
"converted" for their "own personal use." Elliott v.
Cummings, #01-3317, 49 Fed. Appx. 220 (10th Cir. 2002). [2003 JB Feb.]
Prison policy prohibiting prisoners from
receiving publications, such as books and magazines, as gifts, violated their
First Amendment rights, but federal appeals court rules that the law on this
subject was not "clearly established" until it had upheld a similar
ruling in another case on appeal, entitling defendant prison officials to
qualified immunity from liability. Sorrels v. McKee, #01-35222, 287 F.3d 1213
(9th Cir. 2002). [2002 JB Aug]
Self-professed Wiccan witch was not entitled to
injunctive relief on his claim that prison chaplain and librarian failed to
deliver to him his religious mail concerning his continuing education in the
field of "metaphysical theology." Benham v. Priest, #01-2360, 34 Fed.
Appx. 465 (6th Cir. 2002). [N/R]
Prisoner's claim that an officer intentionally
deprived him of one issue of a magazine to which he subscribed because the
officer disliked the magazine's views, and lied about doing so, was sufficient
to state a First Amendment free speech claim. Prisoner did not, however, state
a valid claim for violation of his right to religious freedom, since, while the
Pagan Revival magazine purported to have a religious theme, he did not claim
that the magazine had anything to do with his religious practices or that his
failure to receive it interfered with the exercise of his religion. Lindell v.
Doe, #01-2527, 58 Fed. Appx. 638 (7th Cir. 2003). [N/R]
Pennsylvania State Department of Corrections policy
which barred inmate receipt of incoming publications found by a committee of
employees to contain obscene materials did not violate prisoners' rights under
free speech guarantees of the Pennsylvania state Constitution, Article 1, sec.
7, since there is no constitutional protection for obscene materials. Payne v.
Com. Dept. of Corrections, 813 A.2d 918 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2002). [N/R]
Prison's requirement that books received from
vendors have special shipping labels attached or else not be delivered to
prisoners found to unduly burden inmates' First Amendment rights. Federal court
finds policy was arbitrary and unreasonable and that legitimate security
interests in preventing introduction of contraband were adequately protected by
other existing policies. Ashker v. California Department of Corrections, 224 F.
Supp. 2d 1253 (N.D. Cal. 2002). [2003 JB Feb.]
Virginia correctional policy limiting prisoner's
incoming general purpose mail to one ounce per envelope did not violate
prisoners' First Amendment rights and served legitimate penological interests
in reducing avenues for smuggling contraband into the prisons. Policy did not
apply to legal, special purpose, educational correspondence, or mail from
vendors or governmental agencies. Hall v. Johnson, 224 F. Supp. 2d 1058 (E.D.
Va. 2002). [2003 JB Feb.]
293:73 Washington state prison officials were entitled to
qualified immunity from money damages for barring receipt of newsletter
containing the names of current prison employees out of concern for employees'
safety; qualified immunity, however, did not properly bar claims for declaratory
and injunctive relief. Prison Legal News v. Washington State Dept. of
Corrections, #00-35095, 2001 U.S. App. Lexis 5165.
293:72 Oregon
prison rule prohibiting prisoners from receiving non-profit organization's
newsletter about "prison legal news" because it was sent as bulk
"standard rate" mail violated the First Amendment rights of both
prisoners and the publisher of the newsletter. Prison Legal News v. Cook,
#99-36084, 238 F.3d 1145 (9th Cir. 2001).
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).
289:7 Federal
trial court denies summary judgment to Wisconsin prison officials in lawsuit
over regulation under which a picture of the Sistine Chapel and various other
magazines and correspondence was withheld from prisoners because of depicted
nudity or discussion of sex. Aiello v. Litscher, 104 F. Supp. 2d 1068 (W.D.
Wis. 2000).
284:119 Illinois
prison employees did not violate prisoners' rights when they inspected their
incoming mail and seized as contraband copies of travel vouchers submitted by
members of the state's Prisoner Review Board obtained by prisoners' relatives
under the state's Freedom of Information Act; prisoner access to these vouchers
presented a possible threat to the safety and security of Review Board members.
Holloway v. Meyer, #2-98-1641, 726 N.E.2d 678 (Ill. App. 2000).
279:40 UPDATE:
Federal appeals court rules that Arizona county jail system's policy
prohibiting the possession of all material depicting nudity, including such
magazines as Playboy was reasonably related to legitimate penological interests
in protecting employees and inmates against sexual harassment or assault. Mauro
v. Arpaio, #97-16021, 188 F.3d 1054 (9th Cir. 1999).
275:166
Pre-trial detainee retained some privacy interest in the contents of his
incoming and outgoing non- legal correspondence, but trial court declines to
apply exclusionary rule to suppress evidence discovered during reading and
copying of his correspondence pursuant to warrant; remedy for allegedly
overbroad copying of personal correspondence was the sealing of material which
was not incriminating. U.S. v. Heatley, 41 F.Supp.2d 284 (S.D.N.Y. 1999).
281:67
"Short-term and sporadic" delays in delivery of non-legal mail to
prisoner that ranged from 2 days to 26 days from the postmark date did not
violate the First Amendment rights of either the prisoner or the correspondent.
Rowe v. Shake, #98-4207, 196 F.3d 778 (7th Cir. 1999).
285:135
Wisconsin appeals court rules that a state notice of claim statute was not an
"administrative remedy" that a plaintiff prisoner was required to
"exhaust" before proceeding with his federal civil rights lawsuit,
filed in state court, challenging the exclusion of all material containing
nudity or pornography from state prisons. Ledford, State Ex Rel., v. Cir Ct.
for Dane County, #99-0939-W, 599 N.W.2d 45 (Wis. App. 1999).
273:134 Prison
rule banning receipt of mail which advocated racial or religious hatred in a
manner which created a serious danger of violence did not violate the religious
freedom rights of a prisoner who was denied access to Aryan Nations materials.
Chriceol v. Phillips, #98-30380, 169 F.3d 313 (5th Cir. 1999).
274:149 Federal
statute barring sexually explicit publications or those featuring nudity from
federal prisons is upheld by appeals court; U.S. Supreme Court denies review.
Amatel v. Reno, #97-5293, 97-5294, 97-5295, 156 F.3d 192 (D.C. Cir. 1998),
cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 2365 (1999).
265:7 Prison
rule prohibiting possession of all material depicting nudity, which resulted in
ban on prisoner receiving Playboy was overbroad and violated First Amendment. Mauro
v. Arpaio, #97-16021, 147 F.3d 1137 (9th Cir. 1998).
253:5 Federal
court strikes down "Ensign Amendment" barring all sexually explicit
publications or publications featuring nudity, including non-obscene ones, from
federal prisons. Amatel v. Reno, 975 F.Supp. 365 (D.D.C. 1997).
256:55 Florida
detention facility did not violate prisoner's First Amendment rights by denying
him access to publications with nude photos when each publication was
individually reviewed by at least three correctional officials before being
rejected, and internal grievance mechanism with three levels of review was
available if prisoner objected. Owen v. Wille, 117 F.3d 1235 (11th Cir. 1997).
257:71 Federal
trial court upholds prison rule barring receipt in the mail of unapproved
catalogs, sexually explicit materials with objectionable themes, loose stamps,
and oversized greeting cards. Allen v. Wood, 970 F.Supp. 824 (E.D. Wash. 1997).
259:101 Prison
officials did not violate Muslim prisoner's free speech or religious freedom
rights by denying him receipt of entire issues of "Muhammad Speaks"
magazine which were determined to create a danger of violence "by
advocating racial, religious, or national hatred"; prisoner's suggestion
that offending articles instead be cut out was not reasonable alternative in
light of cost to implement. Shabazz v. Parsons, 127 F.3d 1246 (10th Cir. 1997).
[N/R] Prisoner
did not show that prison mail supervisor failed to process his mail for
delivery; supervisor entitled to qualified immunity. Treff v. Galetka, 74 F.3d
191 (10th Cir. 1996).
246:85 Prison
policy prohibiting the receipt of all "free advertising" or bulk rate
mail (such as catalogs) by prisoners did not violate inmates' First Amendment
rights, federal appeals court rules. Sheets v. Moore, 97 F.3d 164 (6th Cir.
1996).
239:166
Publisher of "adult" magazine had a constitutional First Amendment
interest in receiving notice and due process when prison officials prohibited
inmate subscribers from receiving issues of the magazine deemed obscene;
federal appeals court orders trial court to fashion "appropriate
remedy." Montcalm Publishing Corp. v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105 (4th Cir. 1996).
233:70 Federal
prison officials refusal of request by two inmates, who claimed common law
marriage, to correspond with each other did not violate their First Amendment
right when state in which inmates had lived does not recognize "common
law" marriages. Howard v. Keohane, 898 F.Supp. 459 (E.D.Ky. 1995). »
Editor's Note: Also see Farrell v. Peters, 951 F.2d 862 (7th Cir. 1992) (First
Amendment was not violated when an Illinois state prisoner was denied
permission, pursuant to state Department of Corrections policy, to correspond
with his alleged common-law wife, an Illinois state prisoner in another
Illinois prison).
236:119
Destruction of inmate's beard trimmer, received in the mail, without prior
hearing on whether it was contraband, did not violate his due process rights
when there were adequate state-law post-deprivation remedies available to seek
compensation for his property. Diaz v. Coughlin, 909 F.Supp. 146 (S.D.N.Y.
1995).
233:69 Prison
officials showed compelling interest in withholding delivery of issues of
newspaper inciting racial violence; fact that newspaper was published by a
church did not alter result or violate prisoner's rights under Religious
Freedom Restoration Act. Reimann v. Murphy, 897 F.Supp. 398 (E.D. Wis. 1995).
[Cross-reference: Religion].
234:88 Federal
appeals court rules that prison policy excluding all newspaper clippings from
prisoner's incoming correspondence may violate First Amendment; prison
officials were entitled, however, to qualified immunity from personal
liability, since right to receive such clippings was not "clearly established."
Allen v. Coughlin, 64 F.3d 77 (2nd Cir. 1995). [Cross-reference: Defenses:
Qualified (Good-Faith) Immunity].
235:101 Prison
officials could properly exclude issues of publications which incited to
violence or criminal activity, but not those which, while critical of prison or
government authorities, only promoted "peaceful protests" or
complaint letter writing. Knecht v. Collins, 903 F.Supp. 1193 (S.D. Ohio 1995).
225:140 Prison
policy requiring inmate with new religious name to also use his "committed"
name on all correspondence incoming and outgoing did not violate prisoner's
rights. Fawaad v. Herring, 874 F.Supp. 350 (N.D. Ala. 1995).
229:9 Prison
policy allowing receipt and possession of commercially produced erotic
literature, but barring receipt and possession of nude or semi-nude photographs
of inmates' wives and girlfriends upheld by federal appeals court. Giano v.
Senkowski, 54 F.3d 1050 (2d Cir. 1995).
217:6 Federal
appeals court orders further proceedings on prisoner's claims for injunctive
and declaratory relief against alleged prison policy of excluding all Japanese
language mail without any effort to screen or translate it; prison officials
were entitled to qualified immunity from damage liability, however, since the
right to receive foreign language mail was not "clearly established."
Kikumura v. Turner, 28 F.3d 592 (7th Cir. 1994).
223:104 Prison
policy banning the delivery of any bulk mail to prisoners did not violate their
First Amendment rights. Kalasho v. Kapture, 868 F.Supp. 882 (E.D. Mich. 1994).
223:104 Prison
could properly withhold sexually explicit magazine from prisoners based on
assertion that material had a "negative impact" on "security,
discipline, order, public safety, and rehabilitation." Hodges v. Com. of
Virginia, 871 F.Supp. 873 (W.D. Va. 1994).
226:152 Texas
prison mail clerk not liable for withholding from inmate publications which
contained graphic descriptions of sexual acts illegal under state law. Montana
v. Patterson, 894 S.W.2d 812 (Tex. App. 1994).
Prison rule
prohibiting inmates from receiving newspapers or newspaper clippings from
nonpublisher sources upheld as constitutional. Montgomery v. Coughlin, 605
N.Y.S.2d 569 (A.D. 1993).
Policy
prohibiting inmates from receiving cassette recordings from sources other than
publishers was a constitutional policy aimed at enhancing institutional
security; exception to policy for religious tapes was a permissible
accommodation for prisoners' religious exercise rights, and did not invalidate
general policy. Ennis v. Berg, 509 N.W.2d 33 (N.D. 1993).
Rule prohibiting
short-term pre-trial detainees from receiving outside publications did not
violate their First Amendment rights. Hause v. Vaught, 993 F.2d 1079 (4th Cir.
1993).
Sexually
explicit materials could be withheld from prisoner based on a finding that they
would be detrimental to his rehabilitation because they would encourage deviate
criminal sexual behavior. Thompson v. Patteson, 985 F.2d 202 (5th Cir. 1993).
Prisoner's First
Amendment rights were not violated by prison's decision not to allow him to
possess documents and photographs relating to the Ku Klux Klan; prisoner was
allowed to read and view the materials, but possession of them within the
prison could result in other prisoners being incited to violence. Grooms v.
Caldwell, 806 F.Supp. 807 (N.D. Ind. 1991).
Prisoner's First
Amendment rights were not violated by prison's withholding of "sexually
explicit" photographs of women he ordered through the mail. Lambrix v.
Dugger, 610 So.2d 1366 (Fla. App. 1992).
Prison policies
prohibiting inmates from receiving blank greeting cards, softcover books,
newspaper or magazines, except from a vendor, publisher or bookstore, did not
violate prisoner's First amendment or due process rights. Avery v. Powell, 806
F.Supp. 7 (D.N.H. 1992).
Prison mail
clerk did not violate prisoner's due process rights by confiscating a letter to
him without giving him notice of the confiscation; letter contained threats and
information about prison prostitution activities, and notification would have
interfered with an ongoing investigation of criminal conduct within the prison.
Wilson v. Holman, 793 F.Supp. 920 (E.D. Mo. 1992).
Prisoner's
rights were not violated by regulations precluding his receipt of sexually
explicit material advocating felonious acts such as incest and sexual abuse of
children. Cox v. Embly, 784 F.Supp. 685 (E.D. Mo. 1992).
Blanket rule
prohibiting all correspondence with members of the press was unconstitutional,
but claim for damages by inmate was barred by qualified immunity of prison
officials individually, and Eleventh Amendment immunity of prison officials in
their official capacity. Mujahid v. Sumner, 807 F.Supp. 1505 (D. Hawaii 1992).
Withholding of
female prison guard's letters to inmate as part of investigation into whether
guard was having an impermissible affair with inmate did not violate prisoner's
First Amendment or due process rights. Knight v. Lombardi, 952 F.2d 177 (8th
Cir. 1991).
Failure to
inform prisoner of receipt of obscene mail addressed to him was at most
negligence, which could not be the basis for a federal civil rights lawsuit.
