Weiler v. Purkett

• Decision Date: 02 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-1022,96-1022
• Citation: 137 F.3d 1047
• Parties: Clyde WEILER, Appellee, v. James PURKETT; Leah Embly, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1047

137 F.3d 1047

Clyde WEILER, Appellee, v. James PURKETT; Leah Embly, Appellants.

No. 96-1022.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Sept. 9, 1997.

Decided March 2, 1998.

John R. Munich, St. Louis, MO, argued (Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Gretchen E. Rowan, and Paul M. Rauschenbach, on the brief), for appellants.

Gary E. Wiseman, St. Louis, MO, argued, for appellee.

Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge, HEANEY, McMILLIAN, JOHN R. GIBSON, FAGG, BOWMAN, WOLLMAN, BEAM, LOKEN, HANSEN, MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges, en banc.

BEAM, Circuit Judge.

In this six-year-old section 1983 lawsuit, Clyde Weiler asserts that the defendants, prison officials at the Farmington, Missouri Correctional Facility, violated his constitutional rights when they refused to deliver a package to him that did not conform to prison regulations. A panel of this court affirmed the district court's denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Our decision to grant en banc review vacated that opinion. See Weiler v. Purkett, 104 F.3d 149 (8th Cir.1997). We now reverse.

I. BACKGROUND

This case involves two rules regarding inmate mail within the Missouri state prison system. One allows inmates to receive packages only, with certain limited exceptions not relevant here, from attorneys and approved vendors. A second regulation affords special treatment for "privileged mail" but limits that category to correspondence to or from judges, attorneys, courts, or government officials. On September 11, 1991, the Farmington, Missouri Correctional Center (Farmington) received a package addressed to inmate Clyde Weiler. Interpreted in the light most favorable to Weiler, the record indicates that the package was marked "legal materials" and the sender was Weiler's son, who is not a judge, attorney, or governmental official. Leah Embly, the mailroom supervisor, did not deliver the package because it was neither privileged mail nor from an approved vendor. Instead, she delivered a "contraband receipt" informing Weiler that a nonconforming package addressed to him had been received, and requesting directions on how he wished to have the property dispatched. ¹ Weiler sued Embly and James Purkett, the prison superintendent, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeking six million dollars in damages. ²

Defendants moved for summary judgment, claiming qualified immunity. In opposition, Weiler filed an affidavit signed by ten inmates asserting that they had received packages from family members containing legal materials. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment. Weiler appealed. A divided panel of this court reversed, holding that the affidavit created a question of fact as to the legitimacy of the regulations. Weiler v. Purkett, Nos. 94-1665, 93-2041, 1995 WL 21660 (8th Cir.1995) (per curiam) (Weiler I ).

On remand, defendants supplemented the record with evidence that they were not aware of irregularities in the application of the mail procedure. They again moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, arguing that isolated misapplication of regulations by other corrections employees does not render the rules themselves invalid. The district court denied the motion. Defendants appeal.

II. DISCUSSION

Qualified immunity shields government actors from suit when, "a reasonable officer could have believed [the challenged act] to be lawful, in light of clearly established law and the information the [defendant]s possessed." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039-40, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). The Supreme Court recently reiterated the importance of qualified immunity in "protecting government's ability to perform its traditional functions by providing immunity where necessary to preserve the ability of government officials to serve the public good or to ensure that talented candidates [are] not deterred by the threat of damages suits from entering public service." Richardson v. McKnight, --- U.S. ----, ----, 117 S.Ct. 2100, 2105, 138 L.Ed.2d 540 (1997) (quotations omitted).

In determining an official's entitlement to immunity, the courts undertake a two-pronged analysis. First, the court must see if a deprivation of constitutional magnitude has been alleged. If so, the court must determine if that right was so clearly established that a reasonable public official would have known his or her conduct violated the Constitution at the time of the act. We consider each question in turn.

