Prison Legal News v. Lehman

• Decision Date: 17 June 2003
• Docket Number: No. C01-1911L.,C01-1911L.
• Citation: 272 F.Supp.2d 1151
• Parties: PRISON LEGAL NEWS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Joseph LEHMAN, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Washington

Page 1151

272 F.Supp.2d 1151

PRISON LEGAL NEWS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Joseph LEHMAN, et al., Defendants.

No. C01-1911L.

United States District Court, W.D. Washington, at Seattle.

June 17, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Jesse Andrew Wing, MacDonald, Hoague & Bayless, Seattle, WA, for plaintiffs.

Carol A. Murphy, Attorney General's Office, Criminal Justice Division, Olympia, WA, Kasey Myhra, Betts, Patterson & Mines, Seattle, WA, Shannon Elizabeth Inglis, Attorney General's Office, Criminal Justice Division, Olympia, WA, for Defendants.

ORDER REGARDING MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

LASNIK, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This matter comes before the Court on cross motions for summary judgment filed by plaintiffs Prison Legal News and Rollin Wright (collectively, "PLN") and defendants Joseph Lehman, et al. (collectively, "the Department"). For the reasons set forth in this Order, the Court grants in part and denies in part PLN's motion (Dkt. # 67) and grants in part and denies in part the Department's motion (Dkt # 80).¹

II. DISCUSSION

A. Background.

PLN is a Washington nonprofit corporation that publishes and distributes publications regarding prisoners' rights, prison conditions, and prison-related news. PLN publishes a monthly subscription magazine, Prison Legal News Working to Extend Democracy to All. The magazine's editor, Paul Wright, is a Washington State correctional facility inmate, as are a number of PLN's contributing writers. (Miniken Decl. ¶ 6). PLN has just under 3,000 Prison Legal News subscribers in all fifty states Id. ¶ 8. Approximately 120 subscribers are inmates in Washington State correctional facilities. Id. ¶ 9.

The individual defendants are policy-making employees of the Washington Department of Corrections, including the Department Secretary, Deputy Secretary / Office of Correctional Operations Director, Regional Administrator, former Regional Administrator, nine superintendents, and one associate superintendent. (PLN's Motion at 5-6). The Department operates fifteen correctional institutions, including eight major institutions, housing approximately 16,000 inmates. (Vail Decl. ¶ 3). The Department employs approximately one mailroom staff person per 600 persons served at an institution, including both inmates and staff. Id. ¶ 6. The Department's Policy Directive 450.100, "Mail for Offenders," ("DOC 450.100") sets forth rules and procedures regarding offender mail. See Doonan Decl. Ex. 2 (DOC 450.100).

Two of the policies set forth in DOC 450.100 are particularly important here. First, the directive prohibits inmates from receiving "bulk mail" unless that bulk mail is a subscription publication.² Id. at 6. In contrast to first and second class mail rejected due to prohibited content, "[n]o rejection notice is required for bulk mail that is not a subscription publication." Id. Additionally, inmates are not permitted to receive catalogs by mail, whether sent first class, second class, or at a "bulk mail" rate.³ Id. at 5. If mail other than that constituting bulk mail is rejected for delivery, inmates receive notice of the rejection and may appeal the decision. Id. at 8-9.

Pursuant to postal regulation, as a non-profit corporation PLN is exempted from paying full postal rates. "Organizations and groups eligible for the Nonprofit Standard Rate are permitted to mail letters and other materials for about forty-three percent less than the rate paid by businesses operated for profit." United States v. American Target Adver., Inc., 257 F.3d 348, 352 (4th Cir.2001). PLN sends Prison Legal News and a substantial portion of other correspondence to inmates under the "standard rate." Savings from sending mail at the standard rate are significant: a one ounce letter sent first class costs 37 cents, while a 3.3 ounce letter sent at the standard rate costs 16 cents. (Miniken Decl. ¶ 11).

PLN alleges that several of the Department's practices violate its First Amendment right to communicate with inmates. In particular, PLN challenges the catalog and bulk mail bans.⁴ See Amended Complaint ¶¶ 3.1-3.14, PLN's Motion at 41-64. Additionally, PLN alleges that the Department has wrongfully denied it "approved vendor" status and that the Department's failure to provide inmates third-party legal materials sent by PLN is unconstitutional censorship. See Amended Complaint ¶¶ 3.15-3.25, 3.38-3.43, PLN's Motion at 64-69. Finally, PLN contends that the Department's failure to notify PLN or inmates when standard rate mail or catalogs are received by the mailroom and not delivered to the addressees fails to meet minimum due process requirements. See Amended Complaint ¶¶ 3.26-3.37, PLN's Motion at 69-71.