Harris v. Bolin, 950 F.2d 547 (8th Cir. 1991).
Prison
superintendent was entitled to qualified immunity on prisoner's claim that his
First Amendment rights were violated by regulation requiring that softcover
books and magazines be received only directly from the publishers. Johnson v.
Moore, 948 F.2d 517 (9th Cir. 1991).
Jail's withholding of both incoming and outgoing
mail of pretrial detainee thought to be planning escape did not violate his
First Amendment rights. Martucci v. Johnson, 944 F.2d 291 (6th Cir. 1991).
Prison's refusal
to allow inmate to receive an educational brochure about paralegal
correspondence school mailed to him by another inmate violated his First
Amendment rights. Eckford-El v. Toombs, 760 F.Supp. 1267 (W.D. Mich. 1991).
Inmate awarded
$1 in damages and $10,000 attorneys' fees for prison officials' failure to
allow him to receive military surplus catalog. Allen v. Higgins, 902 F.2d 682
(8th Cir. 1990).
Jail could limit
access to magazines to those received directly from publisher. Ward v.
Washtenaw Co. Sheriff's Dept., 881 F.2d 325 (6th Cir. 1989).
Jail officials
not entitled to qualified immunity for prohibiting receipt of hardcover books.
Jackson v. Elrod, 881 F.2d 441 (7th Cir. 1989).
Withholding
inmate's mail from organization advocating sex with juvenile males did not
violate first amendment. Harper v. Wallingford, 877 F.2d 728 (9th Cir. 1989).
Federal judge
orders Iowa prison to allow access to "adult" magazines; prison opens
"porno reading room" to comply. New York Times, page 6, February 6,
1989.
Treating all
incoming mail as openable unless specially marked as from attorneys did not
violate inmate's rights. Martin v. Brewer, 830 F.2d 76 (7th Cir. 1987).
Jail's blanket
ban on all hardcover books violates first amendment; jail must notify detainees
of rejection of books. Jackson v. Elrod, 671 F.Supp. 1508 (N.D. Ill. 1987).
Prisoner's claim
that his daily newspaper and other publications were permanently withheld
states possible first amendment violation. Sizemore v Williford, 829 F.2d 608
(7th Cir. 1987).
Prison mail
policy allowing censorship if justified on security or safety grounds was not
unconstitutional; allegation of delay of mail from religious group, however,
stated claim. Valiant-Bey v. Morris, 829 F.2d 1441 (8th Cir. 1987).
Burden is on
prison to show that receipt of publications would damage security, order or
rehabilitation. Abbott v. Meese, 824 F.2d 1166 (D.C. Cir. 1987).
Suit to continue
against correctional officers for allegedly denying one inmate self-help books
on alcoholism, while allowing fellow inmates to receive "girly"
magazines. Jackson v. Elrod, 655 F.Supp. 1130 (N.D. Ill. 1987).
Publications
advocating homosexuality banned from prison for reasons of security, unless
they're of a medical or religious nature. Espinoza v. Wilson, 814 F.2d 1093
(6th Cir. 1987).
Prison officials cannot ban publications
supporting white supremacy unless they advocate violence; censorship must be
based on a review of each piece of mail. Murphy v. Missouri Dept. of
Corrections, 814 F.2d 1252 (8th Cir. 1987).
Prisoner's suit
seeking access to books to continue. Pratt v. Sumner, 807 F.2d 817 (9th Cir.
1987).
Court held that
prison regulations prohibiting inmate to inmate correspondence rule was
reasonably related to legitimate security concerns but that regulations
prohibiting inmate marriages unless warden determines that there were
compelling reasons for the marriage, was not reasonably related to any
legitimate penological objective. Turner v. Safley, 107 S.Ct. 2254 (1987). The
court set forth a four point test to determine "reasonableness". See
107 S.Ct. at 2262.
Court approves
inspection of business mail; absent a constitutional right, least restrictive
means need not be employed. Lucas v. Scully, 509 N.Y.S.2d 640 (A.D. 2 Dept.
1986).
Fourth circuit
departs from eighth circuit holding and rules inmate-to-inmate correspondence
requires warden's approval. Vester v. Rogers, 795 F.2d 1179 (4th Cir. 1986).
Co. jail's policy
of banning newspapers and magazines unconstitutional. Mann v. Smith, 796 F.2d
79 (5th Cir. 1986).
Blanket ban on
magazine subscription unconstitutional censorship must be based on each monthly
publication of drug- related magazine. Mahan v. Maschner, 717 P.2d 1059 (Kan.
App. 1986).
General
grievance procedure insufficient for censorship issues. Martin v. Kelley, 803
F.2d 236 (6th Cir. 1986).
Prison officials
ban publication depicting inmates as "societal victims". Travis v.
Norris, 805 F.2d 806 (8th Cir. 1986).
Prison officials
stopped from banning religious publication that focuses on mistreatment of
blacks. Lawson v. Wainwright, 641 F.Supp. 312 (S.D. Fla. 1986).
Policy of
reading intrajail mail upheld. People v. McCaslin, 223 Cal.Rptr. 587 (App.
1986).
Controversial
mail directive ordered resolved. Jones v. Smith, 784 F.2d 149 (2nd Cir. 1986).
Procedure for
receiving property upheld; correspondence regulation unconstitutional.
Champagne v. Commissioner of Correction, 480 N.E.2d 609 (Mass. 1985).
No hearing
required before returning unauthorized interprison mail. Esposito v. Leddy, 618
F.Supp. 1362 (D.C. Ill. 1985).
Officials find
stolen money and drug-smuggling instructions inside inmate's letter. State v. Dunn,
478 So.2d 659 (La. App. 1985).
Court sets forth
manner in which mail restrictions may be reinforced to disciplined inmates.
Gregory v. Auger, 768 F.2d 287 (8th Cir. 1985).
9th Circuit
allows prison officials to read and search inmate's mail. Nakao v. Campbell,
San Francisco Recorder, California 7/19/85.
The following
three cases reach various conclusions regarding the "publishers only"
rule. Kines v. Day, 754 F.2d 28 (1st Cir. 1985); Spruytte v. Walters, 753 F.2d
498 (6th Cir. 1985); and Hurd v. Williams, 755 F.2d 306 (3rd Cir. 1985).
Routine
inspection of business mail and mail to media unconstitutional. Milburn v.
McNiff, 486 N.y.S. 2d 19 (A.D. 2 Dept. 1985).
Opening letter
at halfway house upheld; sender convicted of trafficking with
"inmate". Sureeporn Roll v. State, 473 N.E.2d 161 (Ind. 1985).
Commercial nude
photos permissible, but not home snap-shots; pictures depicting homosexual acts
prohibited. Hunter v. Koehler, 618 F.Supp. 13 (D.C. Mich. 1984).
Prior approval
necessary for inmates to correspond with each other by mail. Dooley v. Quick,
598 F.Supp. 607 (D. R.I. 1984).
Inmate in
punitive segregation accuses warden of changing mail policy to avoid liability.
Jones v. Sargent, 737 F.2d 766 (8th Cir. 1984).
Current
guidelines regarding routine reading of inmates' general correspondence mail
are discussed. Heimerle v. Atty. Gen. U.S.A., 558 F.Supp. 1292 (S.D. N.Y.
1983).
Prison
regulations O.K. - reading of mail and limitations on amount of free postage.
Meadows v. Hopkins, 713 F.2d 206 (6th Cir. 1983).
Adequate state
remedy for inmate's lost personal mail forecloses 1983 federal claim. Thompson
v. Steele, 709 F.2d 381 (5th Cir. 1983).
Warden liable for disclosing
contents of private letter from priest to inmate. Trudeau v. Wyrick, 713 F.2d
1360 (8th Cir. 1983).
Inmate in
punitive segregation can be denied certain types of mail. Guajardo v. Estelle,
568 F.Supp. 1254 (S.D. Tex. 1983).
Appeals court
holds that mail sent to inmate in prison was not protected by reasonable
expectation of privacy: allows introduction of letter describing armed robbery.
State v. Kennedy, 294 S.E.2d 770 (N.C. App. 1982).
Prison
regulations on outgoing mail were invalid. Davidson v. Scully, 694 F.2d 50 (2nd
Cir. 1982).
Eighth Circuit
finds mail restriction between inmate and former correctional officer
unconstitutional. Stevens v. Ralston, 674 F.2d 759 (9th Cir. 1982).
California
federal court finds state prison rule prohibiting prisoner correspondence with
nonrelative minors to be unconstitutional. Hearn v. Morris, 526 F.Supp. 267
(E.D. Ca. 1981).
Federal district
court in Pennsylvania grants summary judgment for prison officials due to lack
of evidence showing that they illegally opened prisoner's mail. West v.
Robinson, 519 F.Supp. 451 (E.D. Pa. 1981).
Appeals court
allows prison officials to withhold magazines which showed detailed gun
mechanisms; remands case on issue to whether legal mail must be opened in the
presence of the prisoner. Sherman v. MacDougall, 656 F.2d 528 (9th Cir. 1981).
California court
rules that husband and wife prisoners had no reasonable expectation of privacy
as to interspousal communications. People v. Rodriguez, 168 Cal.Rptr. 92 (App.
1980).
Federal appeals
court affirms Angola. Louisiana warden and State Secretary of Corrections
refusal to permit prison newsletter to be distributed to inmates. Vodicka v.
Phelps, 624 F.2d 569 (5th Cir. 1980).
Inmate had no
privacy right in letter given to guard for delivery to second inmate. Thomas v.
State, 404 A.2d 257 (Md. App. 1979).
Restrictions on
mail privileges were unconstitutional; restrictions on law students and
paralegals as inmate legal counsel also were improper. Procunier v. Martinez,
416 U.S. 396, 94 S.Ct. 1800 (1974).
Nonlegal: Outgoing
A
federal district court judge ruled that a county jail that adopted a rule that
restricted incoming and outgoing personal inmate mail to only postcards was
unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The court ruled that it violated
the rights of the inmates themselves, individuals who write to them, and the
publishers of the Prison Legal News publication. The interest in keeping
contraband out of the facility and reducing costs in screening mail did not
outweigh the free speech rights involved. Prison Legal News v. Columbia County,
#3:12-cv-00071, 2013 U.S. Dist. Lexis 58669 (D. Ore.).
Prisoners convicted of sex crimes were kept
incarcerated long after their sentences ended, remaining in state custody as
sexually violent civil detainees. They claimed that their civil rights were
violated because they were denied the ability to have face to face social
opportunities with civil detainees in other pods of their facility and because
they were not allowed to contact other civilly committed detainees using the
facility's own internal mail system, instead being required to use the U.S.
mail for that purpose. The limits on direct socialization were justified as a
security measure. Due process did not require input from health professionals
before restrictions were put on the in-person association opportunities of the
detainees. There was no violation of First Amendment rights in requiring the
plaintiffs to use the U.S. mail rather than the facility's internal mail system
to communicate with other civil detainees. Lane v. Williams, #11-3373, 2012
U.S. App. Lexis 17922 (7th Cir.).
A prisoner convicted of terrorism-related crimes
involving the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kenya was subjected to
special administrative measures forbidding him from receiving two Arabic
language newspapers he had previously received and prohibiting him from
corresponding with his nieces and nephews. A federal appeals court rejected a
claim that these measures violated his First Amendment rights. The government's
interestin restricting his rights was reasonably related to legitimate
penological interests, and the prisoner had the burden of showing that there
was no legitimate, rational basis for the increased communication restrictions.
Given the belief that the prisoner had a "proclivity for violence"
based on his conviction for acts of terrorism, the warden expressed the concern
that “communications or contacts with persons could result in death or serious
bodily injury to persons.” This was a rational basis for the restrictions. The
restriction on the Arabic newspaper was similarly upheld as justified by the
need to prevent him from receiving information and instructions in a manner
difficult to detect. Al-Owhali v. Holder, #11-1274, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 16401
(10th Cir.).
A Florida administrative regulation that prohibited
prisoners from soliciting for pen pals did not violate the First Amendment and
was reasonable. It was adopted for the legitimate purpose of preventing
prisoners from making use of pen pal solicitation services to commit fraud. The
rule did not prohibit prisoners from corresponding with a pen pal, but merely
from advertising to solicit obtaining one. Florida prison officials permit one
pen pal service to operate in its facilities because it does one-to-one
matching between prisoners and non-prisoner pen pals, rather than circulating
lists of prisoners and non-prisoners available as pen pals. This was believed
to decrease the likelihood of scams "because an inmate does not receive a
list with numerous individuals’ names, addresses, and contact
information." Perry v. Department of Corrections, #11-10694, 2011 U.S.
App. Lexis 25561 (11th Cir.).
A prison's prohibition on inmates advertising for
pen pals or receiving information from publications and websites that publish
such ads did not violate their rights under the First Amendment. The regulation
was reasonably related to a legitimate objective of preventing inmates from
committing fraud through the mail. Woods v. Commissioner of the Indiana Dept.
of Corrections, #10-3339, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 14732 (7th Cir.).
A pretrial detainee under an Illinois Sexually
Violent Person Act claimed that his constitutional privacy rights and rights
under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA),
Pub. L. #104-191, 110 Stat. 1936 (1996), were violated by the
"stigmatizing effects" of the stamp that the facility affixes to his
outgoing mail, which reads "sexually violent person treatment center."
Rejecting this claim, a federal appeals court ruled that the prisoner's claim
was essentially for defamation, and that the prisoner's "interest in his
reputation, by itself, is not protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." As
to any claim under HIPAA, the trial court correctly found that the statute does
not provide for a private right of action. Carpenter v. Phillips, #10-3176,
2011 U.S. App. Lexis 9417 (Unpub. 7th Cir.).
A Wyoming prisoner, as chairman of the Wyoming
Prisoners' Association and an official of the Wyoming chapter of the Citizens
United for Rehabilitation, published a combined newsletter for these
organizations, reporting on legal issues of interest to prisoners. He shipped
693 copies of the newsletter together in one box addressed to the Wyoming State
Penitentiary. Inside the box, each newsletter was addressed to an individual
prisoner. The warden refused to deliver the newsletters to prisoners, while he
would deliver newsletters which were individually addressed and sent. A
federal appeals court upheld as constitutional the rule in question, which
prohibited all bulk mailings, regardless of content. The policy was reasonably
related to prison security, and unsolicited bulk mailings could increase
tensions and result in disruptive behavior. The policy did not violate the
plaintiff's First Amendment rights. Parkhurst v. Lampert, #10-8078, 2011 U.S.
