POSTCARD-only policy in jails unconstitutional!

YAY for Prison Legal News - which is well worth the subscription, by the way.

 Hopefully this means the beginning of the end of the crummy postcard-only policy in the Maricopa County jail system. It really is unduly oppressive and drastically restricts freedom of speech both ways. It being thrown out in one jail doesn't mean that Joe Arpaio will change his policy without a fight, though. It means the prisoners in his jails need to file grievances about the mail policy violating your 1st Amendment rights - appealing them all the way to the top so you are in a position to sue when the last denial comes down - that's called "exhausting administrative remedies" - it shows you're trying to work things out in-house, by policy, before asking the court to settle your prisoner issues. 

I know the MCSO is worried about massive quantities of drugs being hidden in children's homemade birthday cards and the like, but I think they should start strip-searcing the guards (who are the biggest source of contraband in most jails/prisons) instead of strip-searching all the prisoner's  mail...they'd find a whole hell of a lot more contraband that way.

Besides, nothing beats a real letter...

Here's the link to the actual decision

--------------------------

PLN prevails in challenge to postcard-only policy at Columbia County, OR jail

Prison Legal News, Jan. 1, 2013. Press release - PLN prevails in challenge to postcard-only policy at Columbia County, OR jail 2013

PRESS RELEASE

Human Rights Defense Center
For Immediate Release

April 25, 2013


Federal Court Strikes Down Postcard-only Policy at Columbia County Jail

Portland, OR – On April 24, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, Portland Division, held that a postcard-only policy at the Columbia County Jail, which restricted mail sent to and from detainees at the facility to postcards, is unconstitutional. The court therefore has prohibited enforcement of the policy permanently – the first time in the United States that a jail’s postcard-only policy has been struck down following a trial on the merits.

The ruling, by federal judge Michael H. Simon, was entered in a lawsuit against Columbia County and Sheriff Jeff Dickerson filed by Prison Legal News (PLN), a non-profit monthly publication that covers criminal justice-related issues. PLN, a project of the Human Rights Defense Center, sued in January 2012 after Columbia County jail employees rejected PLN’s monthly news publication and letters mailed to detainees. Further, the jail had failed to provide PLN with notice or an opportunity to appeal the jail’s censorship of PLN’s materials.

The rejection of PLN’s publications and letters was attributed to the jail’s postcard-only policy and a policy and practice that prohibited detainees from receiving magazines. PLN contended that such policies violated its rights under the First Amendment, and that the lack of notice and opportunity to appeal was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

During the litigation, the defendants admitted “that inmates have a First Amendment right to receive magazines and inmates and their correspondents have a Fourteenth Amendment right to procedural due process.” However, the jail defended its postcard-only policy and claimed there was no official policy banning magazines at the jail.

On May 29, 2012, Judge Simon entered a preliminary injunction prohibiting the defendants from enforcing their postcard-only policy. He ruled that the policy "drastically restricts an inmate’s ability to communicate with the outside world," and "prevents an inmate’s family from sending items such as photographs, children’s report cards and drawings, and copies of bills, doctor reports, and spiritual and religious tracts." The court also observed that the jail’s postcard-only policy "inhibits rehabilitation," citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that found "inmate freedom to correspond with outsiders advances rather than retards the goal of rehabilitation." Undeterred, the defendants continued to defend their policy at trial, held from February 5 to 8, 2013.

Following the trial, the district court found in its April 24 ruling that the defendants’ rationales for adopting the postcard-only policy at the jail – preventing the introduction of contraband and saving time during mail inspection – were not supported by the evidence.

The court also determined that jail employees “did not in fact allow magazines to enter the Jail,” and that a ban on magazines was specifically declared in the jail’s inmate handbook, in a jail memorandum and on the jail’s website. Further, "Sheriff Dickerson credibly testified that he did not know that the First Amendment required the Jail to allow inmates to receive magazines when he took office in 2009." The district court therefore concluded that the defendants had a policy and custom of prohibiting magazines, in violation of the First Amendment.

