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| Corrections department sued over media |
| By dailyprogress.com |
| Published: 04/08/2011 |
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A Louisiana man has filed suit against the Virginia Department of Corrections over not being able to send spoken-word CDs to a state inmate. Owen N. North filed a lawsuit on Monday in Richmond’s federal court against DOC director Harold C. Clarke and John M. Jabe, the deputy director of the DOC’s operations division. According to the complaint, North said he wanted to send a CD called “Dylan Thomas: The Caedmon Collection” to Shawn Goode, an inmate at Nottoway Correctional Center near Burkeville. After learning that CDs of the Welsh author and poet had to be purchased from an inmate’s prison account, the suit said, North sent the money to Goode to be placed in his account. “Mr. Goode sought to order the compact disc that [North] paid for from Jones Express Music, but was advised that non-music, non-religious compact discs are not permitted to be ordered or possessed by prisoners in the custody of the [DOC],” the lawsuit said. According to the suit, Jones Express Music is the exclusive provider of CDs to the DOC. A company spokesman couldn’t be reached for this story. The complaint said the ban on gifts of CDs, the exclusion of non-music compact discs without justification and the prohibition of non-religious spoken-word CDs while religious ones are allowed violate the First Amendment. According to the suit, the latter also violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The DOC doesn’t comment on pending litigation. A spokesman from the state attorney general’s office also declined to comment. North is being represented by Charlottesville attorneys Jeffrey E. Fogel and Steven D. Rosenfield. In recent years, the two local lawyers have represented inmates and publishers who have accused the DOC of violating their First Amendment rights over banned editions. According to North’s lawsuit, Jabe sent a memo to all prison wardens and superintendents in August 2009 that non-music CDs could not be sold to offenders. Another memo sent out in December 2009 allowed inmates to have “approved faith-based, non-music CDs.” In a Jan. 21 letter to Clarke, North wrote he was astounded to find that inmates were allowed to receive CDs of televangelists but not CDs “containing the poetry, prose or dramatic works which are considered by all educated person to be among the best products of our Western heritage …” In a Feb. 1 response letter to North, DOC Special Programs Manager Louis B. Cei wrote that non-religious spoken word CDs are not permitted because almost all spoken word CDs can be found in print form and the DOC doesn’t have the staff to screen the CDs. “It is necessary to listen to the entire CD because modern technology permits the insertion of inappropriate information (sexual or security related) anywhere in the CD,” Cei wrote. Cei also said that CDs delivered to inmates from Jones Express come from a “reliable” source that “avoids the pirating and technology-tampering issues.” Fogel said he doesn’t understand why the DOC banned spoken-word CDs in the first place when the only CDs that inmates can buy are from a DOC-approved publisher. “They know that inserting something isn’t a problem because they’re getting everything exclusively from [Jones Express],” Fogel said. North’s suit is asking the DOC to allow all non-music CDs “subject to any valid penological concern,” and to allow third parties to give CDs as gifts. He is also asking for damages and attorney’s fees. Read More. |
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