Hall v. Curran

• Decision Date: 06 May 1987
• Docket Number: No. 925,D,No. 86-2441,925,86-2441
• Citation: Hall v. Curran, 818 F.2d 1040 (2nd Cir. 1987)
• Parties: Ralph Ratton HALL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Captain CURRAN, Defendant-Appellee. ocket
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 1040

818 F.2d 1040

Ralph Ratton HALL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Captain CURRAN, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 925, Docket No. 86-2441.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Submitted March 24, 1987.

Decided May 6, 1987.

Ralph Ratton Hall, pro se.

Peter G. Crary, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Robert Abrams, Atty. Gen., State of N.Y., Peter H. Schiff, Deputy Sol. Gen., Dept. of Law, Albany, N.Y., and Wayne L. Benjamin, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel), for defendant-appellee.

Before KAUFMAN, PIERCE and PRATT, Circuit Judges.

IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Circuit Judge:

Ralph Ratton Hall, a prisoner acting pro se, appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, granting summary judgment to the defendant, Captain John W. Curran. The issue is whether the district court correctly resolved the tension between the prisoner's First Amendment rights and the demands of prison security by granting summary judgment for the prison administrator. We conclude that it did not and, accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

In November 1981, Hall brought this civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against Captain Curran, the Deputy Superintendent for Security at the Clinton Correctional Facility, in which Hall was formerly incarcerated. Seeking a declaratory judgment and monetary damages, he alleged that Curran interfered with and censored his legal and non-legal mail in violation of his First, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Hall contended that Curran subjected his mail to surveillance without good cause and in violation of New York State Department of Correctional Services ("DOC") Directive 4422. He also claimed that Curran deliberately violated his right of access to the courts by improperly confiscating legal materials sent to him by two approved correspondents, Ms. Berg and Ms. Orr. Hall further asserted that the papers needed for the federal suit were his own writings. Finally, he claimed that his incoming and outgoing mail were delayed by prison officials as a result of the allegedly improper censorship. ¹

A. SURVEILLANCE OF HALL'S MAIL

In partial response to Hall's discovery requests, Curran submitted two Interdepartmental Communications, each dated March 7, 1980. The first communication was Curran's request that surveillance of all mail to and from Hall, except legal and privileged mail, be authorized for 60 days. To support his request, Curran stated "Confidential information has been received that the inmate is involved in militant activities which could prove to threaten the safety and security of this facility." (Defendant's Supplemental Response to Plaintiff's Request for Production of Documents, March 7, 1983.) In the second communication, Superintendent E.S. LeFevre, in reliance on Curran's alleged "[c]onfidential information," granted surveillance authorization to the extent of incoming mail, excepting legal and privileged mail.

The surveillance order was renewed at 60-day intervals until approximately September, 1981. The renewal memoranda extended the surveillance authorization to outgoing mail, except legal and privileged mail. (Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, Exhibit B).

In his affidavit in support of summary judgment, Curran reaffirmed that the surveillance order was based on "confidential information" (Curran's affidavit, at paragraph 4) and was renewed because Hall's "correspondence periodically related to criminal activity and/or created a danger to security and order...." (Curran's affidavit, at paragraph 6). To substantiate this allegedly ongoing danger, Curran submitted copies of his memoranda to the DOC Assistant Deputy Commissioner Robert Nelepovitz. The memoranda described the following items of Hall's outgoing mail: 1) Hall's novel, sent to Lisa Berg, a staff person at Amnesty International, which Curran felt might contain information seriously affecting the safety and security of the prison; 2) a letter to Berg allegedly "discussing an obvious circumvention of correspondence procedures;" 3) a letter to Beverly Lubin allegedly referring to an acquaintance under consideration for " 'sponsor potential' by Green Haven Correctional Facility" and indicating, in Curran's opinion, that "underhanded activities may be planned;" 4) a letter Curran found to be "regarding possible illegal activities;" 5) a letter Curran described as "pertaining to military activities, illegal transactions, contraband, etc.;" 6) a letter to Berg discussing what Curran characterized as "the troubles currently plaguing Green Haven," in which Hall allegedly stated that he had been "building the fire" at that facility; and 7) a letter to the Commission of Correction, enclosed in an envelope addressed to Berg at Amnesty International, in which Hall described physical abuse of prisoners confined to the Special Housing Unit at Clinton.

