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Telephone Access and Use
Monthly
Law Journal Article: Legal
Issues Pertaining to Inmate Telephone Use, 2008 (2) AELE Mo. L.J. 301.
The highest court in New York ruled that
a correctional facility’s release to prosecutors or law enforcement
agencies of recordings of non-privileged telephone calls made by pretrial
detainees, who are notified that their calls will be monitored and recorded,
does not violate the Fourth Amendment. In this case, a detainee was
charged with multiple offenses and committed to the custody of the New York
City Department of Correction (DOC). At trial, the prosecution sought to
introduce excerpts of four phone calls he made from prison recorded by the DOC
containing incriminating statements. The trial court admitted the recordings
into evidence and an intermediate appeals court affirmed, concluding that the
DOC’s failure to notify Defendant that the recordings of his calls may be
turned over to prosecutors did not render the calls inadmissible. The NY high
court also affirmed, ruling that detainees, who are informed of the monitoring
and recording of their calls, have no objectively reasonable constitutional
expectation of privacy in the content of those calls, and therefore, a
correctional facility does not violate the Fourth Amendment when it records and
monitors detainees’ calls and then shares the recordings with law enforcement
officials and prosecutors. While the ruling came in the context of a criminal
prosecution, the reasoning would also apply in a civil lawsuit. People v. Diaz, 2019 NY Slip Op 01260, 2019 N.Y.
Lexis 266, 2019 WL 722345.
Placing a pretrial detainee in
administrative segregation and restricting his telephone privileges while
allegations of misconduct were being investigated did not violate his due process
rights. The suspected misconduct involved him threatening other detainees in order to
coerce them into using “Speedy Bail Bond Service” and receiving compensation
from Speedy for doing so. The detainee had not met his heavy burden of showing
that defendants exaggerated their response to the genuine security
considerations that resulted in his move. His transfer was for institutional
security reasons rather than for discipline or punishment. Steele v. Cicchi, #14-3127, 2017 U.S. App. Lexis 7844 (3rd Cir.).
A cell
phone was found during a random search at a prison, and the phone's history
showed that a prisoner's son had called that number the day before. The
prisoner was convicted on disciplinary charges and lost good time credits as
well as having other sanctions imposed. A federal appeals court ruled that the
prisoner had adequately exhausted his available administrative remedies,
allowing him to sue, but that the fact that he was convicted of conduct that
disrupts or interferes with the orderly running of the institution rather than
possession of the cell phone, the charge that he was notified would be pursued
at the hearing, did not violate his due process rights. Both charges could be
based on the same conduct--having and using the cell phone. Santiago-Lugo v.
Warden, #13-14384, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 7158, 25 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1158
(11th Cir.).
A prosecutor filed
felony charges against a correctional officer who took his cell phone inside a
facility in violation of departmental policies and Illinois law, making 30
calls from work. Another officer spread the news of this to fellow employees. A
casework supervisor called the prosecutor, urging him to drop the charges and
let the matter be handled in the employee disciplinary process. Internal
affairs learned of this and investigated the supervisor, who was reprimanded
and suspended for five days. He sued, claiming he was subjected to unlawful
retaliation for protected speech. A federal appeals court upheld a ruling that
the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity from liability as no clearly
established rights were violated. Further, the plaintiff had not proven his
case as a matter of law. His speech was not constitutionally protected since
the interests in maintaining workplace order and security outweighed the
plaintiff's interests in expressing his opinion on a work-related prosecution.
Volkman v. Ryker, #12-1778, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 24000 (7th Cir.).
Persons civilly committed to a state sex
offender program failed to show that their rights were violated by the use of
restraints during transport, or unclothed visual body searches. The searches
were justified by institutional security concerns, and the policy of
restraining sex offenders during transport was a valid exercise of professional
judgment. There was no evidence that the defendants were deliberately
indifferent to the plaintiffs' health, safety, and sanitation concerns. There
was also no showing that the alleged improper opening of their legal mail
interfered with their access to the court or that monitoring their phone calls
was not justified by security concerns. Beaulieu v. Ludeman, #11–1845, 690 F.3d
1017 (8th Cir.)
A visitor to New Orleans was arrested for public
intoxication and placed in the local jail just before Hurricane Katrina struck.
