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| Supreme Court Reverses Inmate Advice Case |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 04/20/2001 |
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Prison inmates have no constitutional right to give legal advice to fellow inmates, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The fact that a communication between inmates contains legal advice does not give it special free-speech protection, the justices said in the case of a Montana inmate. 'Augmenting First Amendment protection for inmate legal advice would undermine prison officials' ability to address the complex and intractable problems of prison administration,' Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court. 'It is indisputable that inmate law clerks are sometimes a menace to prison discipline,' Thomas said. 'Prisoners have used legal correspondence as a means for passing contraband and communicating instructions on how to manufacture drugs or weapons.' The justices reversed a lower court ruling that had said Montana authorities wrongly disciplined an inmate over a letter in which he offered legal advice to another inmate. Kevin Murphy, an inmate at the Montana State Prison, was trained by prison officials as a legal clerk authorized to help other inmates. In early 1995, Murphy wrote to a fellow inmate who had been charged with assaulting an officer. Prison rules, however, did not allow Murphy to offer such assistance because the other inmate was in the maximum-security unit. In the letter, Murphy proposed some legal strategies and also offered disparaging remarks about the officer who allegedly had been assaulted. A prison official read and confiscated the letter, which never reached the second inmate. Murphy was disciplined for violating prison rules. Murphy did not contest prison officials' right to read his letter to the fellow inmate, but he said they should not be able to censor it. Murphy sued, saying prison officials violated his free-speech right to provide legal assistance to other inmates. A federal judge ruled against him, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Murphy's rights had been violated. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court said the 9th Circuit court was wrong. The case is Shaw v. Murphy, 99-1613. |
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Montana State Prison prides themselves in violating the rights of the inmates and once they are called on the carpet over something, they quickly close any loopholes to challenge them again. They did just that after they were found in violation. Now it is against MSP policy to allow inmates to write to each other at all! They have made it next to impossible for an inmate to get assistance on their case. What's worse than MSP is dealing with the Board of Pardons and Parole. They truly do not operate by their own mission statement. We need to completely abolish the prison systems and find alternatives because the corruption is rampant!!