Most Americans take the Constitution and Bill of Rights for granted; they are simply an inextricable part of the very fabric of our society and nation. But this past October, a startling bill was fast-tracked through the Pennsylvania legislature that should make everyone pause and think about what those documents really mean. On October 16,
By David M. Reutter The Second Circuit Court of Appeals held in September 2013 that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) does not create a private right of action against state officials in their individual capacities. Anthony Washington, incarcerated at New York’s Woodbourne Correctional Facility, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
By Prison Legal News Prison Legal News continues its efforts to defend its First Amendment right to communicate with prisoners in the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC). In 1999 the NDOC banned all copies of PLN, claiming the publication constituted “inmate correspondence.” PLN filed suit and was granted a preliminary injunction requiring the delivery of
Over the past month, Federal Bureau of Prison officials at the Federal Correctional Institution Petersburg have issued incarcerated author Christopher Zoukis a series of incident reports in a seeming attempt to censor his critique of the prison system. All of these disciplinary actions came on the heels of the release of his latest book –
With numerous restrictions imposed on inmates already, California prison authorities are beginning to move to tighten censorship of books, newspapers, photos, and letters in response to the first anniversary of the widespread hunger strike within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), which brought substantial negative media attention to the agency. “These new proposed
Any inmate who wishes to practice his or her religious tradition while confined in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is generally permitted to do so, subject to several penological restrictions. Inmates’ Right to Practice Religion The right to free exercise of religion guaranteed in the Constitution’s First Amendment applies to everyone, even those confined
By Prison Legal News On October 10, 2013, Prison Legal News filed a federal lawsuit against Sullivan County, Tennessee, the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office and Sheriff J. Wayne Anderson, alleging that the county jail unconstitutionally censored books, magazines, letters and other correspondence sent to prisoners and failed to provide due process to the sender of
By Prison Legal News
The California Court of Appeal held on November 16, 2012 that billing and payment records reflecting the amount of money a government agency paid in attorney fees to defend against a pending civil rights action were not exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act (CPRA), Government Code § 6250 et seq., even if the information was sought by a person seeking to assist the plaintiff litigants.
Attorneys David Mann and Donald Cook represent the plaintiffs in a civil rights lawsuit that has been pending in Los Angeles County Superior Court since 1999. That suit, which arose out of the arrest and detention of a husband and wife by members of the county’s Task Force for Regional Autotheft Prevention, has been the subject of numerous appellate proceedings, including Venegas v. County of Los Angeles, 153 Cal. App. 4th 1230 (Cal. App. 2d Dist. 2007). Following an unpublished appellate decision in August 2011, the case was remanded to the lower court for trial on the sole remaining claim involving a violation of Civil Code § 52.1.
Attorney Cynthia Anderson-Barker, a colleague of Mann and Cook, filed a public records request seeking documents pertaining to billings from, and payments to, any law firm representing the county in the Venegas litigation. After the county denied the CPRA request, Anderson-Barker, represented by Mann and Cook, filed a petition for writ of mandate to compel disclosure of the records.
The county argued in response to the petition that, under the CPRA’s “pending litigation” exemption (Government Code § 6254(b)), as well as other exemptions, it was not required to produce the documents. The trial court ruled in favor of Anderson-Barker, though ordered redactions to remove attorney work product-related information from the requested billing and payment records.
The scary things of Halloween such as, ghosts, goblins and razor blade ridden apples are now in the past. In today’s world parents and children have a new set of haunting concerns.
Last Thursday evening as the sun was setting children emerged into neighborhoods questing for ‘tricks or treats.” Homes were inventively decorated with carved jack-o-lanterns and orange lights strung randomly around windowsills. Children dressed in costumes ran down sidewalks, anticipating what treats awaited them at the next house.
But wait….what is this? The house is dark, not a light on in the house. It almost looks haunted. There is a sign in the yard and it is not part of the Halloween décor. The sign reads, “No candy or treats at this residence.” This appears to be the scariest house on the street.
The Los Angeles Times reports that under a southern California ordinance created by Girard Mayor James Melfi, called the Girard Law, sex offenders were barred from putting up Halloween displays and outside lighting. Offenders listed on the Megan’s Law website were required to post a sign in front of their house that gives children the message there will be no candy handed out here.
A small group of Simi Valley registered sex-offenders protested the law because the policy is discriminatory and infringing on their personal rights to participate in a customary holiday. According to Attorney and president of the California Reform Sex Offender Laws group, Janice Bellucci, who represented the five sex offenders in the suit, the law reeks of discrimination and is reminiscent of when Nazis made Jews wear yellow stars. The city was sued for encroaching on offenders’ freedom of speech and ordered to remove the signs.
Yesterday a regular Prison
Law Blog reader, who is preparing to self-report to a Federal Prison Camp,
brought a question to our attention. He
asked, “Once I self-surrender, can I blog from prison?” As regular readers of the Prison Law Blog
know, we love tackling First Amendment in the correctional context issues. We provide some answers on blogging from
prison.
The Question: Can I
Blog From Prison?
Federal prisoners, and those in state custody for that
matter, have a right to the exercise of their First Amendment privileges.
In the prison context, this means creatively writing and seeking
publication for those creative writings.
These creative writings could be letters, articles, blog posts, books,
reports, studies, or even drawings.*1 Yes,
even political cartoons are protected by the First Amendment.
The most common question concerns writing in the electronic
realm. This is a grayer area, but a
solid one from the case law perspective.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ “Manuscript” program statement
clearly states that prisoners are allowed to write for publication and they can
mail out their manuscripts as general correspondence, without staff approval or
authorization. This is in line with the
BOP’s “Correspondence” program statement. These program statements, though, don’t
specifically authorize federal prisoners
to write for electronic publication.
After all, the “Manuscript” program statement was promulgated
in the 1990s, back when the internet wasn’t commonplace in homes and really
wasn’t heard of on cell phones.
Regardless of the lack of specific and direct authorization to write for
the online marketplace, the Prison Law
Blog asserts — as case law and other experts in the field support — that
prisoners have a right to write for online publication, either on a personal
blog or at larger media or creative writing outlets (e.g., the Huffington Post, Slate.com, Salon.com, ANDmagazine.com etc.).
Restrictions on Content
In terms of the writing itself, the only real area to be
mindful of is the content. Prisoners
most certainly can voice their objections to or feelings about anything. They can also voice their political, personal,
and other sorts of opinions. But what
they can’t do is violate existing laws through their writings or, more specific
to the prison context, write anything which would hinder the “good order,
security, or operations of the institution.”
We have profiled every prison within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Learn about each prison’s location, security level, educational and recreational offerings, and much more.
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