He and other pretrial detainees were moved to higher cell tiers when water
began rising in their cells, but in their new location, they were in their
cells for days without water or food. Eventually evacuated by boat to a highway
overpass with thousands of others from local detention facilities, he allegedly
experienced additional thirst, hunger, and heat. The failure to bring him to
court within 48 hours for a probable cause determination was excused by an
emergency situation exception to the general rule, barring his false
imprisonment claim. The failure to give him back his cell phone to allow him to
call his attorney when the jail phone system was overloaded did not violate his
rights under the circumstances because of the dangers of allowing detainees to
possess cell phones. There was no liability for the various hardships cause by
the circumstances of the hurricane. Waganfeald v. Gusman, #11-30081, 2012 U.S.
App. Lexis 5139 (5th Cir.).
A prisoner sued over the allegedly excessive fees
charged by a company providing telephone services to prisoners at a facility.
The phone provider paid the prison 45% of the gross revenues provided. The
federal appeals court ruled that the prison had no First Amendment obligation
to provide any telephone services at all, and also had no obligation to do so
at any "particular cost to users." Holloway v. Magness, #11–1455,
2012 U.S. App. Lexis 1961, (8th Cir.).
A prisoner, whose telephone privileges
were suspended, because of his rule violations, five days before his plea
hearing, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming that this denied him his
Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The days just prior to the plea hearing did
not qualify as a "critical stage" of his criminal prosecution, and he
did not suffer a complete denial of access to counsel during the entire
pretrial period. Further, his rule violations affected security and safety at
the jail. Stamper v. Campbell County, #09-5973, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 5644
(Unpub. 6th Cir.).
A Florida appeals court held that
recordings of inmates' phone calls from jail to their family members and other
third parties were not public records subject to disclosure to the media. While
monitoring of the calls for security purposes was related to official business
of the sheriff's office, maintaining recordings of purely personal
conversations was not. Bent v. State of Florida, 46 So. 3d 1047 (Fla. App. 4th
Dist. 2011).
A New Jersey prisoner claimed that his due process
rights were violated when he was punished by the loss of 207 days good conduct
time for having a cell phone SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card in his cell.
The prisoner failed to present any evidence to support his assertion that he
had been "set up" on the charge. The failure to disclose the contents
of the SIM card to him was not a violation of his rights. He was charged with
possession of the card as contraband, so its contents, such as the identity of
the true owner, the phone number, and the calls made were not relevant to
exonerating him of the charges. Donahue v. Grondolsky, #10-1147, 2010 U.S. App.
Lexis 19097 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
A
new federal law, signed by President Obama on August 10, 2010 prohibits the
possession and use of cell phones and other wireless devices by prisoners in
federal facilities. The law was passed after statistics indicated that the
federal Bureau of Prisons confiscated almost 600 such devices from prisoners in
secure federal facilities, and over 2,600 from prisoners in minimum security facilities,
with some inmates using such phones to direct outside criminal activities.
Anyone convicted of attempting to smuggle a cell phone or other wireless device
into a federal prison can now face up to a year of incarceration. The statute
mandates that a government study on the effectiveness of the law shall be
issued in a year.
A prisoner subjected to disciplinary action
claimed that a "de facto" ban on his telephone privileges violated
his Eighth Amendment rights. The claim was rejected, as he had not alleged that
he had suffered a significant injury or experienced an extreme deprivation.
Thomas v. Drew, #09-7669, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 3077 (Unpub. 4th Cir.).
A Pennsylvania prisoner filed a lawsuit claiming
that a phone company violated various statutory and constitutional provisions
by charging increased local call charges and engaging in price gouging, double
taxing, hidden fees, and selling prepaid phone cards at inflated prices. He
also contended that the Governor's Office of Administration failed to provide
necessary safeguards or oversight to protect prisoners from such practices. The
court ruled that the lawsuit was essentially over issues of prison conditions,
and therefore subject to the requirements of a state Prison Litigation Reform Act.
Under that Act, the lawsuit was properly dismissed, as the plaintiff was an
abusive litigator, having "three strikes" because two prior lawsuits
were dismissed for failure to state a cause of action, and a third prior
lawsuit was dismissed for failure to prosecute. Smolsky v. Governor's Office of
Administration and Globel Tel*Link Corporation, #207 M.D. 2009, 2010 Pa. Commw.
Lexis 114.
