Gray v. Creamer

• Decision Date: 14 August 1972
• Docket Number: No. 71-1714.,71-1714.
• Citation: 465 F.2d 179
• Parties: Norman C. GRAY, Jr., et al., Appellants, v. J. Shane CREAMER, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

465 F.2d 179 (1972)

Norman C. GRAY, Jr., et al., Appellants, v. J. Shane CREAMER, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, et al.

No. 71-1714.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued June 13, 1972.

Decided August 14, 1972.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Ronald A. Berlin, Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellants.

Frederick N. Frank, Deputy Atty. Gen., J. Shane Creamer, Atty. Gen., Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellees.

Before SEITZ, Chief Judge, and VAN DUSEN and ADAMS, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

VAN DUSEN, Circuit Judge.

On May 13, 1971, plaintiffs Gray, Harris, Moore, Holden and Sowers, prisoners or former prisoners at the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh (the "Western Penitentiary"), brought the instant civil rights action on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated to secure redress for various allegedly unconstitutional actions by the defendants. Jurisdiction was invoked pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 2201 and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985. Plaintiffs allege that they had been deprived of rights guaranteed to them by the First, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and Article One, Section Seven, of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, P.S.; both injunctive and declaratory relief were requested. On May 25, 1971, at a "final pretrial hearing" the defendants presented a "Motion to Dismiss, Presenting Defenses of Failure to State a Claim and of Improperly Bringing a Class Action," and by order of June 21, 1971, the district court granted this Motion.¹ See Gray v. Creamer, 329 F.Supp. 418 (W.D.Pa.1971). For the reasons to be stated, we reverse and remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

We note at the outset that a motion to dismiss a complaint, including a prisoner's civil rights complaint, for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted is subject to a very strict standard. In Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972), the Court reviewed a district court grant of such a motion, which grant had been affirmed by the Court of Appeals on the ground that prison officials are vested with "wide discretion" in disciplinary matters. The Court reversed:

"Whatever may be the limits on the scope of inquiry of courts into the internal administration of prisons, allegations such as those asserted by petitioner, however inartfully pleaded, are sufficient to call for the opportunity to offer supporting evidence. We cannot say with assurance that under the allegations of the pro se complaint, which we hold to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers, it appears `beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.\' Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957)." 404 U.S. at 520, 92 S.Ct. at 595.

See 2A Moore's Federal Practice ¶ 12.08 at 2271-74 (1968):

"A complaint should not be dismissed for insufficiency unless it appears to a certainty that plaintiff is entitled to no relief under any state of facts which could be proved in support of the claim." (Emphasis in original.)

Thus, the district court's grant of defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted was proper only if, taking as true all the allegations in the complaint and drawing the inferences most favorable to the plaintiffs, it appeared beyond doubt that plaintiffs were entitled to no relief. See, e. g., Haines v. Kerner, supra; Cooper v. Pate, 378 U.S. 546, 84 S.Ct. 1733, 12 L.Ed.2d 1030 (1964); United States ex rel. Jones v. Rundle, 453 F.2d 147 (3d Cir. 1971); Rivers v. Royster, 360 F.2d 592 (4th Cir. 1966); cf. Long v. Parker, 390 F.2d 816, 821 (3d Cir. 1968). It is with this standard in mind that we turn to an examination of the facts alleged in the complaint.²

II.

The instant suit apparently arises from the publication of a prison news letter called Vibrations and the reaction of the prison authorities to this news letter and to the prisoners connected with it. According to the complaint, Vibrations was established in December 1970 by a group of 12 prisoners, including plaintiffs Gray, Harris, Moore and Sowers, with the encouragement of the then-acting Director of Treatment at Western Penitentiary. This news letter was intended to inform both the general public and the administration of Western Penitentiary, and to this end it contained a wide variety of information, including poems, astrology forecasts, informational articles or essays, religious expressions, lists of prisoners having illnesses, letters to the editors, statements of editorial policy, and requests for supplies needed by the news letter. Vibrations was published weekly beginning on Christmas Eve 1970, and by April 1971 at least 12,000 copies had been mailed outside of Western Penitentiary and numerous copies circulated within the prison.³ Plaintiffs alleged that the publication of Vibrations was of great benefit to the prisoners themselves, the prison administration, and the citizens outside the prison. Plaintiffs further alleged that the Vibrations staff exercised stringent self-censorship with the result that no material was published that could be interpreted to be obscene, libelous, or dangerous to prison administration, discipline, and security.

