In an opinion on Friday, U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks for the Western District of Arkansas struck down Baxter County Detention Center's "postcard-only" rule, saying it ran afoul of the First and 14th Amendments protecting the exchange of information between incarcerated persons and the rest of society.
The case began in August 2017, when the Human Rights Defense Center, a prisoners rights nonprofit that publishes and distributes the monthly legal magazine Prison Legal News, accused Baxter County in a civil lawsuit of violating its free speech and due process rights by prohibiting its publications to reach people behind bars.
In a 2019 bench trial, Judge Brooks ruled in favor of the nonprofit on the due process issue but dismissed its First Amendment claim. In July 2021, however, a three-judge Eighth Circuit panel vacated the dismissal and remanded the case to the district court, where the plaintiff ultimately prevailed.
Paul Wright, the founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center, which also publishes "The Habeas Citebook" and other books about the criminal justice system, said incarcerated persons in Arkansas have for decades been prevented from receiving books and magazines despite federal case law recognizing that they have a right to receive them.
"It's definitely a groundbreaking case," he said. "We're hoping it will bring about the desired effect and get the rest of the jails to change their policies."
The case pitted the rights of incarcerated persons against the deference of jails and prisons have to regulate access to the outside world.
Correctional administrators defend postcard-only policies and other restrictions on communications as means to ensure safety, limit contraband and prevent fire hazards. They also say sorting and scanning a large amount of mail requires too much personnel.
U.S. Supreme Court case law interprets the Constitution as protecting the exchange of information between people behind bars and those who are not. Under the First and 14th Amendments, incarcerated persons have a right to free speech that includes communication with larger society. Meanwhile, free citizens, including publishers, have a right to reach incarcerated people.
But high court decisions have also given correctional administrators power to restrict incarcerated persons' First Amendment rights on the basis of security and efficiency. For example, the 2006 court's decision in Beard v. Banks
permitted the state of Pennsylvania to ban all reading material — except those of a legal or religious nature — from a subset of inmates held in solitary confinement.In 2018, the Eight Circuit upheld the constitutionality of a postcard-only policy in Simpson v. County of Cape Girardeau
, a case where the mother of a Missouri inmate claimed incoming mail restrictions at the Cape Girardeau County Jail prevented her from communicating with her son, violating her constitutional rights.Under the Supreme Court's 1987 decision in Turner v. Safley
, however, prison regulations that curtail rights are permissible only when found to be reasonable. The decision requires federal judges to consider whether prison policies restricting constitutional rights have a rational justification tied to government interests. They must also look at whether there are alternatives to those policies, whether inmates could find other ways to exercise their rights and if those options are implemented.Laying out his analysis under Turner, Judge Brooks concluded that Baxter County's policy was unreasonable.
"Even if the postcard-only policy as applied to publications was held rational, the court would nevertheless conclude it remained unreasonable," the opinion says.
Caesar Kalinowski IV of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, which represented Human Rights Defense Center pro bono and argued the case before the Eighth Circuit, said the nearly two million people incarcerated in the U.S. are "at the mercy" of correctional authorities to receive information from the outside world, adding that cases such as the one against Baxter County reveal the true protections of the First Amendment.
"We would hope that this would send a strong message both to these prisons and jails, but also to the American public that we need to respect everyone's First Amendment rights, no matter whether or not they're disenfranchised, no matter the community they come from, because those are really our rights that we're defending," Kalinowski said. "We're thankful that the court recognized the protections of the First Amendment in this context, and found that these harmful postcard-only policies are unconstitutional in this setting."
Attorneys for Baxter County did not return requests for comment.
The suit against Baxter County is one of many that Human Rights Defense Center has filed against jails and prisons across the country for banning books and magazines. A suit filed in Union County in Arkansas challenging that type of policy was dismissed last month, but the organization plans to appeal it, Wright said.
Wright said these bans are a form of censorship and an obstacle to rehabilitation. He had tough words for correctional authorities that enforce them.
"They're a bunch of lawless fascists who basically like to silence anything that's remotely critical they don't like prisoners to read," he said.
Illiteracy is widespread among incarcerated people. According to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, more than 70% of the prison population cannot read above a fourth grade level.
Human Rights Defense Center is represented by Paul J. James of James & Carter PLC, Bruce E. H. Johnson and Caesar D. Kalinowski IV of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and Hara Fischbein of the Human Rights Defense Center.
Baxter County is represented by Jason E. Owens of Jason Owens Law Firm PA and Thomas J. Diaz of Rainwater Holt & Sexton PA.
The case is Human Rights Defense Center v. Baxter County, Arkansas, case number 3:17-cv-03070, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.
--Editing by Alanna Weissman.