B. Summary Judgment Standard.

Summary judgment is proper if the moving party shows that "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that [it] is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

C. The Catalog and Bulk Mail Prohibitions.⁵

Publishers have a "legitimate First Amendment interest" in communication with prisoners by mail. Prison Legal News v. Cook, 238 F.3d 1145, 1149 (9th Cir.2001) (quoting Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 408, 109 S.Ct. 1874, 104 L.Ed.2d 459 (1989)). However, "prisoners' constitutional rights [and also the rights of those who send mail to prisoners] are subject to substantial limitations and restrictions in order to allow prison officials to achieve legitimate correctional goals and maintain institutional security." Walker v. Sumner, 917 F.2d 382, 385 (9th Cir.1990). Therefore, prison policies that infringe upon this First Amendment right of communication will be upheld if "reasonably related to legitimate penological interests." Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987).

1. The Turner Inquiry.

Turner "set[s] forth the standard for evaluating prisoners' constitutional claims." Walker, 917 F.2d at 385. To guide courts in determining whether a challenged regulation is "reasonably related to legitimate penological interests" Turner established a four-factor inquiry.

(1) whether the regulation is rationally related to a legitimate and neutral governmental objective,

(2) whether there are alternative avenues that remain open to the inmates to exercise the right,

(3) the impact that accommodating the asserted right will have on other guards and prisoners, and on the allocation of prison resources; and

(4) whether the existence of easy and obvious alternatives indicates that the regulation is an exaggerated response by prison officials.

Prison Legal News, 238 F.3d at 1149 (citing Turner, 482 U.S. at 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254). A court should afford "considerable deference to the determinations of prison administrators who, in the interest of security, regulate the relations between prisoners and the outside world," though the Turner test "is not toothless." Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 408, 414, 109 S.Ct. 1874, 104 L.Ed.2d 459 (1989).

a. Rational Relation to Legitimate and Neutral Governmental Objectives.

The first element of the Turner test requires a court to "(1) determine whether the [defendant's] regulation is legitimate and neutral, and (2) assess whether there is a rational relationship between the governmental objective and the regulation." Id. Although PLN alleges that the Department has demonstrated bias against it and that the policies are not uniformly applied, PLN does not appear to challenge the neutrality of the regulations, and therefore the Court turns directly to the question of whether there is a rational relationship between the Department's objectives and the regulations.

When a plaintiff presents evidence to refute a "common-sense connection" between a legitimate objective and a prison policy, the defendant "must present enough counter-evidence to show that the connection is not so remote as to render the policy arbitrary or irrational." Frost v. Symington, 197 F.3d 348, 357 (9th Cir. 1999). However, if the plaintiff fails to come forward with such evidence "prison officials need not prove that the banned material actually caused problems in the past, or that the materials are `likely' to cause problems in the future." Mauro v. Arpaio, 188 F.3d 1054, 1060 (9th Cir.1999). For the reasons set forth below, the Court finds that PLN has presented evidence sufficient to rebut the "common-sense connection" presumption. Therefore the Court considers both PLN's evidence and the Department's counter-evidence, all of which relates to whether the policies are rationally related to minimization of contraband, detection of contraband, and reduction of the risk of fire in Washington State correctional facilities.

i. Reduction of Volume of Mail that may Contain Contraband.

The Department submitted excerpts from the deposition of defendant Scott Frakes in which he stated that "the bulk mail often is in fact bulky, and to adequately search through it, [to] make sure that contraband is not hidden in mail ... takes a lot of resources." (Inglis Decl. Ex. 23, at 41). The Court does not doubt that searching mail is time consuming. However, there is no rational relation between a policy banning catalogs and bulk mail and the penological objective of reducing the volume of mail that may contain contraband. As a matter of common sense and the defendants' experience, it is far more likely that contraband would be contained in personal first class mail from, for example, an inmate's friends or family members, than in bulk mail, which consists of identical pieces of mail sent to numerous recipients. Cf. Prison Legal News, 238 F.3d at 1150 (finding "no evidence supporting a rational distinction between the risk of contraband in subscription non-profit organization standard mail and first class or periodicals mail").

ii. Reduction of Volume of Mail Generally.

The Department argues that the ban on catalogs and bulk mail is justified because it reduces the overall volume of mail, allowing mailroom staff more time to...