Knight v. Lombardi, 90-2521

• Citation: 952 F.2d 177
• Decision Date: 10 December 1991
• Docket Number: No. 90-2521,90-2521
• Parties: Kurt B. KNIGHT, Appellant, v. George LOMBARDI, William Armontrout, Warden, Arthur W. Dearixon, Mary Basham, Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

Page 177

952 F.2d 177

Kurt B. KNIGHT, Appellant, v. George LOMBARDI, William Armontrout, Warden, Arthur W.

Dearixon, Mary Basham, Appellees.

No. 90-2521.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted June 11, 1991.

Decided Dec. 10, 1991.

J. Jeffrey Spainhower, Jefferson City, Mo., argued, for appellant.

Kelly Mescher, Jefferson City, Mo., argued (William L. Webster and Kelly Mescher on the brief), for appellees.

Before JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge, HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

Kurt B. Knight appeals the district court's ¹ dismissal of his § 1983 suit against four corrections officials at the Missouri State Penitentiary. He claims that his First Amendment and procedural due process rights were violated when defendants wrongfully withheld personal letters from a prison guard with whom Knight was suspected of having an affair. We affirm.

Knight is serving a long sentence in the Missouri prisons. In June 1988, prison officials were investigating whether Knight was having an affair with a female prison guard, Loretta Downing, who was then married to another guard at the same prison. As part of their investigation, defendant Arthur W. Dearixon, Investigator for the Penitentiary, caused defendant Mary Basham, Mailroom Supervisor, to intercept certain letters to Knight from "Kay Mason." Dearixon sent the letters to the State Highway Patrol for fingerprint analysis and learned that Downing's fingerprints were on at least one of them. The letters were then withheld without any immediate notice to Knight.

On July 7, 1988, Downing resigned her position before the investigation of her conduct was completed. On July 12, Knight wrote defendant George Lombardi, Director of the Division of Adult Institutions, complaining that his personal mail was being withheld. On July 21, Lombardi responded, acknowledging that letters to Knight from "a staff person who was placed on Administrative Leave a short time ago" were being held "as evidence in that particular case." Prison officials continued to intercept letters after Downing resigned so that, from June through August of 1988, at least twelve letters from Downing to Knight were seized.

In July 1988, Knight had filed a § 1983 suit challenging his segregation from the general prison population. In September, he amended this complaint to include a claim that seizure of his personal mail violated his First Amendment rights. Nearly a year later, after discovery and a hearing at which Dearixon explained why this mail had been seized, Knight dismissed this complaint without prejudice.

On October 16, 1989, Knight filed his complaint in this action, alleging defendants violated his First Amendment and procedural due process rights in seizing his letters from Downing. Defendants were ordered to show cause why Knight should not be permitted to proceed in forma pauperis. They urged the magistrate judge to take judicial notice of the record from the first case and dismiss this complaint as frivolous. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(d).

On March 13, 1990, the magistrate judge recommended dismissal, and Knight filed written exceptions. On July 13, while the recommendation to dismiss was pending before the district court, defendants advised the court that the withheld letters would be delivered to Knight on July 16. On July 25, 1990, the district court dismissed the complaint as frivolous, explaining that censorship of inmate mail may be justified on the basis of prison security and that the actions of defendants in this case "withstand scrutiny under the standards set forth in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 [107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64] (1987) and Thornburgh v. Abbott, 109 S.Ct. 1874 (1989)." Knight, who has now been transferred to another Missouri prison and has married Downing, appeals.

Although the § 1915(d) dismissal was made prior to service of the complaint, the district court had access to, and properly considered, the evidentiary record from the prior lawsuit, and in particular, the testimony under oath by defendant Dearixon as to the reasons Downing's letters were seized. On this expanded record, we agree with the district court's decision to dismiss Knight's complaint as legally frivolous.

Dearixon testified that prison authorities seized Downing's letters for the following reasons: (1) to investigate whether Downing was violating prison rules by having an affair with, and corresponding with, an inmate; ² (2) as evidence in that investigation; (3) because of concern that Downing might use her knowledge of prison security to help Knight escape; and (4) because of the general prison policy against inmates corresponding with prison staff. These were obviously legitimate concerns. Therefore, we agree with the district court that defendants' actions in seizing Downing's letters for a reasonable length of time did not violate Knight's First Amendment rights because the seizure was "reasonably related to penological interests." Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. at 413, 109 S.Ct. at 1881, quoting Turner v....