App. Lexis 6567 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
A Wisconsin prisoner claimed that a
correctional officer and a captain violated his First Amendment and due process
rights by intercepting and confiscating his outgoing letter. Upholding summary
judgment for the defendants, the appeals court ruled that these actions were
proper in that the letter appeared to be an attempt to put the prisoner's correspondent
in contact with the leader of a gang known as the Traveling Vice Lords. The
mail was being monitored because the prisoner was believed to have a
significant role in that gang. Release of the letter would have undermined the
prisoner's rehabilitation and signaled that the prison tolerated gang activity,
as well as increasing tensions in the prison between members of that gang and
unaffiliated prisoners, the defendants contended. The prisoner was subsequently
sanctioned after a hearing for writing the letter, and the letter then
classified as contraband and destroyed. These actions were reasonable
restrictions on the prisoner's First Amendment rights. Williams v. Mierzejewski,
#10-2022, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 24372 (Unpub. 7th Cir.).
A Nebraska prisoner attempted to send drawings of
a marijuana leaf and a bare-breasted woman to his mother and to a communist
group, the "Maoist Internationalist Movement." When prison officials
prevented him from doing so, he sued, claiming a violation of his First Amendment
rights. The trial court directed a verdict in the prisoner's favor, awarded him
nominal damages of $1, and ordered two defendants to pay approximately $25,000
in attorneys' fees. The appeals court rejected the defendants' defenses of
failure to exhaust available administrative remedies and mootness as not
properly preserved for appeal. It also upheld a determination that the
prisoner, since he was awarded nominal damages, was a prevailing plaintiff,
entitled to an award of attorneys' fees. But the appeals court also held that
42 U.S.C. Sec. 1997e(d)(2) of the Prison Litigation Reform Act limited the
award of attorneys fees to 150% of the damages awarded, or $1.50, since no
injunctive or declaratory relief was awarded. Keup v. Hopkins, #09-1079, 2010 U.S.
App. Lexis 4538 (8th Cir.).
A prisoner claimed that he suffered an Eighth
Amendment violation because prison employees verbally harassed him, tried to
place him in a chow hall seating area where he could have been attacked by
other prisoners, and "stared" at him for approximately five minutes
when he was tied down to his bed wearing only boxer shorts, with his legs
spread apart. Finding these claims frivolous, the court noted that he did not
claim physical injury, did not show any indication of a use of excessive force,
and did not show that a defendant made any comments to him of a sexual nature.
The court also rejected the prisoner's First Amendment claims regarding the
handling of his mail, finding that allegedly crossing out the Zip code on a letter
he mailed did not amount to a constitutional violation, and that he suffered no
harm from the alleged opening of his legal mail. Crownhart v. Sullivan,
#08-1483, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 21814 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
A prisoner claimed that a letter he wrote to his
girlfriend had been "stolen" from his cell and improperly used in a
disciplinary hearing against him. The court pointed out that the Fourth
Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures did not apply
in the context of a prison cell. The prisoner failed to show any interference
with his right of reasonable correspondence with the outside world. He failed
to show any due process violation, as the sanctions imposed were not an
atypical or significant hardship. Perry v. Lackawanna County, #09-2403, 2009
U.S. App. Lexis 20781 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
A prisoner claiming that prison officials refused
to allow him to send out legal mail established nothing other than that they
determined that certain mail he wished to send did not qualify as legal mail
under existing regulations, and rejected other items he wished to send because
he failed to comply with those regulations. He failed to show that he suffered
any prejudice from the rejection of the mail, so that his claim for denial of access
to the courts was not viable. Finally, prison officials were entitled to
qualified immunity on the prisoner's claim that they erroneously determined
that his outgoing mail did not qualify for free postage, in the absence of any
"invidious intent." Wesolowski v. Washburn, #03-CV-6424, 2009 U.S.
Dist. Lexis 42297 (W.D.N.Y.).
A prisoner's right to religious freedom was not
violated by a Texas correctional policy prohibiting prisoners from
"decorating" their outgoing mail envelopes. In this case, the prisoner
was prevented from putting religious messages on the outside of his envelopes.
The court held that communicating such messages to people handling his mail, as
opposed to those to whom the mail was addressed, was a "benefit" not
generally available, and that restricting such communication did not
substantially burden the prisoner's exercise of his religion. There was no
restriction on the prisoner's ability to state religious messages inside the
envelope. Smithback v. Crain, #07-10274, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 4493 (Unpub. 5th
Cir.).
A prisoner had no protected First Amendment right
to make disrespectful comments about prison officials in his outgoing mail to
them, calling them "evil," "unmerciful," and
"inhumane." The court rejected the prisoner's claim that prison
officials had unlawfully retaliated against him for his statements, in
violation of his First Amendment rights. Huff v. Mahon, #08-6568, 2009 U.S.
App. Lexis 3605 (Unpub. 4th Cir.).
Prisoner's claims concerning the opening and
reading of his mail by prison authorities was frivolous, as these actions did
not violate his constitutional rights. He also could not pursue a
constitutional claim regarding the alleged deprivation of his SSI benefits
check, because there were adequate post-deprivation remedies available under
Texas state law for deprivations of property. Malone v. Pedigo, #07-11025, 2008
U.S. App. Lexis 13006 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
A prisoner failed to present evidence to
dispute prison officials' argument that requiring him to place his name of
conviction on outgoing mail, rather than his current legal name, which he had
changed for religious reasons, was a policy that furthered prison order.
Barring him from instead using his legal name did not violate his First
Amendment right to practice his religion. Ghashiyah v. Litscher, #07-3670, 2008
U.S. App. Lexis 10729 (Unpub. 7th Cir.).
Prisoner failed to show that he suffered any
injury because of the prison's failure to deliver mail on Saturday, or from his
inability to go to the law library on the day he was notified of a filing
requirement in a pending legal case. The court also noted that it was
established by prior caselaw that the prisoner's nonprivileged outgoing mail
could be opened and inspected. Caldwell v. Beard, #08-2432, 2008 U.S. App.
Lexis 27027 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
Prisoner stated a possible claim for violation of
his First Amendment rights based on the alleged failure of jail officials to
process his outgoing mail. Further proceedings were also needed on his claim
that they prevented him from taking his legal mail to a state hospital while
confined there, as an inquiry was needed as to whether that action was
reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Brown v. Saline County
Jail, #08-3145, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 26066 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
Trial court should not have dismissed a
prisoner's lawsuit claiming that his First Amendment rights were violated when
prison officials allegedly censored his outgoing mail and cited him for
violating prison disciplinary rules by using offensive and vulgar racist
language describing prison officials. The trial judge could not decide, on the
basis of merely the pleadings, whether the actions taken furthered substantial
governmental interests or went no further than needed to protect those
interests. Barrett v. Belleque, #06-35667, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 20087 (9th
Cir.).
Prisoner's claim's concerning the alleged
"censorship" of his correspondence with the media was properly
dismissed when he failed to specify who engaged in the alleged censorship, and
what the "censorship' consisted of. The court also properly rejected the
prisoner's claim concerning alleged denial of access to the law library when he
failed to show that this interfered with his ability to pursue a particular
legal claim. While he mentioned an adoption case, he did not state that his
parental rights were at stake in the case. Shupe v. Morganflash, #07-8087, 2008
U.S. App. Lexis 18588 (10th Cir.).
Trial court improperly failed to recognize that a
prisoner could have a First Amendment right to make "unflattering"
statements to prison staff members in outgoing mail to his parents. The court
should have analyzed whether the letters in question, which were allegedly
censored and/or seized, fell within any identifiable categories of mail
presented a threat to security and order. The court ordered further proceedings
on the prisoner's claims concerning his personal correspondence, as well as on
claims that he faced retaliation for statements made in the letters. Berenguel
v. Bell, #07-10066, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 13597 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
Prison officials were not entitled to dismissal
of prisoner's claims that they violated his First Amendment rights to freedom
of religion and freedom of speech in refusing to mail 13 letters he tried to
send to Baptist churches and ministers to seek prayer partners and religious
pen pals. These actions were taken to enforce a rule barring correspondence
soliciting or advertising for "money, goods or services," including
seeking pen pals. Prison officials, in the trial court, failed to offer any
explanation of the reason for the rule or what governmental interest it was
advancing. While they might yet justify the rule and their actions, they had
failed, to date, to do so, as a result of which the dismissal of the case was
premature. Adamson v. McDonough, #06-12579, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 28969 (11th
Cir.).
A Muslim inmate who was an Egyptian citizen
failed to show that the vegetarian meal plan offered him violated any of his
personal religious beliefs, and a nutritional analysis of the food offered
indicated that it satisfied recommended dietary allowances. Additionally, the
plan offered was created after consultation with a Muslim clergyman. The court
also found that the prisoner did not have an unqualified or absolute right to
send confidential mail from the prison to the Egyptian embassy or consulate, so
that the alleged refusal to allow him to do so could not be the basis of a
civil right claim. Sefeldeen v. Alameida, #05-15809, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 13508
(9th Cir.).
Texas prisoner failed to produce sufficient
evidence to pursue a claim that a correctional officer and mailroom supervisor
improperly interfered with his outgoing mail complaining about alleged defects
in the grievance procedures at the prison. Merely showing that his mail had
been opened did not, by itself, state a constitutional claim. Henderson v.
Johnson, #04-50540, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 24900 (5th Cir.). [N/R]
Disciplinary determination that prisoner violated
a disciplinary rule prohibiting sending outgoing mail containing material for
persons other than the addressee on the envelope overturned when there was no
evidence in the record that the prison superintendent had authorized the opening
and reading of his mail. Under a New York administrative regulation, such a
mail watch is permitted when the superintendent of a facility reasonably
believes that the mail may threaten institutional safety or security or the
safety of any person. Keesh v. Smith, #99196, 2006 N.Y. App. Div. Lexis 11510
(3rd Dept.). [N/R]
Prison officials, in preventing inmate from
mailing out a copy of an internal investigation report concerning his escape
attempt, violated his First Amendment rights, when the report had been properly
obtained through discovery in a criminal case, and was available to the public
in the court files of both the criminal prosecution and the prisoner's civil
rights lawsuit. Arnett v. Markel, #5-04-0082, 845 N.E.2d 752 (Ill. App. 2006).
[2006 JB Jul]
Prison rules limiting inmates to one free stamp a month
for non-legal mail, and prohibiting them from receiving stamps in the mail from
friends and family did not violate prisoner's rights and was reasonably related
to legitimate security concerns. Johnson v. Goord, #03-249, 2006 U.S. App.
Lexis 9887 (2d Cir.). [2006 JB Jun]
While a prisoner stated a claim under the First
Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act
(RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000cc, for money damages and injunctive relief based
on refusal to allow him to use his Islamic religious name to send or receive
mail, trial court declined to issue a preliminary injunction requiring that he
be allowed to use that religious name on his mail because the merits of his
claims were "tenuous," and he could obtain damages if he prevailed.
Further, any harm he suffered was not "irreparable," since he could
still receive mail under his incarceration name, and could use his religious
name inside the mail. Shidler v. Moore, #3:05-CV-804, 409 F. Supp. 2d 1060
(N.D. Ind. 2006). [N/R]
Prisoner's allegation that a prison official
violated his constitutional right to send and receive email was
"conclusory" and insufficient to support a federal civil rights
claim. Al-Hizbullahi v. Nimrod, #03-17340, 122 Fed. Appx. 349 (9th Cir. 2005).
[N/R]
Censorship of a prisoner's outgoing mail under a
Wisconsin regulation on the basis that it was believed to contain
"encoded" references to gang activities did not violate his free
speech rights. Koutnik v. Brown, #04-C-911, 396 F. Supp. 2d 978 (W.D. Wis.
2005). [N/R]
Federal government was entitled to sovereign
immunity in prisoner's lawsuit claiming that his books and manuscript, mailed
to his home by prison officials, were lost. While he claimed that this was due
to negligence by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and post office, an
exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(b),
2680(b) for "loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or
postal matters" barred liability. Georgacarakos v. U.S., #04-1363, 420
F.3d 1185 (10th Cir. 2005). [N/R]
Prison did not violate inmate's rights by
limiting his ability to correspond with family members in Spanish. Prisoner was
fluent in English, and was allowed to correspond in Spanish with a family
member who only knew that language. Rule limiting correspondence in foreign
languages, subsequently abandoned, had been reasonably related to legitimate
security concerns. Ortiz v. Fort Dodge Correctional Facility, #03-1868, 2004
U.S. App. Lexis 10200 (8th Cir.).[2004 JB Jul]
Prisoner's lawsuit alleging that prison officials
tampered with his outgoing mail was insufficient to state a claim and
frivolous, when it was clearly shown that his mail was actually sent out and
that he even received responses, in many instances, from courts to which he
sent correspondence. Smith v. Bruce, #04-3043, 103 Fed. Appx. 342 (10th Cir.
2004). [N/R]
Prison officials actions in preventing an
inmate from corresponding with a former prisoner with whom he had formed a
romantic attachment did not violate his rights. Nasir v. Morgan, #01-2519 ,
2003 U.S. App. Lexis 24013, 350 F.3d 366 (3rd Cir.) [2004 JB Jan]
New York prisoner's claim that correctional
employees deliberated tampered with his mail, including both incoming and
outgoing legal, personal, and political mail, without cause or justification,
adequately asserted a claim for violation of his First Amendment rights. Nash
v. McGinnis, 315 F. Supp. 2d 318 (W.D.N.Y. 2004). [N/R]
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]
There was substantial evidence to support a
finding of guilt of a prison disciplinary offense of harassment based on the
action of the prisoner, a convicted rapist, in sending an unsolicited 4-1/2
page letter to a female employee in a college registrar's office. Prisoner only
knew of the employee because she had responded to his earlier letter in which
he requested a copy of his transcript, and the letter he then sent contained
repeated use of sexual innuendo, requests for personal information and intimate
details, and a "suggestion of in-person contact in the near future."
Van Bramer v. Selsky, 758 N.Y.S.2d 170 (A.D. 3d 2003). [N/R]
Evidence was sufficient to find prisoner guilty
of violating correctional correspondence procedures when there was testimony
that he had previously been notified that his cousin, to whom he mailed a
letter, had been added to his "negative correspondence list." Even if
prisoner was correct that the addition of the name to the list was
unauthorized, he was not entitled to ignore the listing and mail the letter.
Gibson v. Goord, 741 N.Y.S.2d 577 (A.D. 2002). [N/R]
A jail employee's alleged accidental opening of
pretrial detainee's legal mail outside of his presence was insufficient to
constitute a violation of his First Amendment rights. Appeals court also finds
no violation of First Amendment rights in actions preventing detainee from
sealing his outgoing personal mail because of jail policy of inspecting such
mail for security risks. Beese v. Liebe, #02-1401, 51 Fed. Appx. 979 (7th Cir.
2002). [N/R]
Prisoner failed to present any evidence that
prison employees, rather than the postal system, were responsible for the
failure to deliver his outgoing or incoming mail. Further, one specific
incident where he allegedly did not receive the full contents of a letter from
his wife was "such a random and isolated incident" that it was
"insufficient to establish" a constitutional violation. Okoro v.
