Blankenship v. Gunter, CV88-L-154.

• Decision Date: 30 December 1988
• Docket Number: No. CV88-L-154.,CV88-L-154.
• Citation: 707 F. Supp. 1137
• Parties: Gary L. BLANKENSHIP, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Frank O. GUNTER, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Nebraska

707 F. Supp. 1137

Gary L. BLANKENSHIP, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Frank O. GUNTER, et al., Defendants.

No. CV88-L-154.

United States District Court, D. Nebraska.

December 30, 1988.

Gary L. Blackenship, pro se.

Richard Campbell, pro se.

Yvonne E. Gates, Asst. Atty. Gen., Lincoln, Neb., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM ON DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

URBOM, District Judge.

The plaintiffs, inmates at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, have sued under 42 U.S. C. § 1983, claiming that the refusal of the defendants, administrators of the penitentiary, to allow the plaintiffs to send money from the plaintiffs' prison trust account for charitable contributions violates their civil rights. The defendants have moved for summary judgment.

Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide that:

"The judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law...."

The allegations of the complaint are, essentially, that on or about November 16, 1987, the plaintiff Blankenship requested that $12.00 be withdrawn from his inmate trust account and sent to Pastor Nelson G. Turner of Omaha, Nebraska, and on February 23, 1988, the plaintiff Campbell requested that $10.00 be sent from his account to the World Wide Church of God. Both requests were denied. Campbell then filed grievances. The responses of the defendants cite Meis v. Grammer, 226 Neb. 360, 411 N.W.2d 355 (1987) in which the Supreme Court of Nebraska held that Neb. Rev.Stat. § 83-183(3) (Reissue 1981) mandates restrictions on the use of inmate wages to the support of dependents, purchases from the commissary, and savings to be paid to the inmate upon release from the penitentiary, and that the operational memorandum of the penitentiary mimicking the statutory limitation was not violative of Meis' constitutional rights. The state district judge had concluded that the operational memorandum was valid except for a sentence that read "Any exception to this stated list must have the approval of the Warden." The judge found that provision to be vague and therefore enjoined the warden from granting any exceptions. No appeal was taken from that ruling. In responding to Campbell's appeal to the director, defendant Gunter referred to the Meis case, saying:

"Prior to District Court Judge Endacott's decision in the Meis v. Grammer case, the Penitentiary did permit inmates to send funds to persons other than family members. Such approval was granted on a case-by-case basis. Judge Endacott's ruling in the Meis case indicated that such discretionary actions by the Warden were inappropriate. If you wish to send funds to persons other than you sic immediate family members, you may send the money to a family member and ask that the family member make payment to the third party or organization."

Religious rights protected by the Constitution were not dealt with by the Nebraska Supreme Court in the Meis case.

The Supreme Court of Nebraska analyzed the several factors specified in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987), and concluded that the restrictions on use of the prison trust funds were constitutional as to Meis, who wished to send an amount from his prison trust fund to a friend in payment on a debt.

Turner v. Safley said:

"If Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 94 S.Ct. 2800, 41 L.Ed.2d 495 (1974) Jones, and Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979) have not already resolved the question posed in Martinez, we resolve it now: when a prison regulation impinges on inmate's constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. In our view, such a standard is necessary if `prison administrators ..., and not the courts, are to make the difficult judgments concerning institutional operations.' Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Union, 433 U.S. 119 at 128 97 S.Ct. 2532 at 2539, 53 L.Ed.2d 629 (1977). Subjecting the day-to-day judgments of the prison officials to an inflexible strict scrutiny analysis would seriously hamper their ability to anticipate security problems and to adopt innovative solutions to the intractable problems of prisons' administration. The rule would also distort the decision making process, for every administrative judgment would be subject to the possibility that some court somewhere would conclude that it had a less restrictive way of solving the problem at hand. Courts inevitably would become the primary arbiters of what constitutes the best solution to every administrative problem, thereby `unnecessarily perpetuating the involvement of the federal courts in affairs of prison administration.' Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396 at 407 94 S.Ct. 1800 at 1808, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974)."

The court in Turner v. Safley then set out several factors that are relevant in determining the reasonableness of the regulation at issue. They were (1) there must be a valid, rational connection between the prison regulation and the legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it, (2...