Opinion ID: 2004064
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Free Speech and Association Claim

Text: Article I, § 8 of the New York Constitution provides: Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press. Relying on this provision, petitioners contend that the increased cost of inmate calls resulting from the DOCS commission impaired their constitutionally protected right to speak to and associate with their incarcerated loved ones or clients. In reviewing the propriety of limitations impacting the free speech and association rights of prisoners, we have employed the same analysis as the United States Supreme Court ( see Matter of Lucas v Scully, 71 NY2d 399 [1988]). The Supreme Court has made clear that [p]rison walls do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution. . ., nor do they bar free citizens from exercising their own constitutional rights by reaching out to those on the `inside' ( Thornburgh v Abbott, 490 US 401, 407 [1989] [some internal quotation marks and citations omitted]). But that being said, challenges to limitations on inmate communication must account for the reality that [t]he very object of imprisonment is confinement . . . An inmate does not retain rights inconsistent with proper incarceration . . . [a]nd . . . freedom of association is among the rights least compatible with incarceration. . . Some curtailment of that freedom must be expected in the prison context ( Overton v Bazzetta, 539 US 126, 131 [2003] [citations omitted]). For this reason, whether a claim is brought by a prisoner, a family member or someone else who wishes to communicate with a prisoner, the claim must be assessed using the same test applied to constitutional restrictions on inmate rightsthe Turner v Safley standard (482 US 78 [1987]; see Overton, supra ; Thornburgh, supra ). Under Turner, when a policy or regulation impinges on a prisoner's constitutional rights, the action is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests ( Turner, 482 US at 89; Lucas, 71 NY2d at 405-406). Thus, to state a viable claim under the Free Speech and Association Clause in this context, petitioners must allege that the DOCS commission was so high that it substantially impaired the limited right of inmates to contact and associate with family members or legal services providers and that the commission bore no reasonable relationship to legitimate penological aims. Even assuming their allegations to be true, petitioners do not meet this threshold. While inmates unquestionably have a constitutional right to communicate with the outside world in a manner and to an extent consistent with their incarcerative status, petitioners point to no persuasive authority for the proposition that this equates to a right to use a specific means for such communication the telephonemuch less to guarantee telephone services at a particular cost. Virtually every court to have addressed this issue has held that there is no constitutionally guaranteed right of inmates to use a telephone ( see e.g. United States v Footman, 215 F3d 145, 155 [1st Cir 2000]; Arsberry v Illinois, supra, 244 F3d 558 [2001] [rejecting First Amendment challenge to Illinois inmate calling plan]). Only one appellate court has indicated in dicta that such a right might exist but it rejected a challenge similar to the one pursued in this case, noting that an inmate has no right to low-cost telephone access and that a rate-based challenge to an inmate calling system would be cognizable only where the rate charged is so exorbitant as to deprive prisoners of phone access altogether ( see Johnson v State of Cal., supra, 207 F3d 650, 656 [2000]; but see Valdez v Rosenbaum, 302 F3d 1039, 1048 [9th Cir 2002], cert denied 538 US 1047 [2003] [characterizing statement in Johnson as dictum and indicating that First Amendment protects right to communicate, not right to use telephone as a means of communication]; see also Byrd v Goord, 2005 WL 2086321, 2005 US Dist LEXIS 18544 [SD NY 2005], mot for class certification denied as moot 2007 WL 2789505, 2007 US Dist LEXIS 71279 [SD NY 2007]). Given that alternate means of communication remain available to New York inmates and their families (including mail and visitation), with mail offered at low or no cost (in fact, revenues from the DOCS commission were used to fund a free postage program), the additional expense associated with the DOCS commission on telephone calls did not imperil the right of inmates to communicate with others. Indeed, petitioners in this case indicate that they continued to accept collect calls from their loved ones despite the rate charged by MCI, albeit less frequently. Although we do not doubt that petitioners would have engaged in more of the real-time, verbal communication afforded by telephone technology if prices had been lower (and the value of such personal communication was certainly a motivation for the eventual legislation addressing this practice), the hardship they allege is not a constitutionally significant curtailment of the free speech and association guarantee, particularly given the limited nature of that right in prison settings.