Court Opinion

ID: 9489641
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:20:17.993424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:37.986838
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, District Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I fully concur with the majority holding that the district court erred in deciding that Moore was not entitled to qualified immunity.
The majority also insists, however, that the district court erred in ruling that MDOC policy directive PD-BCF-63.03(N)(8) is an unconstitutional violation of Sheets’ First Amendment rights. According to the majority, the policy directive is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests under the reasonableness standard set forth in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987), and therefore withstands *170Sheets’ First Amendment challenge. Because the majority forms this legal conclusion without considering the factual circumstances associated with the prison mailing system, I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority’s holding.
As established by the majority, Turner instructs the Court to examine four factors in determining whether MDOC policy directive PD-BCF-63.03(N)(8) is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Turner, 482 U.S. at 89-90, 107 S.Ct. at 2261-62. In doing so, the majority improvidently accepts the reasoning set forth in Kalasho v. Rapture, 868 F.Supp. 882 (E.D.Mich.1994) by dismissing the rule that summary judgment is appropriate only when the pleadings, affidavits, and other submissions demonstrate “that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e), and that the initial burden of proving the absence of a material fact is on the moving party. Street v. J.C. Bradford & Co., 886 F.2d 1472, 1477 (6th Cir.1989).
In analyzing the first Turner factor, the Kalasho court concluded that the directive is both neutral and legitimate.1 While MDOC PD-BCF-63.03(N)(8) is obviously neutral, I believe a genuine issue of material fact exists as to its legitimacy. As the moving party in the instant action, Moore failed to provide evidence substantiating the concern that allowing all third class/bulk rate mail would create a “tremendous influx” of incoming prisoner mail. The record simply tells us nothing about the total volume of bulk rate mail that the prison would, or could expect to, receive absent the policy directive. Although the courts must accord deference to state officials in their administration of prison facilities, Turner, 482 U.S. at 85, 107 S.Ct. at 2259-60; Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 405, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 1807-08, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974), the courts cannot disregard an inmate’s constitutional rights whenever prison officials create a possible, but unsubstantiated, security concern.
Furthermore, according to the Domestic Mail Manual, Section E370, only qualified organizations may be authorized to mail at bulk rates. Excluded from this list of qualified organizations, and thus ineligible to use bulk rates, are individuals. As with the concern of a “tremendous influx” of incoming mail, nothing in the record remotely suggests that the listed qualified organizations would use bulk mailing for smuggling contraband into prison facilities. Finally, although I agree that the accumulation of bulk mail could create a fire hazard, this concern is based upon the assumption that, in fact, the prisons would be subjected to a tremendous influx of bulk mail. Accordingly, I believe a genuine issue of material fact exists with regard to the directive’s legitimacy.2

. Again, the Kalasho court reasoned:
Defendant states in his supplemental brief that allowing all third class/bulk rate mail could create a tremendous influx of incoming prisoner mail.... Such an influx of incoming mail typically results in a tremendous amount of mail, thereby presenting the problem to prison officials of insuring that contraband is not smuggled into the prison via the vast amount of third class mail.
Kalasho, 868 F.Supp. at 887.

. The factual determination of whether the acceptance of bulk rate mail would create a tremendous influx of mail also affects examination of the third Turner factor. The Kalasho court asserted that accommodating prisoners by accepting bulk rate mail would have an adverse impact on both inmates and staff. Kalasho, 868 F.Supp. at 888. Here, the Kalasho court had the following concerns: the allowance of unlimited bulk rate mail raises security and safety con-cents; the amount of mail generated would quickly overwhelm prison officials in the mechanics of sorting and delivering to each prisoner, while ensuring that no contraband enters the prison; and the prison’s resources could be reduced in attempting to process the bulk rate mail, which would affect the resources dedicated to sorting the more important first class mail. Id. Assuming, however, that a tremendous influx of mail would not persist, and that the possibility of organizations smuggling contraband in the mail is not real, these concerns would cease to exist.