Neither Hall's actual letters nor the details of Curran's "confidential information" were submitted by the defendant in support of summary judgment.

B. CONFISCATION OF THE CCC DOCUMENTS

On October 10, 1980, in compliance with Directive 4422, Captain Curran notified Hall that materials from the "Creative Communications Committee [CCC], a defunct organization at Green Haven Correctional Facility," had been confiscated from an envelope sent to Hall from Amnesty International USA. (Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, Exhibit D). Hall filed a grievance, contending that he had originally authored the expropriated documents and had sent them from Clinton to Berg to be photocopied and returned to him for use as exhibits in his pending federal lawsuit. Requesting the return of the documents, he also alleged that he was a representative of CCC and had a legal right to use its name. The DOC Grievance Committee denied Hall relief, however, stating that he had failed to establish his status as a representative of CCC. Hall then instituted this action.

C. THE MAGISTRATE'S REPORT--RECOMMENDATION

Magistrate Conan recommended granting summary judgment for Curran, concluding that the requirements of Directive 4422(III)(G)(2) had been fulfilled because authorization had been placed in appellant's file and renewed every 60 days. The magistrate did not discuss the alleged "confidential information" basis for the original surveillance order and accepted without comment defendant's contention that the 60-day renewals were justified because periodically some of Hall's mail implicated security and order at Clinton. The magistrate also accepted Curran's opinion that the confiscated materials were unprivileged mail from an unapproved correspondent, ignoring Hall's claim that he had authored the documents.

In his objections to the magistrate's report, Hall continued to assert his claim that the confiscated papers were not third party mail, averring that he was the founder of CCC, which he described as an inmate organization at Green Haven that became defunct upon his transfer to Clinton. He submitted an article from a correctional news publication which referred to him as the president of CCC. (Plaintiff's Objections to Magistrate's Report--Recommendation, Exhibit C.) Hall further claimed that Curran had violated Directive 4422(III)(G)(3) by failing to notify Berg of the confiscation. ² He also argued that there had never been any justification for the monitoring of his mail and renewed his request to the court to order an in camera inspection of the alleged "confidential information" on which Curran claimed he originally relied. He contended that such information did not exist. (Plaintiff's Objections to Magistrate's Report--Recommendation, par. 2).

On October 8, 1986, the district court approved the Magistrate's Report-Recommendation and granted the defendant's cross-motion for summary judgment.

II. DISCUSSION

A. SURVEILLANCE OF HALL'S MAIL

The preservation of social order and the enforcement of our laws is one of the most basic tasks of government, and prisons are one essential means of accomplishing that task. The maintenance of safety and discipline in our penal institutions is best secured through the kind of professional administrative expertise that can be forged only in the crucible of day-to-day experience. Managing a prison is both a science and an art. Optimal penal environments are created slowly and individually. They do not spring whole from judicial decrees. For this reason, judges traditionally and wisely accord considerable discretion to corrections officials' judgments with respect to the continuing security and order of their institutions. Nevertheless, our usual judicial restraint in this area must be tempered at times by the mandates of the Constitution. When an inmate alleges violations of his First Amendment freedoms, we are bound to afford him a meaningful opportunity to prove his claim.

In the instant controversy, we find that Hall has raised material issues of fact concerning the alleged infringements of his First, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights and that his right to a reasonable opportunity to litigate his claim has been aborted by a premature grant of summary judgment.

The standard for deciding whether a restriction on inmate correspondence constitutes an impermissible restraint of First Amendment rights is well settled. The "practice in question must further an important or substantial governmental interest unrelated to the suppression of expression ... [and] ... must be no greater than is necessary or essential to the protection of the particular governmental interest involved." Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 413, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 1811, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974). See also, Washington v. James, 782 F.2d 1134, 1139 (2d Cir.1986); Abdul Wali v. Coughlin, 754 F.2d 1015, 1029 (2d Cir.1985). This intermediate scrutiny standard seeks to protect the "inextricably meshed" rights of both the writer and the intended recipient. Martinez 416 U.S....