A lawsuit claimed that the portion of the charges
for collect telephone calls from inmates paid as a commission to the department
of corrections violated the New York Constitution and was excessive. The
highest court in the state upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit, ruling that the
commissions did not constitute a "tax," the practice of collecting
the commissions was not a taking, and the plaintiffs failed to show the absence
of a reasonable relationship between the commissions and legitimate penological
aims. The court declined to order refunds of the commissions to inmates'
families. The commissions were paid to the department under the terms of
contracts entered into with phone service providers. Walton v. N.Y. State Dept.
of Corr. Servs., No. 149, 2009 N.Y. Lexis 4081 (N.Y.).
The monitoring and recording of a prisoner's phone
calls did not violate the federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec.2510-2522, since
he consented to prison authorities doing so. The subsequent disclosure of
information from the calls for law enforcement purposes was authorized by 18
U.S.C. Sec. 2517. There was also no violation of either the Privacy Act, 5
U.S.C. Sec.552a or the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2701-2711, and
no violation of the prisoner's constitutional rights. Bansal v. Pavlock,
#08-3740, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 23717 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
A disciplinary hearing notice that stated the
date and time when a corrections officer allegedly found a cellular phone in
the prisoner's cell was sufficient and provided enough details to allow the
prisoner to dispute the charges and claim that the phone was not his and that
another prisoner had thrown it in his cell. While details about where in the
cell the phone had been located would have been helpful, the absence of such
details did not mean that the prisoner's rights were violated, as the officer's
statement that the phone was in the inmate's assigned living area, along with a
photo he took of that area provided some indication of this. The prisoner, who
did not claim that he was unaware that possession of cell phones was
prohibited, could not avoid discipline on the basis that he allegedly failed to
receive a memo circulated by the warden explaining this. McGill v. Martinez,
#09-1750, 2009 U.S. App. Lexis 22762 (Unpub.3rd Cir.).
The cost of collect telephone calls placed by
inmates to outside persons, which included a commission paid by the phone
service provider to the New York State Department of Correctional Services, did
not violate the First Amendment rights of the call recipients, when the cost
was not so "exorbitant" as to interfere with their right to communicate
with the inmates. Walton v. N.Y. State Dept. of Correctional Services, #504552,
2008 N.Y. App. Div. Lexis 9558 (A.D. 3rd Dept.).
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
does not waive the sovereign immunity of the U.S. government, so that a
prisoner who is unable to speak or hear could not pursue ADA claims against the
federal government or its employees. The prisoner also failed to exhaust
available administrative remedies on his claim that he faced retaliation for
his grievances concerning the inability of the prison phone system to provide
Spanish translations, so that claim was also dismissed. Fellove v. Heady, Civil
Action No. 3:05CV34, 208 U.S. Dist. Lexis 67586 (N.D.W.V.).
Court rejects prisoner's claim that he was improperly
charged and convicted of disciplinary offenses arising out of the finding of a
cell phone that prison employees traced back to him. Changing the charge in the
charging document to engaging in conduct that disrupted or interfered with
security was not improper, since the prisoner had one week after the charge was
altered to prepare his defense. The hearing officer did not become the
"charging officer" by changing the charging document to reflect the
appropriate charge under current prison policies, nor did this show that he was
not impartial. Greer v. Hogston, No. 08-1142, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 15016
(Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
In a pending lawsuit against prison officials
accusing them of "discrimination," "deliberate
indifference," and "negligence," the plaintiff prisoner asked for
a court order requiring that she be granted four free telephone calls a month,
instead of the two free calls from the prison she was already provided. She
contended that she would use two of the four calls to call her attorney. The
motion was denied, as the court found that the prisoner failed to show that
other prisoners were allowed to make such calls to their lawyers that were not
included in their monthly allotment of free calls. Bell v. Wallace, Civil
Action No. 07-cv-00496, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 9613 (D. Colo.).
New York court rejects claims by family and
friends of prisoners and a non-profit organization providing legal services to
inmates challenging the charges for making collect telephone calls from
prisoners. State correctional officials and a telephone services provider
established a system for collect calls from prisoners under which the
correctional system received a 57.5% commission on all such calls. The court
rejected the argument that these charges were unlawful under state law, or that
equal protection of law was violated under the New York state Constitution. The
court found, for purposes of the equal protection claim that the recipients of
calls from inmates were not similarly situated to other members of the public.
The court also rejected arguments that these charges violated the plaintiffs'
rights to free speech and association under N.Y. law. Limitations on inmate
phone access, the court noted, have previously been ruled not to amount to a
constitutional violation. The right of non-inmates to communicate with
prisoners was limited by the rights that the inmates themselves had. Walton v.
