Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01622/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01622-0/pdf.json

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 December 22, 2015*

Decided December 22, 2015

Before

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

No. 15-1622

DAVID DAVENPORT,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

BRIAN RODGERS,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of Indiana,

Indianapolis Division.

No. 1:14-cv-0207-JMS-WGH

Jane E. Magnus-Stinson,

Judge.

O R D E R

David Davenport has sued Brian Rodgers, a civilian mail clerk at the jail where he

was a pretrial detainee, for intercepting and giving to prosecutors letters in which he 

acknowledges his crimes. The district court ruled that, based on Davenport’s allegations 

 

* After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is 

unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record. See 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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION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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No. 15-1622 Page 2

and the undisputed facts, Rodgers is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Because 

that ruling is correct, we affirm the judgment for Rodgers.

While awaiting trial on drug charges at the Marion County Jail, Davenport mailed 

two incriminating letters. Working in the mail room, Rodgers’s suspicions about the first

letter were aroused when it was returned to the jail for insufficient postage. Inmates 

frequently attempt to thwart bans on communicating with one another by mailing letters 

with inadequate postage, listing another inmate as the sender, and hoping it will be 

routed to that inmate when returned to the jail. Following jail policy, Rodgers read the 

letter to see if it contained an improper inmate-to-inmate communication. It contained a 

signed confession to the crimes with which Davenport was charged. After reading the

confession, Rodgers gave the letter to his superiors, who instructed him to monitor 

Davenport’s other mail. Within a couple of days, Davenport attempted to mail a second 

letter. This time he asked his girlfriend to perjure herself at his criminal trial. After 

reading that letter, Rodgers turned it over to his supervisors, who then gave both letters 

to the county prosecutor.

Davenport unsuccessfully moved to have the letters excluded from his trial. In 

affirming his conviction, the Court of Appeals of Indiana explained that he had no 

reasonable expectation of privacy in outgoing mail while in jail. It emphasized that the 

facility’s inmate handbook provided him actual notice that “[a]ll mail for inmates, both 

incoming and outgoing, will be opened . . . It shall be read, censored or rejected based on 

content and for security reasons.” Davenport v. State, No. 49A02-1210-CR-842, 2013 WL 

5659477, at *4–6 (Ind. Ct. App. Oct. 17, 2013).

In this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Davenport seeks damages from Rodgers. He

revives his Fourth Amendment arguments and adds two new legal theories. The first is 

that Rodgers violated Davenport’s First Amendment “privacy right” by forwarding his 

letters to the prosecutor. Second, Rodgers allegedly violated his due process rights by 

failing to notify him promptly, as required by the inmate handbook, that Rodgers had

forwarded the letters. The district court dismissed all but the First Amendment claim 

and later granted summary judgment on that claim, reasoning that forwarding the

letters to the prosecutor served a legitimate penological interest. 

Davenport renews all of his legal theories on appeal. We begin with his Fourth 

Amendment claim and note that Rodgers does not raise issue preclusion, even though 

Davenport litigated (and lost) this claim in his state-court appeal. See Starzenski v. City of 

Elkhart, 87 F.3d 872, 877 (7th Cir. 1996). But Davenport loses on the merits anyway. The

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No. 15-1622 Page 3

Supreme Court long ago held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the 

government, in implementing reasonable security measures in prisons, from seizing and 

using as evidence letters written voluntarily by a prisoner. Stroud v. United States, 251 

U.S. 15, 21–22 (1919). The principle applies to pretrial detainees as well. See Smith v. 

Shimp, 562 F.2d 423, 425-26 (7th Cir. 1977) (holding that state’s interest “in monitoring 

the nonprivileged correspondence of the pretrial detainees” overrides privacy interests); 

United States v. Brown, 878 F.2d 222, 225–26 (8th Cir. 1989). Davenport wrote his letters

freely and with full knowledge of the jail’s procedures for reading correspondence for 

security reasons; therefore, neither Rodgers’s reading the letters nor forwarding them to 

the prosecution violated the Fourth Amendment.

Davenport’s due process claim is equally flawed. He argues that, although the 

jail’s regulations permitted Rodgers to inspect his mail, Rodgers did not notify

Davenport before diverting the mail, as those regulations require. But a failure to follow 

procedures set by local rules or regulations in itself does not violate due process. See

Kvapil v. Chippewa Co., 752 F.3d 708, 715 (7th Cir. 2014); Rowe v. DeBruyn, 17 F.3d 1047, 

1051–52 (7th Cir. 1994). 

Davenport’s First Amendment claims were also properly dismissed. Without 

violating the First Amendment, prison officials may seize and read inmate mail as long 

as the practice furthers an important governmental interest and is no greater restriction 

than necessary. See Koutnik v. Brown, 456 F.3d 777, 784–85 (7th Cir. 2006); Smith, 562 F.2d 

at 425-26. Davenport does not contest the legitimacy of the jail’s practice of reading mail

for security reasons; instead he argues that what Rodgers did after reading the letters

violated his speech rights. But the First Amendment prohibits the state from restricting 

the free expression of ideas, Ashcroft v. Am. Civil Liberties Union, 535 U.S. 564, 573 (2002), 

and by diverting the mail to prosecutors, Rodgers did not seek to stifle any ideas. 

Furthermore, “[g]iven that jail officials could legitimately read [Davenport’s] mail, we 

do not think that the First Amendment would bar them from turning letters over to the 

prosecutor if the jailers happened to find valuable evidence during their monitoring.” 

Busby v. Dretke, 359 F.3d 708, 721 (5th Cir. 2004). Rodgers merely “’overheard’ a 

damaging admission during the course of [his] duties,” Busby, 359 F.3d at 721, and in 

meeting his legitimate responsibilities to law enforcement, he could forward the 

admission without becoming liable for suppressing speech. 

AFFIRMED.

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