Accordingly, Judge Simon entered a permanent injunction that enjoins the defendants from restricting incoming and outgoing mail to postcards only. "[T]he postcard-only policy creates a hurdle to thoughtful, personal, and constructive written communications between an inmate and his or her unincarcerated family and friends," he wrote. He also declared "that inmates have a First Amendment right to receive magazines and that it would be unconstitutional for Defendants to refuse to deliver magazines to inmates solely because they are magazines," and that detainees and their correspondents have a right to procedural due process when mail is rejected, including notice of the rejection and the ability to appeal same.

"This lawsuit could have been avoided had Sheriff Dickerson not enacted an unconstitutional, harmful policy that limited correspondence to and from detainees to postcards, and had he ensured that jail employees were properly trained as to the First Amendment and due process rights of both detainees and those who correspond with them," stated PLN editor Paul Wright. "Unfortunately he failed in both of these respects, and the court’s ruling is the result."

"The court’s well-reasoned and thoughtful opinion is notice to other jails that a postcard-only policy does not serve a legitimate purpose, and indeed harms the public interest. Jails would do well to steer clear of adopting ineffective policies that violate the Constitutional right of free speech," added attorney Jesse Wing, who represented PLN at trial.

PLN was represented by Marc D. Blackman with the Portland law firm of Ransom Blackman, LLP; Jesse Wing and Katie Chamberlain with the Seattle law firm of MacDonald Hoague and Bayless; and Human Rights Defense Center general counsel Lance Weber and staff attorney Alissa Hull. The case is Prison Legal News v. Columbia County, U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, Case No. 3:12-cv-00071-SI.

________________________


The Human Rights Defense Center, founded in 1990 and based in Brattleboro, Vermont, is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting human rights in U.S. detention facilities. HRDC publishes Prison Legal News (PLN), a monthly magazine that includes reports, reviews and analysis of court rulings and news related to prisoners’ rights and criminal justice issues. PLN has around 7,000 subscribers nationwide and operates a website (www.prisonlegalnews.org) that includes a comprehensive database of prison and jail-related articles, news reports, court rulings, verdicts, settlements and related documents.


For further information, please contact:

Paul Wright, Editor
Prison Legal News
(802) 257-1342 (office)
(802) 275-8594 (cell)
pwright@prisonlegalnews.org

Jesse Wing, Attorney
MacDonald Hoague & Bayless
705 Second Avenue, Suite 1500
Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 622-1604 (office)
jessew@mhb.com

Arizona Prison Watch Newsletter: February 2013.

Dear AZ Prisoners...

Just wanted to update you all on what's been happening out here lately – and some of what's been happening in there. Forgive me if I'm all over the map with this one, but I want to get this out to you all in time for Valentine's Day, so I won't be doing much editing.

First, as many of you know, I was out of town for most of the holidays and am only now catching up to folks. If you wrote to me and your letter came back undeliverable, I apologize - my PO box is just having problems, so be persistent and try again. If you're waiting to hear back from me on something, write to me again – it will bring your file to the top of the pile, and sometimes letters get lost – just don't think I'm ignoring you for some reason – I don't work that way.

While I was out of town I had a lot of help keeping up with stuff here from a couple of friends, including one who has stayed on to help me on an on-going basis – Margie Diddams. She's pretty cool and I trust her implicitly; if she answers a letter from you to me or AZ Prison Watch, rest assured she probably chatted about it with me first. We do a lot of good strategizing together. She's my more organized half, too, so if you have a really complex situation or a lot of paperwork, you'd better hope she's the one on top of it.

One of the things Margie's helping me work on is confronting the high rate of homophobic and transphobic violence behind bars. As many of you know, my good friend Kini Seawright's son, Dana, was murdered at Lewis in July 2010 by the West Side City Crips for being gay (and for loving a Mexican while Black). Since then, I've received a lot of correspondence from prisoners subjected to violence due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Because there are so many intersecting issues they deal with that affect others, when root causes for violence against minorities are addressed, other societal violence tends to abate as well, so this is in everyone's interet in the long run. Therefore, if you or a loved one behind bars is LGBT (or, as I tend to identify myself, just plain Queer) get in touch with us and become part of a more collective effort to change things in there.