Scibana, #02-1439, 63 Fed. Appx. 182 (6th Cir. 2003).[N/R]
275:166 Pre-trial detainee retained some privacy interest
in the contents of his incoming and outgoing non- legal correspondence, but
trial court declines to apply exclusionary rule to suppress evidence discovered
during reading and copying of his correspondence pursuant to warrant; remedy
for allegedly overbroad copying of personal correspondence was the sealing of
material which was not incriminating. U.S. v. Heatley, 41 F.Supp.2d 284
(S.D.N.Y. 1999).
278:23 Prison
warden did not violate inmate's rights by routinely opening and inspecting his
outgoing mail for contraband; plaintiff prisoner's attempt to mail a homemade
knife out in one such letter "underscored" the need to conduct such
inspections for legitimate security reasons. Altizer v. Deeds, #97-7111, 191
F.3d 540 (4th Cir. 1999).
267:37 Federal
appeals court rules that prisoner on death row, convicted of murdering police
officer, was entitled to injunction against enforcement of rule prohibiting him
from carrying on "business or profession" of writing articles and
books; prison allowed another inmate to publish and promote a novel, and did
not show that plaintiff prisoner's writings burdened prison resources or
threatened security; special scrutiny to prisoner's legal correspondence was
improper. Abu-Jamal v. Price, # 96-3756, 154 F.3d 128 (3rd Cir. 1998).
258:86 N.Y.
correctional policy limiting the number of stamps that prisoners can buy each
month to send non-legal mail was reasonably related to legitimate penological
goals. Davidson v. Mann, 129 F.3d 700 (2nd Cir. 1997).
259:100 Prison
officials had good cause to open and inspect prisoner's outgoing correspondence
to his wife when it had insufficient postage and therefore was reclassified as
incoming correspondence. Minigan v. Irvin, 977 F.Supp. 607 (W.D.N.Y. 1997).
236:123
Prisoner's right to use his legally adopted religious name on outgoing mail together
with his committed name was clearly established in 1990, federal appeals court
rules, and prison officials were not entitled to qualified immunity for
allegedly punishing him for doing so; notary, however, was entitled to
qualified immunity for refusing to notarize document when signature presented
did not match prison identification shown. Malik v. Brown, 71 F.3d 724 (9th
Cir. 1995).
236:115 Co.
jail's complete lack of law library or legally trained personnel to assist
prisoners did not violate constitutional rights of prisoner confined there for
brief 18 day period, in absence of any showing of prejudice to prisoner's legal
claims; federal appeals court also upholds correctional officials' inspection
of prisoner's outgoing non-legal mail. Beville v. Ednie, 74 F.3d 210 (10th Cir.
1996).
[N/R] Prisoner
did not show that prison mail supervisor failed to process his mail for
delivery; supervisor entitled to qualified immunity. Treff v. Galetka, 74 F.3d
191 (10th Cir. 1996).
233:70 Federal
prison officials refusal of request by two inmates, who claimed common law
marriage, to correspond with each other did not violate their First Amendment
right when state in which inmates had lived does not recognize "common
law" marriages. Howard v. Keohane, 898 F.Supp. 459 (E.D.Ky. 1995). »
Editor's Note: Also see Farrell v. Peters, 951 F.2d 862 (7th Cir. 1992) (First
Amendment was not violated when an Illinois state prisoner was denied
permission, pursuant to state Department of Corrections policy, to correspond
with his alleged common-law wife, an Illinois state prisoner in another
Illinois prison).
229:8
"Cursory visual inspection" of contents of envelope Nevada inmate
wanted to send to state Attorney General did not violate inmate's rights; regulation
providing for inspection served legitimate security interest. Giano v.
Senkowski, 54 F.3d 1050 (2d Cir. 1995).
234:87 Change of
policy eliminating provision of free postage for inmates' non-legal
correspondence did not violate inmate's First Amendment rights. Dawes v. D.S.P.
Carpenter, 899 F.Supp. 892 (N.D.N.Y. 1995).
225:140 Prison
policy requiring inmate with new religious name to also use his
"committed" name on all correspondence incoming and outgoing did not
violate prisoner's rights. Fawaad v. Herring, 874 F.Supp. 350 (N.D. Ala. 1995).
Photocopying of
prisoner's outgoing non-legal correspondence to give to state law enforcement
agency investigator who feared they were planning to intimidate or murder
witnesses in an upcoming trial did not violate prisoner's First Amendment free
speech rights. Gassler v. Wood, 14 F.3d 406 (8th Cir. 1994).
Wisconsin
correctional officer did not violate prisoner's rights by intercepting letter
he wrote to another inmate concerning prison disturbances; notice to prisoner
that letter was not delivered because it concerned matters which would violate
state or federal law was adequate and notice need not specify which laws the
letter's content might involve. Yoder v. Palmeri, 502 N.W.2d 903 (Wis. App. 1993).
Prisoner who was
disciplined for writing letter to his brother stating that mail room clerk was
a "dyke" who was "hoping to read a letter" talking
"dirty" so "she could go in the bathroom and masturbate"
awarded $102.50 in damages and $25,000 in attorneys' fees for violation of his
First Amendment rights. Loggins v. Delo, 999 F.2d 364 (8th Cir. 1993).
Disciplining a
prisoner for making derogatory statements about prison staff members in a
letter sent to his brother violated the prisoner's First Amendment rights;
prisoner awarded $80 in damages for two days spent in disciplinary solitary
confinement. Bressman v. Farrier, 825 F.Supp. 231 (N.D. Iowa 1993).
Disciplining a
prisoner for making derogatory statements about prison staff members in a
letter sent to his brother violated the prisoner's First Amendment rights;
prisoner awarded $80 in damages for two days spend in disciplinary solitary
confinement. Bressman v. Farrier, 825 F.Supp. 231 (N.D. Iowa 1993).
Prison
regulation barring inmate from mailing sealed letters to private university
containing college transcripts did not violate his constitutional rights or
rights under federal Family Educational and Privacy Rights Act. Stow v.
Grimaldi, 993 F.2d 1002 (1st Cir. 1993).
Prison could
require that inmates' letters to reporters and clergymen be sent to the
mailroom unsealed for purposes of inspection for contraband and proper
addressing. Smith v. Delo, 995 F.2d 827 (8th Cir. 1993).
Blanket rule
prohibiting all correspondence with members of the press was unconstitutional,
but claim for damages by inmate was barred by qualified immunity of prison
officials individually, and Eleventh Amendment immunity of prison officials in
their official capacity. Mujahid v. Sumner, 807 F.Supp. 1505 (D. Hawaii 1992).
Prison's policy
honoring the request of the trustee of a prisoner's estate that the prisoner no
longer be allowed to send mail to him did not violate the prisoner's First
Amendment rights or right of access to the courts. Berdella v. Delo, 972 F.2d
204 (8th Cir. 1992).
Prisoner awarded
$250 for emotional distress suffered because a correctional officer intercepted
his romantic letters to another inmate's ex- wife, copied those letters, and
showed them to the other inmate. Jolivet v. Deland, 966 F.2d 573 (10th cir.
1992).
Use of prison
rule to prevent inmate from writing to his "common law wife," an
inmate at another prison, did not violate the First Amendment when the state in
which they cohabited did not recognize common law marriage. Farrell v. Peters,
951 F.2d 862 (7th Cir. 1992).
Terminating a
male prisoner's correspondence with a female prisoner at another facility after
he wrote a threatening letter to the superintendent of her prison was
rationally related to legitimate security interests. Purnell v. Lord, 952 F.2d
679 (2nd Cir. 1992).
Prison's refusal
to allow inmate to receive an educational brochure about paralegal
correspondence school mailed to him by another inmate violated his First
Amendment rights. Eckford-El v. Toombs, 760 F.Supp. 1267 (W.D. Mich. 1991).
Enclosing a
summary of inmate's record of sex crime offenses in his outgoing correspondence
did not violate his First Amendment rights following prison officials'
discovery that he had been writing to female elementary and junior high
students. Turner v. Ralls, 770 F.Supp. 605 (D. Kan. 1991).
Regulation
allowing opening and inspection of mail to prevent enclosure of correspondence
intended for person other than addressee was constitutional, but prison
official had no reason to believe that inmate was engaging in such practice.
Ode v. Kelly, 552 N.Y.S.2d 475 (A.D. 1990).
Regulations
preventing inmates from sending unopened and uncensored mail to public
officials, government agencies and media representatives violated First
Amendment rights. In the Matter of Rules Adoption Regarding Inmate Mail to
Attorneys, Public Officials, and News Media Representatives, 120 N.J. 137, 576
A 2d 274 (1990).
Random spot
checking of outgoing prison mail did not violate first Amendment rights;
prisoner's statement, in letter to his mother, that he would assault guards if
necessary to obtain a transfer violated prison rule. Gross v. State, 460 N.W.2d
882 (Iowa App. 1990).
Prison officials
did not violate prisoner's first amendment rights by censoring an article
charging inmates are used as "guinea pigs" for experimental drugs.
Malik v. Coughlin, 552 N.Y.S.2d 182 (A.D. 1990).
Inmate was not
entitled to damages for prison official's warning about writing further letters
to his congressmen. Wilder v. Tanouye, 779 P.2d 390 (Hawaii, 1989).
Prison did not
violate inmate's first amendment rights by prohibiting him from publishing
leaflets to be mailed to the general public. Hendrix v. Evans, 715 F.Supp. 897
(N.D. Ind. 1989).
Prison was
justified in returning mail to prisoner unsent when he sealed it and labeled it
"legal mail", but it was not addressed to attorneys or other legal
entities. Willis v. Lane, 738 F.Supp. 1198 (C.C. Ill. 1989).
Rubber stamping
outgoing mail with address did not violate inmate's rights even if it covered
part of religious message on envelope. Rogers v. Isom, 709 F.Supp. 115 (E.D.
Va. 1989).
Regulations
permitting inspection of all outgoing business mail and prohibiting
"kiting" served valid penological purposes. Lucas v. Scully, 526
N.Y.S.2d 927 (N.Y. 1988).
Millionaire
prisoner was entitled to free postage because policy limiting free stamps to
poor inmates was not properly adopted. Jordan v. Department of Corrections, 418
N.W.2d 914 (Mich. App. 1987).
Prison's refusal
to send inmates sealed business mail did not violate first amendment; officials
immune from liability under eleventh amendment. Rodriguez v. James, 823 F.2d 8
(2d Cir. 1987).
Court held that
prison regulations prohibiting inmate to inmate correspondence rule was
reasonably related to legitimate security concerns but that regulations
prohibiting inmate marriages unless warden determines that there were
compelling reasons for the marriage, was not reasonably related to any
legitimate penological objective. Turner v. Safley, 107 S.Ct. 2254 (1987). The
court set forth a four point test to determine "reasonableness". See
107 S.Ct. at 2262.
Fourth circuit
departs from eighth circuit holding and rules inmate-to-inmate correspondence
requires warden's approval. Vester v. Rogers, 795 F.2d 1179 (4th Cir. 1986).
Written letters,
even those that aren't sent, create grounds to discipline for sexual
misconduct. Guy v. State, 396 N.W.2d 197 (Iowa App. 1986).
Policy of
reading intrajail mail upheld. People v. McCaslin, 223 Cal.Rptr. 587 (App.
1986).
Controversial
mail directive ordered resolved. Jones v. Smith, 784 F.2d 149 (2nd Cir. 1986).
Procedure for
receiving property upheld; correspondence regulation unconstitutional.
Champagne v. Commissioner of Correction, 480 N.E.2d 609 (Mass. 1985).
No hearing
required before returning unauthorized interprison mail. Esposito v. Leddy, 618
F.Supp. 1362 (D.C. Ill. 1985).
Officials find
stolen money and drug-smuggling instructions inside inmate's letter. State v.
Dunn, 478 So.2d 659 (La. App. 1985).
Court sets forth
manner in which mail restrictions may be reinforced to disciplined inmates.
Gregory v. Auger, 768 F.2d 287 (8th Cir. 1985).
9th Circuit
allows prison officials to read and search inmate's mail. Nakao v. Campbell,
San Francisco Recorder, California 7/19/85.
No right to
inspect mail to media. Burton v. Foltz, 599 F.Supp. 114 (E.D. Mich. 1984).
Prior approval
necessary for inmates to correspond with each other by mail. Dooley v. Quick,
598 F.Supp. 607 (D. R.I. 1984).
Prison stamp on
outgoing mail upheld. Nachtigall v. Board of Charities and Corrections, 590
F.Supp. 1223 (S. S.D. 1984).
Inmate in
punitive segregation accuses warden of changing mail policy to avoid liability.
Jones v. Sargent, 737 F.2d 766 (8th Cir. 1984).
Current
guidelines regarding routine reading of inmates' general correspondence mail
are discussed. Heimerle v. Atty. Gen. U.S.A., 558 F.Supp. 1292 (S.D. N.Y.
1983).
Eighth Circuit
finds mail restriction between inmate and former correctional officer
unconstitutional. Stevens v. Ralston, 674 F.2d 759 (9th Cir. 1982).
California federal
court finds state prison rule prohibiting prisoner correspondence with
nonrelative minors to be unconstitutional. Hearn v. Morris, 526 F.Supp. 267
(E.D. Ca. 1981).
Federal district
court in Pennsylvania grants summary judgment for prison officials due to lack
of evidence showing that they illegally opened prisoner's mail. West v.
Robinson, 519 F.Supp. 451 (E.D. Pa. 1981).
Ninth Circuit
orders lower court to reconsider postsentencing order prohibiting prisoner from
communicating with 10 individuals. Wheeler v. United States, 640 F.2d 1116 (9th
Cir. 1981).
California court
rules that husband and wife prisoners had no reasonable expectation of privacy
as to interspousal communications. People v. Rodriguez, 168 Cal.Rptr. 92 (App.
1980).
Prison official
who refused to mail letter from prisoner to his girlfriend held to have
violated inmate's constitutional rights. McNamara v. Moody, 606 F.2d 621 (5th
Cir. 1979).
Letter from
pretrial detainee to second inmate admissible in detainee's criminal trial.
People v. Garvey, 160 Cal.Rptr. 73 (App. 1979).
Inmate had no
privacy right in letter given to guard for delivery to second inmate. Thomas v.
State, 404 A.2d 257 (Md. App. 1979).
Eighth Circuit
denies damages to inmate writ writer who was reprimanded as a result of
attempts to communicate with inmate housed in another institution. Watts v.
Brewer, 588 F.2d 646 (8th Cir. 1978).
Restrictions on
mail privileges were unconstitutional; restrictions on law students and
paralegals as inmate legal counsel also were improper. Procunier v. Martinez,
416 U.S. 396, 94 S.Ct. 1800 (1974).
Nonlegal:
Foreign Language Mail
An
inmate claimed that correctional officials violated his rights by censoring his
Chinese-language mail and denying him the ability to make phone calls to China.
