Opinion ID: 751883
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Right to Receive Mail

Text: 8 The district court held that Weiler had alleged a violation of his First Amendment right to receive mail. Although it is well settled that inmates have a right to receive mail, that right may be limited by prison regulations that are reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 92 & 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 2263 & 2261-62, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987). 9 It is clear that a regulation limiting the receipt of packages is not facially invalid. In Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 555, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1882-83, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), the Supreme Court approved a total ban on the receipt of packages containing food or personal property except for one package of food at Christmas, saying, it is all too obvious that such packages are handy devices for the smuggling of contraband. 10 The next question is whether the regulation violated the Constitution as applied to Weiler. As earlier noted, Weiler filed an affidavit of ten Farmington inmates claiming that on unspecified dates under unstated circumstances from unidentified mailroom personnel each of them had received legal papers and transcripts from family or friends. Applying Griffin v. Lombardi, 946 F.2d 604 (8th Cir.1991), the district court, relying on our opinion in Weiler I, held that this affidavit was sufficient to subject a package regulation that otherwise passes constitutional muster under Supreme Court edict to factual uncertainty as to its reasonableness. This rationale simply misapplies Griffin and the law of this circuit. 11 Whether the ten inmates did or did not receive legal papers mailed by relatives and friends does not control whether the regulation was invalid as applied to Weiler. The ultimate legal question is whether this rule is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Turner, 482 U.S. at 89, 107 S.Ct. at 2261. 12 We find it beyond dispute that packages may easily conceal contraband, and that the control of contraband is a legitimate penological interest. Thus, even if 100 inmates had received legal papers through a breakdown in mailroom procedures, and were willing to so state by affidavit, the reasonableness of legal mail or package regulations, designed to control receipt of contraband to inmates, would be no less constitutional. There is no evidence that the ten inmates who received packages in contravention of prison rules also did not receive contraband concealed in those packages. Given the great deference we owe to prison authorities in their administration of state prison systems, id. at 85, 107 S.Ct. at 2259-60, we cannot say that this regulation is an exaggerated response to the prison's security concerns. Therefore, the defendants did not violate the Constitution when they applied the rule to Weiler. Weiler has not alleged a violation of his constitutional right to receive mail.