N.Y. State Depart. of Correctional Services, No. 01-04-ST4340, 2007 N.Y. Misc.
Lexis 8605 (Sup. Albany County).
A prisoner disciplined for engaging in a
prohibited third party telephone call at a New Jersey prison had sufficient
written material both from that facility and from a Pennsylvania prison at
which he had previously been housed, to give him notice that the call he made
was forbidden. The use of the Pennsylvania prison's handbook at the
disciplinary hearing, rather than the New Jersey prison's handbook, did not
violate his due process rights. Further, the hearing officer wrote a detailed
report stating the evidence relied on and the reasons for the discipline. Cook
v. Warden, Fort Dix Correctional Institution, No. 06-1054, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis
14772 (3rd Cir.).
Prisoners have no right to unlimited phone access
and the assignment of a prisoner with a history of using the phone to carry out
criminal activity to a security classification restricting his phone privileges
did not violate his free speech rights, and served legitimate interests in
public and institutional safety by lowering the possibility that he would use
the prison phones for criminal purposes. Perez v. Federal Bureau of Prisons,
No. 06-3983, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 8331 (3rd Cir.).
In a lawsuit claiming that the rights of family
members of prisoners and the rights of others were violated by a contract under
which the state correctional department collected a 57.5% commission from the
recipients of collect calls from prisoners, the highest court in New York
ordered further proceedings on alleged violations of the power to tax, due
process, equal protection, and the rights of free speech and association. Such
claims were not untimely, as a statute of limitations did not run until a state
Public Service Commission (PSC) issued an order in October of 2003 approving
the phone rate change in a 2001 contract between the corrections department and
phone vendors. Walton v. New York State Dep't of Corr. Servs., No. 12, 2007
N.Y. Lexis 165.
A federal prisoner's First Amendment rights were
not violated by an increase in the long-distance telephone rates at federal
prisons. Prisoners had no right to any specific rate for their phone services.
Court also rejects equal protection claims since there was no showing that the
plaintiff was treated differently than other prisoners, or that there was a
discriminatory purpose for the difference in rates between international and
domestic long distance rates charged. Harrison v. Federal Bureau of Prisons,
No. 1:06cv1182, 2006 U.S. Dist. Lexis 90646 (E.D. Va.). [N/R]
Prisoner's unauthorized use of a cell phone
violated prison regulations barring actions which circumvented telephone call
monitoring procedures in place at the facility, and the loss of visitation
privileges imposed on him was an appropriate sanction when he had obtained the
unauthorized cell phone from a visitor. Rutledge v. Attorney General of the
U.S., No. 05-3160, 163 Fed. Appx. 120 (3rd Cir. 2006). [N/R]
Prisoner's lawsuit against federal prison warden
reinstated on claims that his rights were violated by prohibition on him
calling his stockbroker to order that stock be sold if the price started
falling. Prisoner also stated a viable First Amendment claim based on refusal
to allow him to buy a book on computer programming. King v. Fed. Bureau of
Prisons, No. 03-2431, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 14092 (7th Cir.). [2005 JB Sep]
Woman who voluntarily accepted collect calls from
inmates at county detention facilities had no claim for violation of equal
protection based on the fact that the county received a 45% commission from the
telephone access providers on such calls. Gilmore v. County of Douglas, No.
04-1325, 406 F.3d 935 (8th Cir. 2005). [N/R]
Prisoner adequately asserted a claim for consumer
fraud against a company that provided telephone services to prisoners based on
assertions that it fraudulently collected multiple initial calling fees and
surcharges by engaging in a practice of deliberating terminating collect
telephone calls for the purpose of charging such fees. Flurnoy v. Ameritech,
No. 3-03-0516, 814 N.E.2d 585 (Ill. App. 3d Dist. 2004). [N/R]
Prisoner could not pursue federal civil rights claim
over alleged interference with his right of access to the courts based on
warden's decision to end his telephone access to legal personnel. The prisoner
failed to show that this resulted in prejudice to his ability to pursue
non-frivolous litigation. Additionally, the prisoner was not denied access to a
telephone system which was monitored, and failed to show that he had submitted
a request form to make an unmonitored phone call to legal personnel on that
system. Robinson v. Gunja, #03-1262, 92 Fed. Appx. 624 (10th Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Trial court erred by dismissing class action
lawsuit by inmates' family members, friends, and attorneys against Indiana
sheriff claiming that contracts entered into with telephone companies caused
excessive charges for accepting collect calls from inmates. Additional opinion
clarifies that appeals court did not mean to imply, in original opinion, that
the proceeds that the sheriff's department receives from phone companies under
these contracts become the sheriff's personal property or that the sheriff was
personally "pocketing" such funds, but merely that Indiana state
statutes are "very precise as to what funds a sheriff can collect, where
they go, how they should be spent, and how the funds should be tracked."