A federal appeals court upheld the rejection of his First Amendment claim as
the restrictions were reasonably related to legitimate concerns about security.
The regulations were neutral in furthering a substantial governmental interest
unrelated to the suppression of expression. His equal protection claim was
rejected as there was no evidence that the different treatment of Chinese
speaking inmates from Spanish speaking inmates was motivated by race or national
origin or was a pretext for discrimination. The government was not required to
bear the financial burden of paying for Chinese translations. Yang v. MO Dep't of Corr., #15-2231, 2016 U.S. App. Lexis 14924
(8th Cir.).
A prisoner convicted of terrorism-related crimes
involving the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kenya was subjected to
special administrative measures forbidding him from receiving two Arabic
language newspapers he had previously received and prohibiting him from
corresponding with his nieces and nephews. A federal appeals court rejected a
claim that these measures violated his First Amendment rights. The government's
interestin restricting his rights was reasonably related to legitimate
penological interests, and the prisoner had the burden of showing that there
was no legitimate, rational basis for the increased communication restrictions.
Given the belief that the prisoner had a "proclivity for violence"
based on his conviction for acts of terrorism, the warden expressed the concern
that “communications or contacts with persons could result in death or serious
bodily injury to persons.” This was a rational basis for the restrictions. The
restriction on the Arabic newspaper was similarly upheld as justified by the
need to prevent him from receiving information and instructions in a manner
difficult to detect. Al-Owhali v. Holder, #11-1274, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 16401
(10th Cir.).
Prison did not violate inmate's rights by
limiting his ability to correspond with family members in Spanish. Prisoner was
fluent in English, and was allowed to correspond in Spanish with a family
member who only knew that language. Rule limiting correspondence in foreign
languages, subsequently abandoned, had been reasonably related to legitimate
security concerns. Ortiz v. Fort Dodge Correctional Facility, #03-1868, 2004
U.S. App. Lexis 10200 (8th Cir.).[2004 JB Jul]
230:20 Prohibiting prisoner from corresponding with
relatives in Spanish and Apache languages did not violate his constitutional
rights; English-only rule was based on legitimate security concerns and hiring
interpreters to translate mail would have been unduly burdensome; prison
officials were, however, liable for retaliatory transfer of prisoner for filing
grievances and lawsuits concerning the policy. Sisneros v. Nix, 884 F.Supp.
1313 (S.D. Iowa 1995). [Cross-References: First Amendment; Prisoner Transfer].
217:6 Federal
appeals court orders further proceedings on prisoner's claims for injunctive
and declaratory relief against alleged prison policy of excluding all Japanese
language mail without any effort to screen or translate it; prison officials
were entitled to qualified immunity from damage liability, however, since the
right to receive foreign language mail was not "clearly established."
Kikumura v. Turner, 28 F.3d 592 (7th Cir. 1994).
Federal appeals
court upholds $4,000 jury award to prisoner, whose native language was Lao, in
suit challenging prison rule requiring that all his correspondence, except to
parents and grandparents, be in English. Thongvanh v. Thalacker, 17 F.3d 256
(8th Cir. 1994).
Nonlegal: Sexually Explicit
It was inappropriate to decide that a state prison’s
anti-pornography policy was facially unconstitutional before deciding whether
the policy was unconstitutional as applied to a prisoner. Determining the
as-applied challenge first would reflect the deference owed to corrections
officials and could allow for the fashioning of more limited relief. The trial
court’s as-applied analysis was erroneous because it improperly evaluated the
prisoner’s claims under the prison’s former pornography policy, which had been
superseded by the policy the prisoner challenged. The differences between the
policies were significant, and application of the former policy required
guessing what the prison would or would not have censored. Acting under the 2014 policy,
prison staff rejected a number of items that were mailed to the plaintiff. The
prohibited materials included two erotic novels, Thrones of Desire and Pride and
Prejudice: The Wild and Wanton Edition, as well as four Japanese manga comics
from a series called Pretty Face, nine images of Renaissance artworks depicting
nudity, a book on Matisse and Picasso, and a poster featuring an iconic
Coppertone suntan-girl advertisement. Because the injunction granted against
the 2014 policy was based on the superseded 2000 policy, the ruling below was
vacated for further proceedings. Sisney v. Kaemingk, #16-4313, 2018
U.S. App. Lexis 8059 (8th Cir.).
A man who completed his sentence for
multiple sexual crimes against children was then civilly committed. The staff
at the psychiatric facility to which he was sent seized CDs and DVDs numbering
in the hundreds from him, and he claimed that they took too long before
returning them after screening them for possible sexually explicit material, in
violation of his First and Fourth Amendment rights. Staff members were entitled
to qualified immunity from liability, since it was objectively reasonable to
believe that their actions were legal. The interest of the state in security,
order and treatment of the plaintiff outweighed any property interest the
plaintiff had in quickly getting back his things or receiving a detailed
explanation at the time of the seizure. The court also rejected the plaintiff's
claim that some of his incoming non-legal mail was withheld. He had not shown
that it was withheld without justification, and there was a strong interest in
preventing him from obtaining inappropriate images which outweighed his weak
interest in immediately receiving commercial mail seized for screening. Ahlers
v. Rabinowitz, #10-1193, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis 7035 (2nd Cir.).
A prisoner classified as a sex offender was
denied a number of issues of subscription music publications such as Rolling
Stone, Maxim, Blender, and Spin, based on the presence of photos of females
thought to be sexually oriented, in violation of restrictions on the types of
materials he could receive. He failed to show how such restrictions violated
his First Amendment rights, and the defendants were entitled to qualified
immunity. The prisoner was allowed numerous issues of such publications, and
only those containing materials believed to be adverse to his rehabilitation as
a sex offender were withheld. Frazier v. Ortiz, #10-1133, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis
6381 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
A Wisconsin inmate claimed that his First
Amendment rights were violated by a prison policy denying prisoners access to
commercially produced photos, and limiting to 50 the number of photos inmates
may possess, as well as by prison officials' actions in not delivering to him a
number of photos that he claimed were not within the definition of prohibited
pornography, although they were "risque." A Wisconsin appeals court
found that defendant officials were entitled to qualified immunity, as the
prisoner had no clearly established constitutional right to receive
commercially sold photos, or to possess in excess of 50 photos. The prison had
a legitimate interest in conserving staff resources that would be needed to
screen such photos, and there were alternate ways of prisoners seeing such
things as celebrity photos, such as in magazine subscriptions. Examining the
particular photos withheld, the court also concluded that the majority were
properly withheld under rules prohibiting material that is pornographic or
features nudity. Four photos, however, were improperly withheld under the
pornography ban, prior to the ban on commercial photos being adopted, as they
were found to be mere "swimsuit" pictures in which the swimsuits
fully covered each model's pubic area, and areola. But because the swimsuits
were "skimpy," and composed of thin fabric, and the models were
provocatively posed, they came "so close" to pornography and nudity
that a prison official might reasonably come "to a different
conclusion" when reviewing them, so the individual defendants were also
entitled to qualified immunity on this claim. Lacy v. Huibregtse, #2008AP1870,
2010 Wisc. App. Lexis 568 (Unpub. 4th Dist.).
Massachusetts inmates challenged a state
regulation that banned their receipt of sexually explicit publications or
publications featuring nudity, as well as a correctional policy against
displaying such materials in their cells. Rejecting the plaintiffs' First
Amendment claims, the federal appeals court found that there was a rational
connection between legitimate governmental interests and the means used to
further them. Prison security concerns supported the cell display policy.
Josselyn v. Dennehy, #08-1095, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 12272 (1st Cir. Cir.).
Prison regulations providing for censorship of
sexually explicit material and materials promoting violence were not facially
violative of the First Amendment, as they were intended to promote legitimate
governmental interests. A prisoner could, however, pursue his claim that
officials improperly applied the regulations to exclude publications that were
not inflammatory. He could also pursue claims concerning a prohibition on
publications because they contained posters, stickers, or other free items,
since the defendant officials failed to state their justification for this
prohibition, and the prisoner further claimed that it was unevenly applied,
leading to improper content-based decisions. The defendants also failed to show
why the suggested alternative of removing these items from the publications
would be burdensome. Dean v. Bowersox; #08-1558, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 8477
(Unpub. 8th Cir.).
The fact that a Kansas regulation banning sexually
explicit materials from being mailed to prisoners covered a broader range of
materials in its definition of nudity than regulations at other prison systems
was not a sufficient basis to invalidate it. Strope v. Collins. #08-3188, 2009
U.S. App. Lexis 3713 (10th Cir.).
Federal prisoner failed to show that the Ensign
Amendment, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 530C(b)(6) violated his First Amendment rights in
restricting his access to sexually explicit publications, specifically certain
magazines and a book that were sent to him. Restricting such materials was
reasonably related to legitimate penological interests in security and
rehabilitation. The court did rule, however, that Federal Bureau of Prisons
(BOP) Program Statement 5266.10, Sec. 7 was unconstitutional in allowing a
rejected publication to be returned to the publisher before an administrative
review was completed, and the enforcement of that Program Statement was
enjoined. Jordan v. Sosa, Civil Action #05-cv-01283, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis
53006 (D. Colo.).
Court upholds Massachusetts state regulation
banning all sexually explicit publications and items from prisons. The rule
banned the receipt, possession, and display of almost all materials with nude
or semi-nude images or other sexually explicit content, except in a medical,
educational, or anthropological context. The court ruled that there was a
rational relationship between the rule and the legitimate interest that
correctional facilities had in safety and rehabilitation. Under the rule,
publications were individually reviewed to determine whether their content fell
within the scope of the ban. Moses v. Dennehy, #06-10164, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis
85359 (D. Mass.).
Pennsylvania Supreme Court upholds
constitutionality of regulations prohibiting prisoners from receiving incoming
publications found to be obscene, as well as of statute criminalizing the
importation of such publication into prisons or their possession by prisoners.
Inmates' lawsuit challenged the withholding of Penthouse magazine and several
others available to the general adult public. Payne v. Commonwealth Dept. of
Corrections, J-83-2004, 871 A.2d 795 (Pa. 2005). [2005 JB Dec]
California State Department of Corrections
administrative bulletin banning sexually explicit materials depicting frontal
nudity did not violate a prisoner's First Amendment rights. Correctional
officials properly sought to reduce sexual harassment of female guards and
prevent the development of a hostile work environment and also enhance prison
security. Further, depriving prisoners of such sexually explicit materials did
not impose an "atypical and significant hardship" in relation to the
"ordinary incidents of prison life," and was therefore not a
violation of due process. Additionally, the prisoner did not successfully show
a violation of equal protection rights, as he did not claim that he was treated
any differently than similarly situated prisoners with respect to the
possession of such materials. Munro v. Tristan, No. 03-16770, 116 Fed. Appx.
820 (9th Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Refusal of West Virginia prison officials
to allow prisoner to receive or possess certain books found to be obscene did
not violate his First Amendment or due process rights. Policy applied advanced
legitimate penological interests in security and rehabilitation. Cline v. Fox,
266 F. Supp. 2d 489 (N.D.W. Va. 2003). [2003 JB Nov]
Magazines sent to prisoner through the mails were
obscene despite not showing sexual penetration when they did depict simulated
sexual activity and discharged sexual fluids, but factual issues remained as to
whether prison mail room employees improperly censored or returned to sender
non-obscene letters and photographs sent to inmate by individual female
correspondent and whether some materials sent to him were improperly
"converted" for their "own personal use." Elliott v.
Cummings, #01-3317, 49 Fed. Appx. 220 (10th Cir. 2002). [2003 JB Feb.]
Pennsylvania State Department of Corrections policy
which barred inmate receipt of incoming publications found by a committee of
employees to contain obscene materials did not violate prisoners' rights under
free speech guarantees of the Pennsylvania state Constitution, Article 1, sec.
7, since there is no constitutional protection for obscene materials. Payne v.
Com. Dept. of Corrections, 813 A.2d 918 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2002). [N/R]
289:7 Federal trial court denies summary judgment to
Wisconsin prison officials in lawsuit over regulation under which a picture of
the Sistine Chapel and various other magazines and correspondence was withheld
from prisoners because of depicted nudity or discussion of sex. Aiello v.
Litscher, 104 F. Supp. 2d 1068 (W.D. Wis. 2000).
279:40 UPDATE:
Federal appeals court rules that Arizona county jail system's policy
prohibiting the possession of all material depicting nudity, including such
magazines as Playboy was reasonably related to legitimate penological interests
in protecting employees and inmates against sexual harassment or assault. Mauro
v. Arpaio, #97-16021, 188 F.3d 1054 (9th Cir. 1999).
274:149 Federal
statute barring sexually explicit publications or those featuring nudity from
federal prisons is upheld by appeals court; U.S. Supreme Court denies review.
Amatel v. Reno, #97-5293, 97-5294, 97-5295, 156 F.3d 192 (D.C. Cir. 1998),
cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 2365 (1999).
265:7 Prison
rule prohibiting possession of all material depicting nudity, which resulted in
ban on prisoner receiving Playboy was overbroad and violated First Amendment.
Mauro v. Arpaio, #97-16021, 147 F.3d 1137 (9th Cir. 1998).
253:5 Federal
court strikes down "Ensign Amendment" barring all sexually explicit
publications or publications featuring nudity, including non-obscene ones, from
federal prisons. Amatel v. Reno, 975 F.Supp. 365 (D.D.C. 1997).
256:55 Florida
detention facility did not violate prisoner's First Amendment rights by denying
him access to publications with nude photos when each publication was
individually reviewed by at least three correctional officials before being
rejected, and internal grievance mechanism with three levels of review was
available if prisoner objected. Owen v. Wille, 117 F.3d 1235 (11th Cir. 1997).
239:166
Publisher of "adult" magazine had a constitutional First Amendment
interest in receiving notice and due process when prison officials prohibited
inmate subscribers from receiving issues of the magazine deemed obscene;
federal appeals court orders trial court to fashion "appropriate
remedy." Montcalm Publishing Corp. v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105 (4th Cir. 1996).
229:9 Prison
policy allowing receipt and possession of commercially produced erotic
literature, but barring receipt and possession of nude or semi-nude photographs
of inmates' wives and girlfriends upheld by federal appeals court. Giano v.
Senkowski, 54 F.3d 1050 (2d Cir. 1995).
223:104 Prison
could properly withhold sexually explicit magazine from prisoners based on
assertion that material had a "negative impact" on "security,
discipline, order, public safety, and rehabilitation." Hodges v. Com. of Virginia,
871 F.Supp. 873 (W.D. Va. 1994).
226:152 Texas
prison mail clerk not liable for withholding from inmate publications which
contained graphic descriptions of sexual acts illegal under state law. Montana
v. Patterson, 894 S.W.2d 812 (Tex. App. 1994).