I've also been working to build support in the community for the women of Perryville. The Sun City West Valley NOW (National Organization for Women) Chapter had me speak there in November and is really interested in figuring out how they can help women prisoners with health care and conditions of confinement. Don't pass up this chance - If there are any women in Perryville willing to risk institutional harassment for reaching out to them, please ask the NOW women how prisoners can become members (or start your own chapter) at:

Sun City/West Valley NOW, 10015 W Royal Oak Rd #256, Sun City, AZ 85351.

Now, let me just remind you all that I'm no lawyer, nor is Margie. She's still a student (albeit a radical like me), and I'm a college drop-out. I'm a prison abolitionist and human rights activist who happens to blog, which has resulted in quite a bit of contact with state prisoners and their families over the past few years, which compelled me to try to figure out how to help with some of your dilemmas. The best we can do is give you access to things that will empower you to help yourselves. This is our own little way of fighting back against hetero-patriarchy and state violence and all that crap, which is one reason our help comes to prisoners and their families for free. If you have money, though, don't settle for Margie and me – get professional help.

Good intentions alone can sometimes really screw people up, so make sure you access whatever other resources you can if you need help fighting the state- they are pretty formidable.

On to the other news: I'm sure you all know by now that Wexford has bailed on their contract to provide medical care to you all, so Corizon will be taking over beginning March 1. All I can say is that I'll be surprised if it's much of an improvement, so you need to keep arming yourselves with knowledge of civil rights law.

Please be filling out medical grievances per policy (check to see if it changes after March 1, too) if your HNRs aren't being responded to; don't just fill out new HNR's repeating yourselves. The prison library is supposed to give you access to the DOC policy manual, but write to me if they don't cooperate (and send me their note of refusal, so we can nail anyone violating your access to the courts).

Ask your librarian for the DO 902 policy. Look at Attachments A and B. From B, request the packets for filing Section 1983 civil rights complaints, as well as for the rules and forms to file civil actions in state court. You need those documents so you know what they'll be asking you to do later with the grievances you're filing now. It's not enough for the courts to see that you simply wrote grievances – they need to be relevant to the civil suit itself, if you have to go that far to get action from the DOC or medical.

Your grievances show the judge that you had a complaint and made a good faith effort to get the prison administration – all the way up the chain of command - to hear and respond to it BEFORE anyone gets sued. So if you do end up suing after exhausting your administrative remedies, you should still be asking for pretty much the same remedy over the same grievance you started out with in your first inmate letter to your COIII about it. Be clear describing your issue and reasonable in your requests for relief (including disciplinary action against errant officers, compensation for medical care, etc.)

From DO 902 Attachment A, ask your librarian for the Rights of Prisoners, 4th Ed, too – see what they let you see of it, anyway. You may have to pay for them to print up pages for you to keep on you – let me know how they deal with that if you are indigent.

Don't leave it to your family to get action from Central office for you – but if you have family who can raise hell for you, give them my info and I'll help them strategize dealing with the DOC. Just be mindful that no matter what they say or even if they bring an attorney into it for you, you must be filling out those grievances per policy.

On to more news: On January 25, David Fathi from the ACLU-National Prison Project argued in front of US District Court Judge Neil Wake that parsons v. Ryan should be given class status and allowed to proceed as a class action suit. Wake pretty much gave our side a hard time, expressing both annoyance and skepticism, arguing with David about the merits of the case itself (since he already set guidelines about solitary and food rations in recent county jail complaints, for example) instead focusing on the issue at hand...but what do I know about the law? Anyway, he was taking it all under advisement and we're still waiting to hear his decision.

By the way, about that Botulism at Eyman – don't believe everything you hear: the first batch for sure wasn't hooch. The guys say they were coerced into saying it was before they would be provided medical attention, and will be filing suit. If you were affected by the second batch, get a lawyer. Botulism is so incredibly rare that it's like lightning for it to strike twice in the same place...which means there's something fishy going on there.

Please tell me how you manage keep your head up, a smile on your face, or your soul intact through all you must survive in there, my friends. And let me know if yours is a story I can share with others, as well. In the meantime, take care of eachother and yourselves.

Hang in there,

Peg