Opinion ID: 169830
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Catalogs

Text: As stated above, the County Jail bans all catalogs. Lieutenant Merrick testified catalogs are banned for space, health and safety reasons. (R. Appellant's App. Vol. 1 at 220.) Jones argues the jail's catalog ban is unconstitutional as it furthers no legitimate penological interest and any such interest could be accomplished with less restrictive alternatives such as making select retail catalogs available to inmates or allowing them to request them. He also claims there should at least be an exception for catalogs offering reading materials so inmates can order reading materials from the outside. Relying on Berger v. White, an unpublished case, and without conducting a Turner analysis, the magistrate concluded a ban on catalogs failed to raise an issue of constitutional magnitude. 12 Fed.Appx. 768 (10th Cir.2001) (unpublished). The district court adopted this conclusion. In Berger, the plaintiff alleged jail employees violated his First Amendment rights by returning a catalog to the sender on the ground it was not pre-approved. We concluded: [A] `complaint about undelivered catalogues fails to raise an issue of constitutional magnitude.' Id. at 771 (quoting Smith v. Maschner, 899 F.2d 940, 944 (10th Cir.1990)); see also Foster v. Nelson, 153 F.3d 727, 1998 WL 422030, at  (10th Cir.1998) (unpublished) (rejecting inmates' claim that prison officials violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by failing to deliver certain commercial catalogs featuring automotive racing and airplane parts which had been sent to him in the mail). At first blush, Berger, Smith and Foster may seem to support the jail's total ban on catalogs. However, none of them involved a challenge to a prison regulation and none applied Turner. Rather, these cases were limited to a prison official's one-time failure to deliver catalogs to an inmate. Here, Jones is not challenging the constitutionality of the County Jail's failure to deliver mail but rather the constitutionality of its mail regulations. Thus, these cases do not control and a Turner analysis is necessary. It appears Jones has not met his burden under Turner to establish the jail's catalog ban is unconstitutional. See Wirsching v. Colorado, 360 F.3d 1191, 1200 (10th Cir.2004) (noting that the burden is not on the state to prove the validity of a prison regulation, but rather on the prisoner to disprove it). Space, health and safety [15] are legitimate and neutral penological interests and the catalog ban is rationally related to those intereststhese factors weigh in favor of the constitutionality of the ban. Jones makes no mention of either the second or third Turner factors whether there is an alternative means of exercising his right to receive printed materials and the impact of accommodating the right on guards, other inmates, and jail resources. Regarding the fourth Turner factor, Jones does mention a few alternatives to a total ban, but nowhere does he provide evidence that these alternatives come with only de minimus costs to the interests of jail administrators and guards. For example, Jones mentions that one alternative would be to permit an inmate to possess only one catalog at a time and a screening process could be used to enforce the rule. But Jones fails to arguelet alone provide evidencethat such a screening process would not unduly burden jail resources. Similarly, Jones suggests the jail could allow inmates to seek permission to obtain a catalog. Again, however, this would require officials to consider such requests on a case-by-case basis and Jones does not offer any evidence or argument that such a process might be implemented with only de minimus costs. [16] These observations aside, the district court did not conduct a Turner analysis and it should be afforded that opportunity in the first instance. Therefore, we remand to the district court to evaluate the jail's catalog ban under Turner.