Sexually
explicit materials could be withheld from prisoner based on a finding that they
would be detrimental to his rehabilitation because they would encourage deviate
criminal sexual behavior. Thompson v. Patteson, 985 F.2d 202 (5th Cir. 1993).
Prisoner's First
Amendment rights were not violated by prison's withholding of "sexually
explicit" photographs of women he ordered through the mail. Lambrix v.
Dugger, 610 So.2d 1366 (Fla. App. 1992).
Prison mail
clerk did not violate prisoner's due process rights by confiscating a letter to
him without giving him notice of the confiscation; letter contained threats and
information about prison prostitution activities, and notification would have
interfered with an ongoing investigation of criminal conduct within the prison.
Wilson v. Holman, 793 F.Supp. 920 (E.D. Mo. 1992).
Prisoner's
rights were not violated by regulations precluding his receipt of sexually
explicit material advocating felonious acts such as incest and sexual abuse of
children. Cox v. Embly, 784 F.Supp. 685 (E.D. Mo. 1992).
Failure to
inform prisoner of receipt of obscene mail addressed to him was at most
negligence, which could not be the basis for a federal civil rights lawsuit.
Harris v. Bolin, 950 F.2d 547 (8th Cir. 1991).
Withholding
inmate's mail from organization advocating sex with juvenile males did not
violate first amendment. Harper v. Wallingford, 877 F.2d 728 (9th Cir. 1989).
Federal judge
orders Iowa prison to allow access to "adult" magazines; prison opens
"porno reading room" to comply. New York Times, page 6, February 6,
1989.
Publications
advocating homosexuality banned from prison for reasons of security, unless
they're of a medical or religious nature. Espinoza v. Wilson, 814 F.2d 1093
(6th Cir. 1987).
Commercial nude
photos permissible, but not home snap-shots; pictures depicting homosexual acts
prohibited. Hunter v. Koehler, 618 F.Supp. 13 (D.C. Mich. 1984).
Legal and Otherwise
Privileged:
During a two-year period, the Kankakee, Illinois Detention Center barred inmates from receiving any newspapers. One inmate’s family bought him a $279 subscription to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, a lawyer’s newspaper, to help him with his pending case. Classifying the Law Bulletin as a newspaper, jail officials precluded the plaintiff from receiving it. He challenged the jail’s prohibition and confiscation of the publication and sought to recover the subscription fee. The trial court addressed the broader question of whether the jail’s ban on all newspapers offended the First Amendment, upheld the newspaper ban, and awarded the defendants summary judgment. A federal appeals court vacated, ruling that the trial judge erred in reaching and resolving such a broad constitutional question. The prisoner’s claim was that the Law Bulletin was a legal publication, not a newspaper, and the record was not fully developed as it pertained to the jail’s restriction on legal publications. The court noted that the jail had no law library, and while inmates had access to an electronic database with Illinois legal resources, there was a dearth of material on federal law in the jail. The court further noted that the district court had not addressed the plaintiff’s due process claim. Miller v. Downey, #17-1507, 2019 U.S. App. Lexis 3994 (7th Cir.).
An Idaho prisoner filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming that prison
employees on four occasions had opened legal mail before it was delivered to
him rather than opening it in his presence. He asserted that there was a policy
or custom of ignoring the improper handling of legal mail. The trial court dismissed the complaint at the
pre-screening stage under 28 U.S.C. 1915A. A federal appeals court found that
two of the four claims should not have been dismissed. Prisoners do have a
protected First Amendment interest in having properly marked legal mail opened
only in their presence and a plaintiff need not allege a longstanding practice
of violating his First Amendment rights in order to state a claim for relief on
a direct liability theory. Additionally, a plaintiff need not show any actual
injury beyond the free speech violation itself to state a constitutional claim.
The other two claims were properly dismissed, as the prisoner had not met the
burden of showing that those items were legal mail. Mail from the United States
courts, as opposed to from an attorney, is not legal mail that must be opened
in the prisoner’s presence. Hayes v. Idaho Correctional Center, #14-35078,
2017 U.S.App. Lexis 3851 (9th Cir.).
A
prisoner serving a 65-year sentence for murder placed an order for the death
certificate of the woman he killed. The death certificate arrived in the mail
from the county clerk's office, along with an unsigned note that stated
"There is a place in hell waiting for you, as you must know you will reap
what you have sowed!" Prison staff members confiscated the certificate as
posing a threat to prison safety and security and for having a negative impact
on the prisoner's rehabilitation. A federal trial court upheld this action,
finding that it would decrease the risk that other prisoners would retaliate
against "boasting inmates" such as the plaintiff, and would protect
the victim's family from being identified. A federal appeals court reversed,
except for claims against a staff member not involved in the confiscation. It
ruled that prisoners have a clearly established right to read the mail they
receive so long as it would not infringe on legitimate interests. The prison
needed to show "some evidence" justifying the restriction. While the prison
had a legitimate safety interest in preventing boasting inmates displaying
"trophies," the prisoner claimed that he had a need for the death
certificate in connection with state court post-conviction proceedings, and the
defendants presented no evidence to dispute it. Williams v. Hansen, #15-2236,
2016 U.S. App. Lexis 17183 (7th Cir.).
A death row prisoner stated a claim for violation
of his Sixth Amendment rights when he alleged that a prison guard read a letter
he sent to his lawyer, rather than only scanning it for contraband. He further
alleged that prison officials wrongfully claimed that they were entitled to
read his legal mail, and that he had been chilled as to his ability to
privately consult with his attorney. Because he remained incarcerated and adequately
alleged that such reading could occur again, he stated a claim for injunctive
relief. Nordstrom v. Ryan, #12-15738, 2014 U.S. App. Lexis 15388 (9th Cir.).
A prisoner argued that prison officials violated
his right of access to the courts by confiscating photos that were part of his
trial record that had been mailed to him by his attorney. The reason that was
given for the confiscation was that the photos were sexually explicit. They
were close-ups of the alleged injuries to his minor victim's genitals. A
federal appeals court, upholding the rejection of the prisoner's claim, noted
that the prisoner failed to show that denying him access to the photographs
prevented him from raising a meritorious legal issue in his criminal appeal.
Additionally, opening his legal mail outside of the prisoner's presence, for
the purpose of inspecting it for contraband, did not violate his rights.
Clemons v. Monroe, #10-50629, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 8018 (Unpub. 5th Cir.).
A pretrial detainee under an Illinois Sexually
Violent Person Act claimed that his constitutional privacy rights and rights
under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA),
Pub. L. #104-191, 110 Stat. 1936 (1996), were violated by the
"stigmatizing effects" of the stamp that the facility affixes to his
outgoing mail, which reads "sexually violent person treatment
center." Rejecting this claim, a federal appeals court ruled that the
prisoner's claim was essentially for defamation, and that the prisoner's
"interest in his reputation, by itself, is not protected by the Fourteenth
Amendment." As to any claim under HIPAA, the trial court correctly found
that the statute does not provide for a private right of action. Carpenter v.
Phillips, #10-3176, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 9417 (Unpub. 7th Cir.).
A prisoner claimed that personnel at a county
detention facility violated his rights by losing or keeping from him important
legal documents in his mail that he needed for his defense to probation
violation charges in a criminal case unrelated to his current incarceration.
The lawsuit was properly dismissed, as the prisoner failed to allege that the
improper opening of his legal mail prejudiced his defense, that opened mail was
improperly returned to senders in violation of institutional policies, or that
the policies in place were unconstitutional. Gutierrez v. Torres, #10-2183,
2011 U.S. App. Lexis 5983 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
A prisoner claimed that personnel at a county
detention facility violated his rights by losing or keeping from him important
legal documents in his mail that he needed for his defense to probation
violation charges in a criminal case unrelated to his current incarceration.
The lawsuit was properly dismissed, as the prisoner failed to allege that the
improper opening of his legal mail prejudiced his defense, that opened mail was
improperly returned to senders in violation of institutional policies, or that
the policies in place were unconstitutional. Gutierrez v. Torres, #10-2183,
2011 U.S. App. Lexis 5983 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
A prisoner's lawsuit claiming that a facility had
a policy of requiring prisoners to leave their legal mail with the prison
library staff for review for up to three days to read outside the prisoner's
presence before furnishing them, if indigent, with photocopies of legal
documents they need states a claim for violation of prisoner rights and should
not have been rejected without further scrutiny. Washington v. Davis, #09-2080,
2011 U.S. App. Lexis 6414 (Unpub. 6th Cir.).
A Wisconsin prisoner claimed that prison guards
violated his rights in opening legal mail to him outside his presence. While
many cases hold that this is a violation as applied to correspondence from a
prisoner's attorney, the mail in this case involved communications from courts
and agencies. The prisoner asserted that the opening of such correspondence
outside his presence violated a Wisconsin state statute. A federal appeals
court upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit for failure to state a claim, since
the violation of a state statute, standing alone, is inadequate grounds for a
federal civil rights lawsuit. Guajardo-Palma v. Martinson, #10-1726, 2010 U.S.
App. Lexis 19481 (7th Cir.).
A California prisoner claimed that prison
employees improperly handled his legal mail. But the appeals court found that
he failed to create a genuine issue of fact as to whether the correspondence at
issue really was legal mail, i.e., "specially marked as originating from
an attorney, with his name and address being given," which is required to
receive special handling. Chatman v. Early, #09-15683, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis
15174 (Unpub. 9th Cir.).
A federal appeals court reversed the trial
court's dismissal of a prisoner's claims concerning the opening of legal mail,
denial of access to the law library, and failing to respond to grievances as
moot based on the prisoner's transfer from the county jail. The transfer came
just before the court was to rule on class action certification, with the
prisoner serving as the named class representative. The appeals court found
that the claims of every member of proposed class of detainees were
"inherently transitory" since, at the discretion of state
correctional officials, any class member could be transferred to another facility
at any time. This was shown by the plaintiff's transfer 13 days after he moved
to certify a class action. Additionally, the same claims were likely to recur
with respect to the class, as the lawsuit asserted that the alleged problems
were "pervasive." Further proceedings were therefore ordered on both
the detainee's motion for class certification and the sheriff's motion to
dismiss on grounds of failure to state a claim. Olson v. Brown, #09-2728, 2010
U.S. App. Lexis 2438 (7th Cir.).
A prisoner claimed that a prison guard violated his
rights by reading his legal mail. He failed to establish a violation of his
First Amendment right of access to the courts, since he did not show any injury
to a pending legal claim. The prisoner also failed to show that the guard's
actions created any kind of barrier to his relationship with his lawyer in
violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. There was no procedural due
process violation, as correctional officials provided the prisoner with a
post-deprivation hearing. Stanley v. Vining, #08-2634, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis
8298 (6th Cir.).
A pretrial detainee's claim that jail officials
violated his right of access to the courts by opening his legal mail 15 times
outside of his presence was non-meritorious. Most of his letters were
correspondence with a court, which were not subject to secrecy, and as to the
alleged opening of his correspondence with attorneys, he did not claim that it
had resulted in any detriment to his legal claims. The opening of his legal
mail outside of his presence also did not show any violation of his rights of
free speech and free association. In light of the fact that only one letter was
actually marked as mail from an attorney, opening it, standing alone, did not
show a continuing practice of opening privileged mail. Harrison v. County of
Cook, #09-1747, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 2703 (Unpub. 7th Cir.).
A prisoner failed to show that he suffered any
actual injury based on a prison mailroom officer's alleged failure to properly
handle his legal mail. Blount v. Terry, #5:08-CV-124, 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis
18579 (M.D. Ga.).
Correctional employees were properly denied summary
judgment on claims that they unlawfully opened a prisoners legal mail when
there were factual disputes over whether or not they opened some items, and
whether they disregarded existing prison rules in doing so. Merriweather v.
Zamora, # 08-1570, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 13515 (6th Cir.).
A prisoner claiming that prison officials refused
to allow him to send out legal mail established nothing other than that they
determined that certain mail he wished to send did not qualify as legal mail
under existing regulations, and rejected other items he wished to send because
he failed to comply with those regulations. He failed to show that he suffered
any prejudice from the rejection of the mail, so that his claim for denial of
access to the courts was not viable. Finally, prison officials were entitled to
qualified immunity on the prisoner's claim that they erroneously determined that
his outgoing mail did not qualify for free postage, in the absence of any
"invidious intent." Wesolowski v. Washburn, #03-CV-6424, 2009 U.S.
Dist. Lexis 42297 (W.D.N.Y.).
Correctional officials showed a rational
connection between a new policy regarding legal mail and legitimate safety and
security concerns. The new policy requires courts and attorneys to attach
control numbers to legal mail, and for such mail to be separated from other
mail, and then opened and inspected in a prisoner's presence. There was
evidence that the prior policy was subject to abuse, including the falsifying
of return addresses on non-legal mail in order to improperly receive treatment
as privileged mail. Additionally, there was evidence that suggested that more
inspection by off-site mail inspectors and less inspection by on-site mail
inspectors would result in enhanced prison safety and security. The new policy
did not violate prisoners' First Amendment rights. Fontroy v. Beard, #07-2446,
2009 U.S. App. Lexis 5277 (3rd Cir.).
A federal prison warden was not entitled to
qualified immunity from liability for allegedly failing to give notice to a
prisoner of the rejection of mail from his lawyer--packages which contained
trial transcripts. A due process requirement of notifying a prisoner of the
rejection of letters also applied to packages, regardless of whether such
notice was explicitly required for rejected packages under federal prison
regulations. Bonner v. Outlaw, #07-3676, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 202 (8th Cir.).
Prison official was not entitled to qualified
immunity for allegedly violating inmate's First Amendment rights by allegedly
opening his legal mail outside of his presence on 50 or more occasions. The
right of the prisoner to be present when mail from his attorney was opened was
clearly established. Wappler v. Brevard, Case #4:05-CV-90, 2008 U.S. Dist.
Lexis 90559 (W.D. Mich.).
Prisoner stated a possible claim for violation of
his First Amendment rights based on the alleged failure of jail officials to
process his outgoing mail. Further proceedings were also needed on his claim
that they prevented him from taking his legal mail to a state hospital while
confined there, as an inquiry was needed as to whether that action was
reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Brown v. Saline County
Jail, #08-3145, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 26066 (Unpub. 10th Cir.).
Prisoner's claim's concerning the alleged
"censorship" of his correspondence with the media was properly
dismissed when he failed to specify who engaged in the alleged censorship, and
what the "censorship' consisted of. The court also properly rejected the
prisoner's claim concerning alleged denial of access to the law library when he
failed to show that this interfered with his ability to pursue a particular
legal claim. While he mentioned an adoption case, he did not state that his
parental rights were at stake in the case. Shupe v. Morganflash, #07-8087, 2008
U.S. App. Lexis 18588 (10th Cir.).
