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Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted March 4, 2020*

Decided March 5, 2020

Before

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge

No. 19-2305

PHILLIP LITTLER,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

AMBER WALLACE,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of Indiana, 

Terre Haute Division.

No. 2:16-cv-175-WTL-DLP

William T. Lawrence,

Judge.

O R D E R

After the prison mailroom supervisor destroyed a letter from his cousin under a

policy restricting communication between current and former inmates, Phillip Littler 

sued her for enforcing an unconstitutional policy. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. His complaint 

included several other claims and defendants, but only his First Amendment challenge 

to the policy proceeded to a bench trial. The district judge concluded that the prison’s

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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policy was constitutional because it was related to a legitimate penological interest.

Littler appeals, challenging that determination and several pre-trial rulings. We affirm. 

Littler is a state prisoner at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Indiana. In 

March 2015, the prison’s mailroom received a letter addressed to him from his cousin.

Staff inspected the letter, in which Littler’s cousin stated that he was on probation. The 

Indiana Department of Correction has a policy barring communications between 

current inmates and other offenders, including former Indiana prisoners on probation, 

without prior approval (which can be requested using a form). See IND. DEP’T OF CORR.

MANUAL OF POL’Y & PROC., No. 02-01-103(V) (Apr. 15, 2014). Littler’s cousin was on

county probation but had not served time in an Indiana state prison. Believing that the 

policy applied to the letter, however, staff confiscated it when they found no record that 

Littler had been granted approval to communicate with his cousin.

Following Department policy, mailroom staff notified Littler that they had 

confiscated his letter and that he could challenge the confiscation through the prison’s 

administrative process. Id. No. 02-01-103(XIII). Littler did so, but his grievance and 

appeals were denied. Under the policy, if a grievance specialist determines that the 

confiscation of any mail is legitimate, staff may dispose of it if the inmate to whom it is 

addressed does not advise them within 15 days where else to direct the mail. Id. No. 02-

01-103(XX). Littler failed to advise mailroom staff how he wanted the letter handled, 

and the supervisor, Jeanne Watkins, later notified him that she had destroyed it. 

Littler then sued Watkins, as well as a commissioner of the Indiana Department 

of Correction, Bruce Lemmon, and the prison’s superintendent Richard Brown. He 

sought damages, a declaration that the policy is unconstitutional, and an injunction 

preventing its enforcement. The district court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915A and permitted Littler to proceed on a First Amendment claim against Watkins 

in both her individual and official capacities, but it dismissed the claims against 

Lemmon and Brown because there were no allegations that they were personally 

involved in Littler’s injury. The district court also did not allow Littler to proceed on a 

claim that the destruction of the letter was an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth 

Amendment. Nor did it permit Littler to amend his complaint to add a due-process 

claim, ruling that Indiana’s Tort Claims Act provides sufficient remedies. 

At the close of discovery, the defendants moved for summary judgment. The 

district court denied their motion. Though it could imagine several reasons why the 

Department of Correction would want to restrict mail between current and former 

inmates, the court explained, the prison had not presented evidence showing its policy

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was logically related to legitimate security concerns. Later, after ordering additional 

briefing on the scope of Watkins’s liability, the court ruled that Watkins was entitled to 

qualified immunity with respect to the damages claim because destroying the letter 

under the policy did not violate any clearly established constitutional right. That left 

only Littler’s First Amendment claim for declaratory and injunctive relief against 

Watkins in her official capacity. (Because a suit against a state official in her official 

capacity is effectively a suit against the state entity, Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 

491 U.S. 58, 71 (1989), we refer to it in that vein going forward.)

At trial, Littler testified that the policy prevented him from communicating with 

his cousin and a prospective love interest who was a former Indiana prisoner on work 

release. He admitted that he had not asked for permission to exchange letters with his 

cousin or anyone else, and he had not tried to put his cousin on his phone list. Asking 

for permission to communicate with these individuals would be futile, he thought, 

because he was housed in a restricted unit. (Approvals to send and receive letters from 

other offenders are suspended if an inmate is placed on restricted status. See IND. DEP’T 

OF CORR. MANUAL OF POL’Y & PROC., No. 02-01-103(V).) And his love interest had balked

at having to give her contact information to the prison to communicate with him.

Amber Wallace, who had replaced Watkins as mailroom supervisor and was 

substituted in her place, see FED. R. CIV. P. 25(d), testified about how the mailroom 

operates. On any given day it receives up to a thousand letters. Four mailroom staff 

members screen incoming mail for safety risks and contraband, such as drugs and mail 

from other offenders, that threaten prison security. Not all security threats are 

immediately obvious. Offender-to-offender communications present a threat to prison 

security, Wallace testified, because offenders often write in codes that are difficult for 

staff to identify and understand. Staff therefore automatically confiscate this type of 

correspondence. She had recognized coded messages in at least three pieces of offenderto-offender mail that she personally handled. She was not able to find any record of

Littler asking for permission to communicate with restricted individuals.

At the close of trial, the district court entered findings of fact and conclusions of 

law. It ruled that, though the policy implicated Littler’s First Amendment rights, it was 

not unconstitutional because the prison had presented sufficient evidence that the 

policy was reasonably related to its interest in preserving prison security. Littler could 

still communicate with other offenders under the policy (with advance permission). 

And accepting the communications would likely drain prison resources by increasing

the amount of mail to be individually inspected by the prison staff. Littler appealed.

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We begin with Littler’s argument that the prison’s policy violates the First 

Amendment. Prisoners have a protected First Amendment interest in receiving mail. 

See Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 84 (1987); Kaufman v. McCaughtry, 419 F.3d 678, 685 

(7th Cir. 2005). Prison regulations that restrict this interest are nevertheless valid if they 

relate reasonably to a legitimate penological interest. Turner, 482 U.S. at 89–90; Munson 

v. Gaetz, 673 F.3d 630, 633 (7th Cir. 2012). To determine reasonableness, we consider 

whether there is a valid, rational connection between the prison’s objective and the 

regulation, whether alternative means of exercising the right are available, whether 

accommodating the asserted right unduly impacts the prison’s resources, and whether 

obvious, easy alternatives exist to accommodate the prisoner’s rights. Turner, 482 U.S.

at 89–90; Munson, 673 F.3d at 633. 

Littler argues the policy is not reasonably related to a legitimate penological 

interest because communication with probationers does not present the same degree of 

security risks as communication between current inmates. He also contends that it is 

arbitrary and punitive because prison officials can deny approval, and approvals are

rescinded if inmates are placed on restricted status. But even if we assume (Littler 

presented no evidence of this theory) that communications with probationers present 

less risk than with other prisoners, Littler must overcome the substantial discretion 

granted to prison officials in determining “appropriate means of furthering penological 

interests.” Turner, 482 U.S. at 89; Koger v. Dart, No. 19-2892, slip op. at 3–4 (7th Cir. 

Feb. 25, 2020); see also Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126, 132 (2003) (the burden “is not on 

the State to prove the validity of prison regulations but on the prisoner to disprove it”).

Here, the prison explained that the regulation furthers prison security because

staff struggle to identify coded language used by current and former inmates. 

See Turner, 482 U.S. at 93. Prison security is a sufficiently important government interest 

to justify limitations on First Amendment rights. See Rowe v. Shake, 196 F.3d 778, 782 

(7th Cir. 1999). And placing restrictions on mail prone to coded language logically 

relates to that goal and is not an “exaggerated response.” See Turner, 482 U.S. at 90–91, 

93 (upholding restriction on offender-to-offender mail in part because “prisoners could 

easily write in jargon or codes to prevent detection”). Requiring the four-person 

mailroom staff to read all prisoner-to-prisoner mail for coded messages—rather than 

confiscating them as a class—could fail to achieve the same goal because, as Wallace 

explained, the use of coded language is not always obvious. The policy leaves open 

alternative means of communication: inmates may request permission to communicate 

with restricted individuals and challenge the confiscation of mail through the grievance 

system; subject to some restrictions, they may also communicate with former inmates 

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over the telephone. See IND. DEP’T OF CORR. MANUAL OF POL’Y & PROC., No. 02-01-105.

That the prison may deny an inmate’s request for permission to communicate with 

another offender—if, for example, an inmate is on restricted status for investigatory 

reasons or a particular correspondent poses an intolerable risk—does not make these

alternative means categorically insufficient. The policy is meant to intercept a type of 

mail that the prison has determined poses the most risk to prison security. It therefore 

survives scrutiny under the Turner test. 

We turn now to Littler’s challenges to the district court’s pre-trial rulings. Littler

insists that the district court should have allowed his claim for damages against

Watkins for confiscating and destroying his letter. But qualified immunity shields 

prison officials from liability when their conduct does not violate clearly established 

rights. See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009); Van den Bosch v. Raemisch, 

658 F.3d 778, 786–87 (7th Cir. 2011). And there is no clearly established First 

Amendment right for prisoners to read unregulated mail from other offenders. We have 

previously signaled that “[t]he right of a prison inmate to read the mail he receives, 

provided that his reading it would not infringe the prison’s legitimate interests, is ... clearly 

established.” Williams v. Hansen, 837 F.3d 809, 811 (7th Cir. 2016) (emphasis added). 

Here, whether preventing inmates from reading mail from other offenders was justified 

by a legitimate interest was a disputed issue for trial. From cases like Turner, in which 

courts have upheld policies restricting correspondence among prisoners, 482 U.S. at 93, 

Watkins could not have known that confiscating mail from someone who appeared to 

be an Indiana probationer under a policy restricting inmate correspondence clearly 

violated the First Amendment. And as our discussion of the policy’s constitutionality 

demonstrates, the issue does not obviously resolve in Littler’s favor. Therefore, the 

district court properly concluded that Watkins had qualified immunity with respect to 

his claim for damages. 

Littler further maintains, perhaps just to preserve the argument for further 

review, that the district court erred in dismissing his Fourth Amendment claim because 

destroying his letter was an arbitrary and unconstitutional seizure. As he appears to 

concede, that argument is foreclosed by precedent. See e.g., Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 

517, 525–27 (1984); United States v. Whalen, 940 F.2d 1027, 1034–35 (7th Cir. 1991). 

Finally, Littler insists that the district court abused its discretion when it declined 

to allow him to amend his complaint to include a due process claim because, he urges, 

the Indiana Tort Claims Act is not an adequate post-deprivation remedy for the 

destruction of personal property by prison officials. We have suggested as much, 

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see Belcher v. Norton, 497 F.3d 742 (7th Cir. 2007), but the point is immaterial here. The 

policy itself appears to provide a remedy. Through procedures for requesting approval 

to communicate with other offenders and appealing the confiscation of mail, it provides

notice and opportunity to be heard both before and after mail is confiscated. And mail 

is destroyed only if inmates do not make their own arrangements for it. The evidence at 

trial shows that Littler did not make full use of these procedures: he did not ask for 

advance permission to communicate with anyone, and he failed to direct the staff to 

send the letter elsewhere. On this record, he cannot argue that a different procedure 

would have substantially decreased the risk of an erroneous deprivation of property. 

We have considered Littler’s other claims, and none has merit.

AFFIRMED

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