A. Allegation of a Constitutional Right

"A necessary concomitant to the determination of whether the constitutional right asserted ... is 'clearly established' at the time the defendant acted is the determination of whether the plaintiff has asserted a violation of a constitutional right at all." Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 232, 111 S.Ct. 1789, 1793, 114 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991). The first step in this process is critical because resolution "of this purely legal question permits courts expeditiously to weed out suits which fail the test." Id. In this case, despite six years of litigation, including numerous submissions to the district court and three different arguments to this court, it is still not exactly clear what constitutional right Weiler seeks to vindicate. He has, at various times, claimed interference with his right to receive mail, obstruction of his right of access to the courts, violation of substantive due process, and denial of equal protection of the laws. Weiler has also maintained at times that the regulations themselves are invalid and at other times that the facially valid regulations were only unconstitutional as applied to him. None of these assorted allegations, however, withstands careful scrutiny.

1. Right to Receive Mail

The district court held that Weiler had alleged a violation of his First Amendment right to receive mail. Although it is well settled that inmates have a right to receive mail, that right may be limited by prison regulations that are reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 92 & 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 2263 & 2261-62, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987).

It is clear that a regulation limiting the receipt of packages is not facially invalid. In Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 555, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1882-83, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), the Supreme Court approved a total ban on the receipt of packages containing food or personal property except for one package of food at Christmas, saying, it is "all too obvious that such packages are handy devices for the smuggling of contraband."

The next question is whether the regulation violated the Constitution as applied to Weiler. As earlier noted, Weiler filed an affidavit of ten Farmington inmates claiming that on unspecified dates under unstated circumstances from unidentified mailroom personnel each of them had received legal papers and transcripts from "family or friends." Applying Griffin v. Lombardi, 946 F.2d 604 (8th Cir.1991), the district court, relying on our opinion in Weiler I, held that this affidavit was sufficient to subject a package regulation that otherwise passes constitutional muster under Supreme Court edict to "factual" uncertainty as to its reasonableness. This rationale simply misapplies Griffin and the law of this circuit.

Whether the ten inmates did or did not receive legal papers mailed by relatives and friends does not control whether the regulation was invalid as applied to Weiler. The ultimate legal question is whether this rule is "reasonably related to legitimate penological interests." Turner, 482 U.S. at 89, 107 S.Ct. at 2261.

We find it beyond dispute that packages may easily conceal contraband, and that the control of contraband is a legitimate penological interest. Thus, even if 100 inmates had received legal papers through a breakdown in mailroom procedures, and were willing to so state by affidavit, the reasonableness of legal mail or package regulations, designed to control receipt of contraband to inmates, would be no less constitutional. There is no evidence that the ten inmates who received packages in contravention of prison rules also did not receive contraband concealed in those packages. Given the great deference we owe to prison authorities in their administration of state prison systems, id. at 85, 107 S.Ct. at 2259-60, we cannot say that this regulation is an exaggerated response to the prison's security concerns. Therefore, the defendants did not violate the Constitution when they applied the rule to Weiler. Weiler has not alleged a violation of his constitutional right to receive mail.

2. Right of Access to the Courts

A prison policy that obstructs privileged inmate mail can violate inmates' right of access to the courts. See, e.g., Jensen v. Klecker, 648 F.2d 1179, 1182-83 (8th Cir.1981). Weiler, however, has not established any interference with legal mail. The regulation defines legal mail as correspondence from an attorney, judge or elected official. This type of formulation has been expressly approved by the Supreme Court. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 576, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2984-85, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) ("We think it entirely appropriate that the State require [legal mail] to be specially marked as originating from an attorney ..."). The Farmington rule, even more generous to inmates than the Wolff requirements, passes constitutional muster as a matter of law. Since the package came from a family member, not a person or entity specified in the rule, it was not legal mail. ³ Weiler has not alleged a violation of his constitutional right of access to the courts.

3. Substantive Due Process

Substantive due process prevents the government from engaging in conduct that shocks the conscience or interferes with rights implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 746, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 2101, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987). There are two different ways of stating a substantive due process...