In a prisoner's lawsuit claiming that his right
of access to the courts was denied by his transfer from Illinois to a
California facility without his legal materials, summary judgment was properly
granted to certain individual defendants because the prisoner failed to show
that they were personally involved in interfering with his mail or withholding
his legal materials. Walker v. Kelly, #05-56556, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 6737 (9th
Cir.).
On prisoner's claim involving alleged
interference with his legal mail, even if he did not receive notice of a federal
rule of civil procedure and what would happen if he failed to comply with it in
relation to a motion for summary judgment, this was harmless since he had an
actual understanding of the requirements of the rule. Strauss v. Hamilton,
#06-35560, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 6011 (9th Cir.).
While a prisoner had a well-established right to
have properly marked attorney mail opened only in his presence, the plaintiff
prisoner failed to show that the alleged opening of such privileged mail
outside of his presence had caused him any actual injury or compromised his
cases. He failed to show specifically how any legal matters were damaged. The
actual injury requirement, however, only applied to his access to courts
claims, and did not apply to his First Amendment free speech claims, so further
proceedings were warranted on the free speech claims. Al-Amin v. Smith,
#06-15248, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 180 (11th Cir.).
Prison officials were entitled to summary
judgment on prisoner's claim that his right of access to the courts had been
violated by the alleged repeated opening of his privileged mail from his
attorney outside his presence, since he failed to show any actual injury to a
pending court case. Al-Amin v. Smith, #06-15248, 2008 U.S. App.
Lexis 180 (11th Cir.).
Prisoner was entitled to notice when packages of
legal transcripts sent to him by his attorney were rejected and returned to the
attorney for failure to comply with prison regulations. Failure to provide such
notice could be the basis for a Fifth Amendment claim against the warden even
if there had been a reasonable basis for returning the packages. The prisoner's
claim was not barred by the Prison Litigation Reform Act's requirement in 42
U.S.C. Sec. 1997e(e) requiring that an inmate litigant show a physical injury
before asserting a claim for mental or emotional injuries, since he had alleged
that he was prejudiced in legal proceedings by the warden's actions. The
warden's motion to dismiss the lawsuit was denied. Bonner v. Federal Bureau of
Prisons, Civil #03-6347, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 64954 (D. Minn.).
Federal appeals court upholds dismissal of
prisoner's lawsuit over alleged violation of his right of access to the courts
based on the alleged refusal of the prison to advance him funds to use for
postage to mail documents to a court. The prisoner failed to show that he
suffered any injury to his right to pursue claims concerning his sentence or
conditions of confinement from the alleged deprivation. Salkeld v. Tennis,
#07-1776, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 21990 (3rd Cir.).
Correctional policy that allowed the opening of incoming
legal mail outside of a prisoner's presence unless it bore a control number was
not unconstitutional. The policy was rationally connected to a legitimate
penological interest in preventing contraband from entering correctional
facilities disguised as privileged legal mail. The policy allowed a court or
attorney to apply for and use a control number on incoming envelopes to
guarantee that their mail would be opened only in the presence of the prisoner.
Brown v. Pa. Dept. of Corrections, #3 M.D. 2007, 2007 Pa. Commw. Lexis 482
(Commonwealth Court).
Correctional officer was entitled to summary judgment
in prisoner's lawsuit accusing him of violating his right of access to the
courts. The prisoner failed to show that the officer's alleged interference
with his prison mail caused him to suffer any actual injury to his ability to
pursue litigation. Tuzon v. Miller, #05-16234, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 14212 (9th
Cir.).
A Muslim inmate who was an Egyptian citizen
failed to show that the vegetarian meal plan offered him violated any of his
personal religious beliefs, and a nutritional analysis of the food offered
indicated that it satisfied recommended dietary allowances. Additionally, the
plan offered was created after consultation with a Muslim clergyman. The court
also found that the prisoner did not have an unqualified or absolute right to
send confidential mail from the prison to the Egyptian embassy or consulate, so
that the alleged refusal to allow him to do so could not be the basis of a
civil right claim. Sefeldeen v. Alameida, #05-15809, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 13508
(9th Cir.).
While letters to a prisoner from a state's
attorney's office and the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary
Commission (ARDC) concerning issuance of a settlement check in a prior lawsuit
were allegedly opened outside of his presence, this did not violated his
constitutional right when the envelopes were not labeled as legal or official materials.
A requirement in a state administrative regulation that such incoming mail had
to be marked "privileged" in order for a prisoner to have a right to
be present when it was opened and inspected for contraband was constitutional.
Jenkins v. Huntley, #06-3622, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 12303 (7th Cir.).
Prisoner did not show a violation of his
constitutional rights merely by alleging that his "legal mail" was
opened and visually inspected by the prison mailroom staff outside of his
presence. Additionally, since the mail involved was mail from the courts,
rather than from his lawyer, it was not "legal mail" for purposes of
his lawsuit, since it was a public document. Meador v. Pleasant Valley State
Prison, #1:05-CV-0939, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 26505 (E.D. Cal.).
Prisoner's claim that prison officials
negligently mishandled or destroyed his legal mail was insufficient to state a
federal civil rights claim for violation of his right of access to the courts.
The prisoner failed to show that any actual harm to pending litigation resulted
from these actions or that officials' actions were anything more than
negligence. Strong v. Woodford, #CV-04-8596, 428 F. Supp. 2d 1082 (C.D. Cal.
2006). [N/R]
North Dakota prisoner was not entitled to apply
directly to the state Supreme Court for a writ barring a prison from requiring
him, an allegedly indigent prisoner, to, among other things, pay postage and
copying costs for legal documents. Such direct petitions to the state Supreme
Court may not be based on the enforcement of the rights of a private person.
Wheeler v. Schuetzle, #20060074, 714 N.W.2d 829 (N.D. 2006). [N/R]
New Jersey failed to show that it had a
reasonable basis, related to prison safety and security, in opening prisoners'
legal mail outside of their presence. Inmates have a First Amendment interest
in being present when incoming legal mail is opened by prison employees.
Terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, and incidents that fall of transmission of
anthrax through the mail were not sufficient, years later, to support the
continuation of a policy adopted as an emergency procedure. Jones v. Brown,
#03-3823, 04-4426, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 21601 (3d Cir.).[2006 JP Oct]
Prison officials' actions in preventing prisoner from
receiving mail containing legal materials bought for him by a person with a
relationship to another prisoner did not violate his rights. The restriction
imposed was justified by legitimate interest in prevention of extortion,
contraband smuggling, and unauthorized bartering among prisoners assisted by
persons outside the facility. Wardell v. Maggard, No. 05-1210, 2006 U.S.
App. Lexis 29404 (10th Cir.). [N/R]
A single instance of opening a letter from a
prisoner's mother outside of his presence was not sufficient to violate his right
of access to the courts, even if it was legal mail, properly marked, with the
envelope stating "P.O.A." (power of attorney) and that it contained
legal documents from court records. There was no indication of any pattern of
censorship of such mail or any other actions that would impede the prisoner in
accessing the courts. Additionally, a power of attorney does not confer any
right to represent a person in court, so there was no issue of attorney-client
confidentiality, and court documents, if enclosed, were court documents also
not entitled to any confidentiality. Bloom v. Muckenthaler, #93,574, 127 P.3d
342 (Kan. App. 2005). [N/R]
A prison's complete ban on all mail between a
prisoner and his attorney-friend, based on the prisoner being suspected of
engaging in a prohibited paralegal business with the friend was overbroad and
risked chilling the prisoner's access to the courts and counsel. A preliminary
injunction against the ban was therefore granted. Evans v. Vare, #3:05-CV-3CR,
402 F. Supp. 2d 1188 (D. Nev. 2005). [N/R]
Alleged failure of prison supervisory personnel
to properly supervise and train officers in proper distribution of mail to
prisoners was not a violation of a prisoner's rights when he failed to show
that he had been deprived of his mail, that other inmates' possession of some
of his mail caused him any actual harm, or that the alleged violation of the
prison's mail policy prevented him from filing a specific legal document with
the court. Sandoval v. Fox, #04-41251, 135 Fed. Appx. 691 (5th Cir. 2005).
[N/R]
Prison mail room supervisor was not entitled to
qualified immunity when there were disputed issues of fact as to whether she
intentionally did not send the prisoner's legal mail to a court, resulting in
the denial of his request that the court appoint him a lawyer in his
post-conviction proceeding. This conduct, if true, would violate the prisoner's
clearly established right of access to the courts. Geitz v. Overall, No.
04-3999, 137 Fed. Appx. 927 (8th Cir. 2005). [N/R]
The alleged destruction of the prisoner's legal
mail, which he claimed made it impossible for him to timely challenge the
denial of his parole, did not result in any prejudice or actual injury when the
parole board, in his subsequent applications, repeatedly denied him parole.
Defendant prison officials were entitled to summary judgment in prisoner's
lawsuit claiming that the alleged destruction of the mail denied him his
constitutional right of access to the courts. Gilmore v. Goord, #03-CV-6239, 360
F. Supp. 2d 528 (W.D. N.Y. 2005). [N/R]
Prisoner could pursue claim that the failure to
forward his legal mail to another facility violated his right of access to the
courts when it prevented him from responding to a motion for summary judgment
in a pending lawsuit. Prisoner did not have to show that he necessarily would
have prevailed on that motion had he been able to respond, merely that he was
"hindered" from pursuing a non-frivolous claim. Simkins v. Bruce,
#04-3072, 406 F.3d 1239 (10th Cir. 2005). [2005 JB Jul]
Even if a letter from a legal advocacy group (the
"Innocence Project of Minnesota") to a prisoner was protected as
"legal mail," the alleged mistaken opening of the letter outside of
the presence of the prisoner was not a violation of his First Amendment rights
since it was an isolated incident and did not interfere with his right of
access to the courts. The prison employee opening it believed that the group
who sent the letter did not qualify as a legal advocacy group. Additionally,
correspondence from a city police department and the North Dakota Department of
Corrections was not constitutionally protected legal mail. Moore v. Schuetzle,
#A4-01-038, 354 F. Supp. 2d 1065 (D.N.D. 2005). [N/R]
State prison's policy of opening and inspecting
prisoners' legal mail outside their presence in order to detect presence of
contraband, particularly anthrax, was a violation of their First Amendment
rights, but defendant officials were entitled to qualified immunity. Because of
the "uncertainties" created by terrorist attacks on September 11,
2001, reasonable prison officials could have been unclear about the fact that
their conduct violated the prisoners' rights. Allah v. Brown, #CIV. 02-5298,
351 F. Supp. 2d 278 (D.N.J. 2004).[N/R]
Prison mailroom personnel did not violate
prisoner's right of access to the courts even if they deliberately delayed
mailing certain items to the court in his ongoing federal lawsuit, and even if
this delay caused him to miss court deadlines. The prisoner's case was
ultimately dismissed on its merits after a bench trial, and not on the basis of
the missed court deadlines, so that the defendants' actions did not result in
any prejudice to his case. Deleon v. Doe, #03-0093, 361 F.3d 93 (2nd Cir.
2004). [N/R]
New York prisoner's claim that correctional
employees deliberated tampered with his mail, including both incoming and
outgoing legal, personal, and political mail, without cause or justification,
adequately asserted a claim for violation of his First Amendment rights. Nash
v. McGinnis, 315 F. Supp. 2d 318 (W.D.N.Y. 2004). [N/R]
Prisoner's lawsuit alleging that prison officials
tampered with his outgoing mail was insufficient to state a claim and
frivolous, when it was clearly shown that his mail was actually sent out and
that he even received responses, in many instances, from courts to which he
sent correspondence. Smith v. Bruce, #04-3043, 103 Fed. Appx. 342 (10th Cir.
2004). [N/R]
Federal appeals court rules that the issue of
which mail is "legal mail" which should only be opened in the
prisoner's presence, after they request this, should not have been submitted to
a jury, but rather decided by a judge. Jury award of $13,000 is reduced to
$3,000 for the improper opening of three letters from a prisoner's attorney
outside his presence. While mail from courts is also found to be "legal
mail," prison mail clerks were entitled to qualified immunity for the
opening of such letters, since the law on the subject was not previously
clearly established. Sallier v. Brooks, #01-12269, 343 F.3d 868 (6th Cir.
2003). [2003 JB Dec]
Lack of written authorization from prison
superintendent for opening and inspection of prisoner's outgoing legal mail did
not render inspections unlawful when there was a reasonable basis for the
belief that the prisoner was attempting to smuggle his own mail out of the
facility through the use of other prisoner's return addresses on his envelopes.
Tafari v. Selsky, 764 N.Y.S.2d 149 (A.D. 3d Dept. 2003). [N/R]
Prison rule limiting inmates to a monthly
allotment of $10 for postage did not improperly interfere with prisoner's right
of access to the courts. Rule was rationally connected to legitimate interest
in permitting access, on an equal basis, for prisoners, given the limited funds
available. Bronson v. Horn, 830 A.2d 1092 (Pa. Cmwlth 2003). [N/R]
Opening of incoming letter, marked "legal
papers", but suspected of not being from an attorney, outside of the
prisoner's presence, and inspection of it for contraband, which resulted in the
finding of marijuana, did not violate the prisoner's Sixth Amendment right to
counsel or his due process rights, even if it did violate a state
administrative code section. State of Wisconsin v. Steffes, #02-1300-CR, 659
N.W.2d 445 (Wis. App. 2003). [N/R]
Virginia correctional policy limiting prisoner's
incoming general purpose mail to one ounce per envelope did not violate
prisoners' First Amendment rights and served legitimate penological interests
in reducing avenues for smuggling contraband into the prisons. Policy did not
apply to legal, special purpose, educational correspondence, or mail from
vendors or governmental agencies. Hall v. Johnson, 224 F. Supp. 2d 1058 (E.D.
Va. 2002). [2003 JB Feb.]
A jail employee's alleged accidental opening of
pretrial detainee's legal mail outside of his presence was insufficient to
constitute a violation of his First Amendment rights. Appeals court also finds
no violation of First Amendment rights in actions preventing detainee from
sealing his outgoing personal mail because of jail policy of inspecting such
mail for security risks. Beese v. Liebe, #02-1401, 51 Fed. Appx. 979 (7th Cir.
2002). [N/R]
Prison mail room supervisor was entitled to
qualified immunity from prisoner's lawsuit over his failure to send out
outgoing legal mail which was sealed in violation of Michigan Department of
Corrections policy which required prisoners who needed a postal loan to send
out legal mail to submit it unsealed. Supervisor had no reason to believe that
this violated clearly established law, and the prisoner failed to show that he
was prejudiced in his court case by this action, as required to prove a claim
for violation of the First Amendment right of access to the courts. Smith-El v.
Steward, #01-5646, 33 Fed. Appx. 714 (6th Cir. 2002). [N/R]
299:165 Prisoner could pursue claim that his access to the
courts had been violated when documents he needed to attack his criminal
conviction, mailed to him by his mother, were returned, partially destroyed, to
her after delivery to the prison, but could not pursue federal due process
claim when New York state offered an adequate post-deprivation remedy. Jackson
v. Burke, No. 00-0088, 256 F.3d 93 (2nd Cir. 2001).
