### The Honorable James M. Moody, United States District Judg e 1 

### for the Eastern District of Arkansas. ___________ No. 96-2184

___________ Laura Berry, * * Appellant, * * v. * * Appeal from the United States Jay L. Oswalt; Gaylon Lay; * District Court for the Jay Blankenship, Warden * Eastern District of Arkansas. Virginia W. Wallace; Larry * Norris, Director; D. D. Cook; * Katherine Green; Kevin Murphy; * C.O.-1 Wright; C.O.-1 R. Reed; * [UNPUBLISHED] Sgt. Tammy Patton, formerly * known as Tammy Ridgeway; A. * Bradley, Classification Officer,* *

Appellees. *

___________ Submitted: November 18, 1996 Filed: January 23, 1997

___________ Before McMILLIAN, Cir cuit Judge, Henley, Senior Circuit Judge, and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

___________ HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge.

Laura Berry, an inmate of the Tucker Women's Unit of the Arkansa s Department of Correction, appeals fro m the district court's denial of her 1 motion for a preliminary injunction. We affirm.

Th e district court correctly held that Berry was not entitled t o preliminary injunctive relief on her legal mail and "legal

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trunk" claims. See D ataphase Sys., Inc. v. C L Sys., Inc. , 640 F.2d 109, 113 (8th Cir. 1981). "'[W]hether a preliminary injunction should issu e involves consideration of (1) the threat of irreparable harm to the movant ; (2) the state of balance between this harm and the injury that granting th e injunction will inflict upon other parties litigant; (3) the probability that movant will succeed on the merits; and (4) the public interest.' " Goff v. Harper , 60 F.3d 518, 520 (8th Cir. 1995) (quoting Dataphase , 640 F.2d at 114). "The burden of proving that a pre liminary injunction should be issue d rests entirely with the movant." Id. "We review a distric t court's grant or denial of preliminary injunctive relief for an abuse of discretion or misplaced reliance on an erroneous legal principle." Id.

As to t he legal mail claim, at an evidentiary hearing Majo r Luckett, chief of security at Tucker, testified that the prison's mai l policy regarding outgoing legal mail required of ficers to review documents insid e envelopes marked "legal mail" to "make sure they are lega l documents." He explained that the policy was necessary because of securit y concerns. He further explained that officers did not read the documents, but only "skimmed" th em to verify that they were in fact legal, and after
an officer verified the documents he returned the documents and th e envelope to the inmate, who would seal the envelope before mailing. I n response to questioning by the court, Luckett confirmed that an officer wa s "only to check the mail as far as necessary to c onfirm that it is going to
a lawyer," and that if an officer read a letter addressed to a lawyer he
or she would be violating the policy. Luckett stated that he knew of no violations of the policy.
At the hearing, Officer Angela Lovet t testified that on one occasion she attempted to verify Berry's legal mail. According to Lovett, Berr y took some grievance forms and a piece of noteboo k paper out of an envelope and gave them to Lovett for verification. As Lovett was "skimming" th e page of notebook paper, Berry

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compl ained that Lovett was reading her mail. Lovett offered Berry th e opportunity to have another officer verify the mail, but Berry declined. According to Lovett, when she "skimmed" a document she did not read it, bu t only looked for somet hing that "caught" her eye which would indicate that the document pertained to a legal matter. In this case, Lovett stated tha t she did not see an attorney's name on the page o r anything else indicating it was legal mail. In fact, Lovett testified th at she could not have read the page because she could not decipher Berry's handwriting.

Although Berry had alleged that the prison's mail policy require d pri son officials to read inmates' outgoing legal mail, see Thongvanh v

. Thalacker , 17 F.3d 256, 258-59 (8th Cir. 1994) ("prison officials have a duty to maintain secu rity within the prison, and this may include reading inmates' incoming and outgoing mail, with the exception of legal mail"), the district court correctly held that Berry failed to demonstrate th e existence of such a p olicy, which, we believe, indeed might pose a threat of irreparable harm. In addition, we do not believe that Berry even prove d that Lo vett violated the verification policy or a likelihood that th e policy was unconstitutional. Even if she had, a n isolated violation still would not necessarily be cause for issuance of a preliminary injunction. See Goff , 60 F.3d at 521.
Although at this stage we express no opinion on the merits of th e policy, we note that in Bell-Bey v. Williams , 87 F.3d 832 (6th Cir. 1996), the Sixth Circuit rej ected an inmate's challenge to a prison mail policy, which required prison officials to "inspect" outgoing legal mail t o determine whether the mail was in fact legal mail. The court upheld the policy, noting that t here was no proof that the policy directed officials to read prisoners' legal mail. Id. at 839. In addition -- and we believe importantly -- the court noted that there were "procedural safeguards to
ensure that a prison employee only looks for identifiable information. " Id. Under the policy at issue, "1) the official's inspection [wa]s

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limited to scanning legal mail for docket numbers, case title, requests fo r documents, et cetera; 2) the inspection [wa]s conducted in the prisoner's presence in his cell; and 3) the prisoner [could] seal his mail after the inspection [wa]s completed." Id. at 837.

As to Be rry's claim concerning removal of a trunk containing lega l materials from her cell, the district court correctly concluded that she failed to demonstrate a threat of irreparable harm. Prison officials did not require destruction of her legal materials, but merely required storag e of them elsewhere. As the district court noted, Berry had not demonstrate d how storage of the materials outside her cell would impair her access to the courts. See Lewis v. Casey , 116 S. Ct. 2174, 2179-82 (1996).
According ly, we affirm the denial of preliminary injunctive relief.

A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U. S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.