In April 1971, relationships between the Vibrations staff and the prison administration deteriorated markedly. On April 19, 1971, after several meetings between individual defendants and members of the Vibrations staff, including plaintiff Gray, the Vibrations office at the Western Penitentiary was padlocked by order of defendants, and certain materials found in the office were confiscated and presumably destroyed. Since that time defendants have made it impossible for Vibrations to be published.

Further, according to the complaint, beginning on April 19, 1971, the plaintiffs and members of the class they represent were transferred to other prisons, placed in punitive and administrative segregation, suspended from jobs they has held and subjected to physical and verbal abuse from guards and the confiscation of their personal belongings. Specifically plaintiffs alleged that on or after April 19, 1971, defendants caused certain prisoners, including plaintiffs Moore and Holden, to be placed in either punitive segregation or segregation at the Western Penitentiary, and that the prisoners so isolated were neither charged with a violation of prison regulations nor given a hearing. Further, it was alleged that during a two-week period subsequent to April 19, 1971, defendants caused at least ten prisoners, including plaintiffs Gray, Moore and Harris, to be transferred to other penal institutions in the state without being given a hearing nor charged with any violation of prison regulations prior to the transfers. Plaintiffs alleged that some of the prisoners so transferred, including plaintiffs Gray, Moore and Harris, were placed in punitive segregation in the institutions to which they were transferred without being charged with a violation of any penal regulation and without being granted a hearing.

Plaintiffs also alleged that letters written to various named plaintiffs were never received by them and that some outgoing mail sent by prisoners was not forwarded by the prison officials, which actions were allegedly in violation of a directive issued by defendant Sielaff. It was further alleged that the defendants do not permit certain publications to be delivered to plaintiffs and the class they represent. Finally, plaintiffs alleged that a prison regulation and/or practice effective since April 19, 1971, has arbitrarily restricted the number of prisoners who can lawfully congregate to an unreasonably small number.

III.

It remains true that "lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system." Price v. Johnston, 334 U.S. 266, 68 S.Ct. 1049, 92 L.Ed. 1356 (1948). "Some deprivations are a necessary and expected result of being an inmate of a penal institution, which institution must provide for the custody, maintenance, discipline and, optimistically, rehabilitation of those who have violated the laws of the sovereign." Jackson v. Godwin, 400 F.2d 529, 532 (5th Cir. 1968). Furthermore, the task of determining the rights and deprivations of state prisoners falls principally upon the prison authorities, whose judgment in the exercise of this important responsibility the federal courts will not ordinarily question. As this court has recently stated:

"The task of striking the proper balance between these conflicting interests is generally within the competence of the prison authorities. Thus, the federal courts have been understandably reluctant to intervene in matters of state prison administration, recognizing that a wide latitude for judgment and discretion must be extended to prison officials." Gittlemacker v. Prasse, 428 F.2d 1, 4 (3d Cir. 1970).

The fact that the federal courts will normally defer to the judgment of the state prison authorities on matters relating to the treatment of prisoners is, however, not to say that such prisoners are bereft of all constitutional rights or that the federal courts will refuse to intervene to protect those rights which the prisoner retains. "Acceptance of the fact that incarceration, because of inherent administrative problems, may necessitate the withdrawal of many rights and privileges does not preclude recognition by the courts of a duty to protect the prisoner from unlawful and onerous treatment of a nature that, of itself, adds punitive measures to those legally meted out by the court." Jackson v. Godwin, supra, 400 F.2d at 532. The Supreme Court has recently summarized the federal courts' duty in this area as...