290:27 There was
probable cause for a warrant to search prisoner's jail cell based on his
alleged statements to a cellmate regarding plans to take retaliatory reprisals
against his inlaws; defendant officials were entitled to qualified immunity on
alleged seizure and reading of a letter from prisoner to attorney. Barstow v.
Kennebec County Jail, 115 F. Supp. 2d 3 (D. Me. 2000).
A jail employee's alleged accidental opening of
pretrial detainee's legal mail outside of his presence was insufficient to
constitute a violation of his First Amendment rights. Appeals court also finds
no violation of First Amendment rights in actions preventing detainee from
sealing his outgoing personal mail because of jail policy of inspecting such
mail for security risks. Beese v. Liebe, #02-1401, 51 Fed. Appx. 979 (7th Cir.
2002). [N/R]
Prisoner could not pursue claim that alleged
"tampering" with his legal mail concerning his ongoing lawsuit
violated his right of access to the courts when it did not have an impact on
the outcome of the case and he managed to receive a settlement that was
satisfactory to him, but he could pursue claims as to whether prison officials
had improperly opened his outgoing legal mail to the FBI and Justice Department
without reason to do so, or had failed to deliver sixteen pieces of mail sent
to him, returning them to senders without justification. Moore v. Gardner, 199
F. Supp. 2d 17 (W.D.N.Y. 2002). [2002 JB Sep]
274:148 Prisoner's rights of access
to the courts and to receive mail were not violated when prison allegedly opened
outside his presence a communication from the state's Attorney General which
was not clearly marked confidential on the envelope. Boswell v. Mayer,
#97-1710, 169 F.3d 384 (6th Cir. 1999).
» Editor's Note:
See also Geder v. Godinez, 8 F.Supp.2d 1078 (N.D. Ill. 1998), rejecting claims
by an Illinois prisoner that the unauthorized opening of his legal mail and
alleged failure to deliver certain mail violated his right of access to the
courts.9 Policy of opening, outside of the prisoner's presence, and reading
incoming and outgoing "grievance" letters to and from governmental
agencies violated prisoner's First Amendment right to petition government for
redress of grievances. O'Keefe v. Murphy, 860 F.Supp. 748 (E.D. Wash. 1994).
267:37 Federal
appeals court rules that prisoner on death row, convicted of murdering police
officer, was entitled to injunction against enforcement of rule prohibiting him
from carrying on "business or profession" of writing articles and
books; prison allowed another inmate to publish and promote a novel, and did
not show that plaintiff prisoner's writings burdened prison resources or
threatened security; special scrutiny to prisoner's legal correspondence was
improper. Abu-Jamal v. Price, # 96-3756, 154 F.3d 128 (3rd Cir. 1998).
253:6
Inadvertent opening of legal mail outside of prisoner's presence did not
establish a constitutional violation; no interference with right of access to
courts when no prejudice to a pending legal action was shown. Gardner v.
Howard, 109 F.3d 427 (8th Cir. 1997).
254:20 Refusal
to allow prisoner to mail sealed letters to government agencies and ACLU in
1980 did not violate clearly established rights; prison officials entitled to
qualified immunity. Davidson v. Scully, 114 F.3d 12 (2nd Cir. 1997).
253:6
Inadvertent opening of legal mail outside of prisoner's presence did not
establish a constitutional violation; no interference with right of access to
courts when no prejudice to a pending legal action was shown. Gardner v.
Howard, 109 F.3d 427 (8th Cir. 1997).
256:51 Opening
or delaying prisoner's outgoing legal mail did not violate his constitutional
right of access to the courts when no actual prejudice in any pending legal
case was shown. Oliver v. Fauver, 118 F.3d 175 (3rd Cir. 1997).
241:6 Refusal to
treat prisoner mail to all state agencies and officials as "legal
mail" was justified by prison interest in security and prevention of
criminal activity, federal appeals court rules. O'Keefe v. Van Boening, 82 F.3d
322 (9th Cir. 1996).
242:21 Boxes of
legal materials, originating from prisoner's attorney and clearly marked legal
mail, qualified as legal mail and should have been examined in the prisoner's
presence, despite the fact that they were delivered to the prison by an
individual, rather than being delivered via the U.S. mail or a private delivery
service such as UPS. Kensu v. Haigh, 87 F.3d 172 (6th Cir. 1996).
247:100 Prison
employee entitled to qualified immunity for denying prisoner loan for postage
for outgoing legal mail unless he agreed to allow her to briefly inspect it in
his presence to make sure it qualified as legal mail. Bell-Bey v. Williams,87
F.3d 832 (6th Cir. 1996).
230:21 Federal
appeals court rules that allegedly repeatedly opening prisoner's incoming court
mail outside his presence would violate his constitutional rights; defendant
prison officials were not entitled to qualified immunity from liability.
Bieregu v. Reno, 59 F.3d 1445 (3rd Cir. 1995). [Cross-references: Access to
Courts/Legal Info; Defenses: Qualified (Good-Faith) Immunity].
229:8
"Cursory visual inspection" of contents of envelope Nevada inmate
wanted to send to state Attorney General did not violate inmate's rights;
regulation providing for inspection served legitimate security interest. Giano
v. Senkowski, 54 F.3d 1050 (2d Cir. 1995).
219:39 Prison
policy of treating letters from state Attorney General's Office to inmates as
ordinary, rather than confidential legal, mail violated prisoner's First
Amendment rights. Muhammad v. Pitcher, 35 F.3d 1081 (6th Cir. 1994).
Prisoner's
lawsuit complaining that three pieces of his incoming legal mail were opened
outside his presence despite being clearly marked "LEGAL MAIL" was
not frivolous; appeals court reinstates suit to determine whether these alleged
actions were part of an "ongoing" course of conduct, as opposed to
isolated incidents. Castillo v. Cook Co. Mail Room Dept., 990 F.2d 304 (7th
Cir. 1993).
Alleged
violation of prison regulation that incoming legal mail should not be opened
for inspection outside of the prisoner's presence did not constitute a
violation of constitutional rights; prisoner's claim that material was removed
from his outgoing legal mail, however, and therefore never reached a court, did
state a claim for violation of his free speech and court access rights. Brewer
v. Wilkinson, 3 F.3d 816 (5th Cir. 1993).
Prison policy
requiring inmate to open legal mail in the presence of a prison staff member
violated 16-year-old consent decree, but federal appeals court orders further
hearings to determine whether consent decree should still be enforced. Kindred
v. Duckworth, 9 F.3d 638 (7th Cir. 1993).
Florida prison
regulation prohibiting correspondence between inmates at different facilities
in the absence of permission did not violate prisoner's right of access to the
courts when applied to prevent him from mailing a pleading in state civil
lawsuit against another prisoner to that prisoner. Hall v. Singletary, 999 F.2d
1537 (8th Cir. 1993).
Prison could
require that inmates' letters to reporters and clergymen be sent to the
mailroom unsealed for purposes of inspection for contraband and proper
addressing. Smith v. Delo, 995 F.2d 827 (8th Cir. 1993).
Prison's policy
honoring the request of the trustee of a prisoner's estate that the prisoner no
longer be allowed to send mail to him did not violate the prisoner's First
Amendment rights or right of access to the courts. Berdella v. Delo, 972 F.2d
204 (8th Cir. 1992).
Inmate's rights
were not violated when his unmarked legal mail was opened and read outside his
presence; prison rules protected attorney- client privilege so long as envelope
clearly identified legal mail. Henthorn v. Swinson, 955 F.2d 351 (5th Cir.
1992).
Blanket rule
prohibiting all correspondence with members of the press was unconstitutional,
but claim for damages by inmate was barred by qualified immunity of prison
officials individually, and Eleventh Amendment immunity of prison officials in
their official capacity. Mujahid v. Sumner, 807 F.Supp. 1505 (D. Hawaii 1992).
Opening and
reading inmate's plainly marked legal mail from his attorney violated his
constitutional rights. Lemon v. Dugger, 931 F.2d 1465 (11th Cir. 1991).
Federal prison
regulation requiring legal mail to be appropriately marked to qualify for
confidential treatment upheld as constitutional by federal appeals court. U.S.
v. Stotts, 925 F.2d 83 (4th Cir. 1991).
Regulations
preventing inmates from sending unopened and uncensored mail to public
officials, government agencies and media representatives violated First
Amendment rights. In the Matter of Rules Adoption Regarding Inmate Mail to
Attorneys, Public Officials, and News Media Representatives, 120 N.J. 137, 576
A 2d 274 (1990).
Prison was
justified in returning mail to prisoner unsent when he sealed it and labeled it
"legal mail", but it was not addressed to attorneys or other legal
entities. Willis v. Lane, 738 F.Supp. 1198 (C.C. Ill. 1989).
Jail, which had
no rule requiring marking of legal mail, violated pretrial detainee's rights by
opening legal mail outside his presence. Faulkner v. McLocklin, 727 F.Supp. 486
(N.D. Ind. 1989).
Loss of two
copies of inmate's appeal brief by mail room was at most negligence and not
actionable. Hines v. Boothe, 841 F.2d 623 (5th Cir. 1988).
Unlike other
types of legal mail, inmate must pay postage costs of material sent to elected
officials; court acknowledges such mail is subject to limited inspections.
Averhart v. Shuler, 652 F.Supp. 1504 (N.D. Ind. 1987).
Prisoner stated
legal claim by alleging that legal mail from Department of Corrections was
opened. Evans v. Jenne, 660 F.Supp. 426 (S.D. Miss. 1986).
Seventh circuit
departs from Fifth Circuit and rules media mail is not privileged mail; it can
be randomly opened and read. Gaines v. Lane, 790 F.2d 1299 (7th Cir. 1986).
Inspection of
all mail sent to court upheld. Royse v. Superior Court of State of Wash., etc.,
779 F.2d 573 (9th Cir. 1986).
Routine inspection
of business mail and mail to media unconstitutional. Milburn v. McNiff, 486
N.y.S. 2d 19 (A.D. 2 Dept. 1985).
Prison officials
ordered to handle media mail like legal mail. Travis v. Lockhart, 607 F.Supp.
1083 (D.C. Ark. 1985).
Officials policy
of opening legal mail not marked "confidential" upheld. Harrod v.
Halford, 773 F.2d 234 (8th Cir. 1985).
No right to
inspect mail to media. Burton v. Foltz, 599 F.Supp. 114 (E.D. Mich. 1984).
Inmate sues mail
supervisor for lost legal mail; no liability to warden. Woods v. Aldworth, 561
F.Supp. 891 (N.D. Ill. 1983).
No Section 1983
liability for unintentional delay of inmate's outgoing legal mail. Guffey v.
Trago, 572 F.Supp. 782 (N.D. Ind. 1983).
Eighth Circuit
denies damages to inmate writ writer who was reprimanded as a result of
attempts to communicate with inmate housed in another institution. Watts v.
Brewer, 588 F.2d 646 (8th Cir. 1978).
Indiana District
Court holds that temporary prison policy of checking legal mail for contraband
does not violate prisoner's Sixth Amendment rights. Owen v. Shuler, 466 F.Supp.
5 (D. Ind. 1977).
Restrictions on
mail privileges were unconstitutional; restrictions on law students and
paralegals as inmate legal counsel also were improper. Procunier v. Martinez,
416 U.S. 396, 94 S.Ct. 1800 (1974).
Postage
A
prisoner claiming that prison officials refused to allow him to send out legal
mail established nothing other than that they determined that certain mail he
wished to send did not qualify as legal mail under existing regulations, and
rejected other items he wished to send because he failed to comply with those
regulations. He failed to show that he suffered any prejudice from the
rejection of the mail, so that his claim for denial of access to the courts was
not viable. Finally, prison officials were entitled to qualified immunity on
the prisoner's claim that they erroneously determined that his outgoing mail
did not qualify for free postage, in the absence of any "invidious intent."
Wesolowski v. Washburn, #03-CV-6424, 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 42297 (W.D.N.Y.).
Federal appeals court upholds dismissal of
prisoner's lawsuit over alleged violation of his right of access to the courts
based on the alleged refusal of the prison to advance him funds to use for
postage to mail documents to a court. The prisoner failed to show that he
suffered any injury to his right to pursue claims concerning his sentence or
conditions of confinement from the alleged deprivation. Salkeld v. Tennis, #07-1776,
2007 U.S. App. Lexis 21990 (3rd Cir.).
North Dakota prisoner was not entitled to apply
directly to the state Supreme Court for a writ barring a prison from requiring
him, an allegedly indigent prisoner, to, among other things, pay postage and copying
costs for legal documents. Such direct petitions to the state Supreme Court may
not be based on the enforcement of the rights of a private person. Wheeler v.
Schuetzle, #20060074, 714 N.W.2d 829 (N.D. 2006). [N/R]
Prison rule limiting inmates to a monthly
allotment of $10 for postage did not improperly interfere with prisoner's right
of access to the courts. Rule was rationally connected to legitimate interest
in permitting access, on an equal basis, for prisoners, given the limited funds
available. Bronson v. Horn, 830 A.2d 1092 (Pa. Cmwlth 2003). [N/R]
259:100 Prison officials had good cause to open and inspect
prisoner's outgoing correspondence to his wife when it had insufficient postage
and therefore was reclassified as incoming correspondence. Minigan v. Irvin,
977 F.Supp. 607 (W.D.N.Y. 1997).
247:100 Prison
employee entitled to qualified immunity for denying prisoner loan for postage
for outgoing legal mail unless he agreed to allow her to briefly inspect it in
his presence to make sure it qualified as legal mail. Bell-Bey v. Williams,87
F.3d 832 (6th Cir. 1996).
234:87 Change of
policy eliminating provision of free postage for inmates' non-legal
correspondence did not violate inmate's First Amendment rights. Dawes v. D.S.P.
Carpenter, 899 F.Supp. 892 (N.D.N.Y. 1995).
Millionaire
prisoner was entitled to free postage because policy limiting free stamps to
poor inmates was not properly adopted. Jordan v. Department of Corrections, 418
N.W.2d 914 (Mich. App. 1987).
Unlike other
types of legal mail, inmate must pay postage costs of material sent to elected
officials; court acknowledges such mail is subject to limited inspections.
Averhart v. Shuler, 652 F.Supp. 1504 (N.D. Ind. 1987).
Deductions for
postage is permissible. Flowers v. Smith, 496 N.Y.S. 149 (A.D. 4 Dept. 1985).
Authorities may
read inmates' general correspondence mail; number of stamps allowed to inmates
established. Meadows v. Hopkins, 713 F.2d 206 (6th Cir. 1983).
Prison
regulations O.K. - reading of mail and limitations on amount of free postage.
Meadows v. Hopkins, 713 F.2d 206 (6th Cir. 1983).