Alexander v. Cottey, #49A02-0301-CV-32, 801 N.E.2d 651 (Ind. App. 2004), 806
N.E.2d 315 (Ind. App. 2004). [N/R]
Indiana intermediate appeals court, overturning
trial court's dismissal of lawsuit, rules that trial court had jurisdiction to
determined whether sheriffs and the state had the authority to enter into
contracts with telephone service providers concerning charges for collect calls
from inmates and to obtain profits from such charges. Argument that plaintiff prisoners
and their families and attorneys had to first exhaust administrative remedies
before a state utility regulatory commission rejected. Alexander v. Cottey, No.
49A02-0301-CV-32, 801 N.E.2d 651 (Ind. App. 2004). [N/R]
Prisoner could not bring claims against the
Department of Corrections under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C.
Sec. 153, et seq., because it is not a telecommunications company or local
exchange carrier. Prisoner also failed to state a claim against the Department
under federal anti-trust law based on his complaint that phone charges to
inmates were excessive. Bowers v. T-Netix, 837 A.2d 608 (Pa. 2003). [N/R]
Barring prisoners from making phone calls in
languages other than English without prior authorization is not a violation of
First Amendment rights. Boriboune v. Litscher, No. 03-1747 , 2003 U.S. App.
Lexis 26540 (7th Cir.). [2004 JB Feb]
Some evidence supported disciplinary finding that
prisoner had used clandestine cellular telephone without authorization when one
number called was only on his approved calling list and other inmates, who had
admittedly used the phone, identified him as among the persons who had used it.
Sinde v. Gerlinski, 252 F. Supp. 2d 144 (M.D. Pa. 2003). [N/R]
Recipients of collect calls from Ohio inmates
could pursue their claim against counties and telecommunications providers that
rates were so unreasonably high as to violate their equal protection right to
fundamental freedom of speech and association. Claims against the State of Ohio
were barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity, and anti-trust and
telecommunications statute claims were not viable. McGuire v. Ameritech
Services, Inc., 253 F. Supp. 2d 988 (S.D. Ohio 2003). [2003 JB Aug]
Department of Corrections telephone access regulations
prohibiting three way or conference calls from correctional facility phones
were properly adopted to prevent use of phone systems for illegal activities.
Statements that a defendant made after being added to a phone call from an
inmate to a co-defendant which the Department was monitoring were not
"unlawfully" intercepted, when Department did announce to the initial
parties to the call that their conversation would be recorded and attempted to
prevent additional parties from being added to the call. Commonwealth v. Ennis,
785 N.E.2d 677 (Mass. 2003). [N/R]
The imposition of discipline on a prisoner for
violating the telephone policy by phoning a former inmate on home confinement
was a violation of his due process rights when he did not have fair notice that
the policy applied to phoning former prisoners confined at home as well as to
those now in halfway houses. Seehausen v. Van Buren, 243 F. Supp. 2d 1165 (D.
Ore. 2002). [N/R]
Correctional officials denial of prisoner's
access to yard exercise and telephone access for approximately one month when
he was classified as having refused a job assignment was not a violation of his
rights. After prisoner pursued the proper avenues to get himself classified as
medically unable to work, his access to yard exercise and telephone access was
restored. Ziegler v. Martin, No. 01-2677, 47 Fed. Appx. 336 (6th Cir. 2002).
[N/R]
Prisoner's lawsuit concerning permanent
restrictions on his use of the phone should be dismissed when he failed to
comply with the requirements of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42
U.S.C. Sec. 1997e, that he exhaust available administrative remedies before
filing suit. Prisoner filed three administrative grievances concerning
restrictions on his phone use, but only pursued appeals on two of the
grievances. Smeltzer v. Hook, 235 F. Supp. 2d 736 (W.D. Mich. 2002). [N/R]
Jail's refusal to allow pretrial detainee access
to a telephone to arrange for bail after he was placed in disciplinary
segregation for violations of jail rules did not violate his Fourteenth
Amendment due process rights. The detainee still had the ability to use the
mail and to meet with his attorney in relation to bail issues. Simpson v.
