Opinion ID: 38127
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: to receive. At the time of Ayers’s motion,

Text: On January 14, 1999, Ayers sued Jerry Pe- none of the defendants had been served with terson, who was the director of the Texas or answered the complaint. Ayers’s motion Department of Criminal Justice (“TDCJ”), and was denied; the district court stated that “the members of the Director’s Review Committee denials [of access about which Ayers seeks to (“DRC”). According to Ayers, the defendants had deprived him of his First Amendment rights by denying him access to certain 3 Ayers later agreed to dismiss any claims for publicationsSSi.e., The Nigger Bible,2 an essay damages against defendants in their official capacon slavery, and the June/Summer 1998 issue of ity because those claims would be barred by the the Graterfriends Newsletter. On October 10, Eleventh Amendment. See Aguilar v. Tex. Dep’t 2000, Ayers amended his complaint to name as of Criminal Justice, 160 F.3d 1052, 1054 (5th Cir. defendants the new TDCJ director, Gary 1998) (“[A]s an instrumentality of the state, Johnson; Linda Patteson, a member of the TDCJ-ID is immune from [] suit on Eleventh Mail System Coordinator’s Panel; seven mem- Amendment grounds.”). To the extent that Ayers bers of the DRC, and two mailroom employees claims damages from the defendants personally, at the Robertson Unit. The amended com- qualified immunity arguably would protect them. Because he cannot establish a constitutional violation, however, we do not reach the qualified im-