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Florida Prisons, Already Censoring a News Publication, Now Seek to Censor Legal Brief

December 30, 2015 | FlaglerLive | 3 Comments

florida prison news
The barbed wire isn’t enough. (Thiophene Guy)

The Florida Department of Corrections is seeking to block state and national media organizations from filing a brief in a legal battle about whether a publication should be barred from Florida’s prisons.


Seven news and First Amendment organizations, including the Florida Press Association, the Tallahassee-based First Amendment Foundation and the American Society of News Editors, filed a motion this month in a federal appeals court seeking to file a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Prison Legal News, a publication prohibited from the state’s prisons.

But the Department of Corrections has objected to the motion, along with similar requests by a group of former prison officials from across the country and a group of law professors, according to court documents posted online.

The dispute at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes after U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker ruled this summer that the Department of Corrections could ban Prison Legal News because its advertisements pose a threat to security. Walker, meanwhile, sided with Prison Legal News on an issue about whether the department had violated the publication’s due-process rights by failing to provide notification when copies were impounded.

Appeals ensued, with the outside groups filing a series of documents this month seeking to weigh in with briefs.

The media and First Amendment organizations, in part, argue that the department’s position could threaten other types of newspapers distributed in prisons. For example, the organizations said newspapers such as the Tallahassee Democrat, Gainesville Sun and Miami Herald are distributed in prisons. (Disclosure: The News Service of Florida is a member of the First Amendment Foundation.)

“Daily newspapers distributed in Florida prisons now include advertisements for alcoholic beverages, firearms and ammunition, and numerous other products or services that the state prohibits prisoners from possessing or using,” said a copy of the brief, which is attached to the organization’s motion. “If the state can prohibit distribution of Prison Legal News in Florida prisons simply because it carries advertising for products or services prisoners cannot acquire or use, the state also could prohibit distribution of most publications.”

But in objecting to the media organizations’ motion, Senior Assistant Attorney General Lance Eric Neff wrote that the brief “relies heavily on non-prisoner First Amendment law that has no application behind prison walls.”

“Further, to the extent the news organizations are worried that their publications will be improperly rejected by the department under the rule in question, there was absolutely no evidence submitted to the lower (district) court that supports this situation has ever occurred,” wrote Neff, representing the Department of Corrections. “Thus, the worries put forth by the news organizations are nothing more than conjecture and speculation about events that have never taken place and likely never will. As such, they are unhelpful to this (appeals) court.”

–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Woody says

    January 2, 2016 at 5:38 pm

    Incarcerated inmates especially felons should get 2 buckets,1 to eat out of and 1 to piss and crap in.Then maybe they won’t commit another crime.

    Reply
  2. jeff says

    January 8, 2016 at 1:57 pm

    A threat to security what a crock of s h i t.

    Reply
  3. Paul Kruger says

    January 8, 2016 at 2:39 pm

    This is another example of state government refusing to follow the Constitution. This is not about security because of ads it is about preventing prisoners from having access to the news, specifically news about the terrible system they are ensnared in.

    The “excuse” is that the publication has ads for things prisoners cannot possess. Duh! So does Television and newspapers and every magazine I have ever seen. Just because there is an ad for something does not mean the prisoner can hop on his horse and ride to the country store to buy it.

    The “security” argument is too easily sold to judges and to the general public at large. It is NOT and never was about those advertisements, it is ONLY about denying prisoners access to factual news about the prison system.

    This is what you get when you hire a criminal as governor. Someone with no hint of knowledge about our laws and Constitution and no interest in knowing.

    If we had a legislature with balls they would clamp down on the FLDOC and make them get their act together about all kinds of abuses, not just First Amendment but criminal abuses like out-right murders by guards.

    http://joethevoter.org

    Reply

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