Gallant, 223 F. Supp. 2d 286 (D. Maine. 2002). [2003 JB Feb.]
Pretrial detainee did not have a constitutionally
protected liberty interest in telephone usage on the basis of Alaska state
statute, and restrictions that were imposed by state jail on his telephone
access did not violate his due process or First Amendment rights. Valdez v.
Rosenbaum, #01-35300, 302 F.3d 1039 (9th Cir. 2002). [2003 JB Jan]
Limits on pretrial detainee's telephone
privileges in segregation before and after disciplinary hearings did not
violate his First Amendment rights. Detainee did not show that his placement in
segregation before and after hearings was for a punitive reason rather than
reasons of institutional security. Detainee also did not show that any actual
injury was caused by his having to use the telephone "while it was noisy
or in the evening," instead of directly before and after hearings.
Whitfield v. Dicker, #01-3605, 41 Fed. Appx. 6 (8th Cir. 2002). [N/R]
296:125 State
did not violate the rights of prisoners or their families in granting phone
companies a monopoly in providing collect telephone services at particular
prisons in exchange for half the revenue generated; federal appeals court
rejects claim that it should review "exorbitant" rates charged for
such calls. Arsberry v. State of Illinois, No. 00- 1777, 244 F.3d 558 (7th Cir.
2001).
284:126 Federal
appeals court rejects prisoner's claim that allegedly "higher"
telephone charges for prisoner phone service were the result of a
"conspiracy" between a warden and the telephone companies; prisoners
did not have any constitutional right to particular phone rates. Johnson v.
State of California, #98-55302, 207 F.3d 650 (9th Cir. 2000).
268:62 Rule
restricting prisoners to calling persons on 10-person telephone call list,
modifiable at 120-day intervals, was reasonable; monitoring and recording of
calls was reasonably related to preventing escapes, introduction of contraband,
and perpetration of frauds. Arney v. Simmons, 26 F.Supp.2d 1288 (D. Kan. 1998).
254:29 Jail
watch commander not entitled to qualified immunity for failure to allow
arrestee to place a phone call; federal appeals court finds that California
state statute clearly established right to make such calls. Carlo v. City of
Chino, 105 F.3d 493 (9th Cir. 1997).
[N/R] Monitoring
and recording of prisoner telephone calls did not constitute
"interception" of calls in violation of Mass. state law when
prisoners and those they talked to on the phone were both aware that calls
would be recorded; system did not violate federal wiretap laws since parties
receiving calls implicitly consented to recording by accepting call after
hearing prerecording message warning them. Gilday v. Dubois, 124 F.3d 277 (1st
Cir. 1997).
241:13
Regulations providing for the recording of all inmate phone calls other than
those to attorneys did not violate Fourth Amendment or provisions of the
Massachusetts state constitution. Cacicio v. Sec. of Public Safety, 665 N.E.2d
85 (Mass. 1996).
247:109
Telephone rules restricting prisoners to making calls only to up to ten persons
on a list did not violate First Amendment rights to communicate with friends
and family. Pope v. Hightower, 101 F.3d 1382 (11th Cir. 1996).
248:126 Hearing
impaired inmate was not "similarly situated" to other inmates for
purposes of using a standard telephone, federal appeals court rules, so that
failure to provide him with a special telephone adapted for his disability was
not a violation of equal protection of law. Hansen v. Rimel, 104 F.3d 189 (8th
Cir. 1997).
230:29 Even if
refusal to allow arrestee to make a phone call to her father violated a
Tennessee state statute, it did not violate her federal constitutional rights;
defendant law enforcement officers were entitled to qualified immunity from
liability. Harrill v. Blount Co., Tenn., 55 F.3d 1123 (6th Cir. 1995).
[Cross-reference: Defenses: Qualified (Good-Faith) Immunity].
226:157 Federal
Bureau of Prisons regulations on inmate phone calls on new direct-dial (as
opposed to collect call) phone system did not violate First Amendment rights of
prisoners or persons called; appeals court upholds, however, injunction against
use of commissary profits to fund conversion to new system to extent funds were
being used for security measures. Washington v. Reno, 35 F.3d 1093 (6th Cir. 1994).
No first
amendment right to phone non-attorney, nonrelative males. Benzel v. Grammer,
869 F.2d 1105 (8th Cir. 1989).