Court Opinion

ID: 9460457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:50:45.42943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:37.403271
License: Public Domain

STEVENS, Circuit Judge, with whom SWYGERT, Chief Judge, and KILEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
join (concurring).
As I stated in the opinion which I filed on January 17, 1973, notwithstanding my disagreement with Judge Doyle’s equal protection analysis, I am persuaded that he correctly entered an injunction on April 6, 1972. I also agree with Judge Pell that the state may not abridge an inmate’s right to communicate with others if the restriction is not “related both reasonably and necessarily to the advancement of a justifiable purpose of imprisonment.”
Because no general statement can really be understood until it has acquired meaning through ease by case application, a few additional comments may be helpful.
First, I would emphasize the point that “[wjhether we view the issue from the standpoint of the prisoner’s right to communicate with others, or from the standpoint of society’s right to know what is happening within a penal institution, it is perfectly clear that traditional First Amendment interests are at stake.” 1
Second, I am not convinced, and I do not think the general statement of a useful standard implies, that every prior restraint on an inmate’s right to communicate is necessarily justified by a showing which meets the standard. I think the standard will be primarily useful in testing the validity of rules adopted by prison authorities relating to mail and like matters.
Third, the state’s burden of justification is much heavier when it acts on an ad hoc basis (as it did in this ease) than *88when it implements a carefully drawn regulation.2
Fourth, the state has not met its burden of justifying the ad hoc determination disclosed by the record in the case before us, in part, because the record contains no evidence of consideration of less drastic alternatives than a total ban upon communication between Morales and Steffes.
Fifth, as I previously stated, if the state does adopt relevant guidelines which evidence awareness of the conflicting considerations that should influence particular decisions in this area, those guidelines would be presumptively valid. In view of the fact that First Amendment interests are at stake, it is important to remember that an excessively general or vague regulation 3 may be tantamount to no rule at all. The factors — the impact which the fear of punishment may have upon one’s willingness to communicate and the public interest in not interfering with the exchange of information and ideas in the intellectual marketplace — which gave rise to the overbreadth exception to traditional doctrines of constitutional adjudication are clearly applicable within the prison walls as well as without. I am not sure whether an overbroad regulation of an inmate’s speech is invalid because it is not entitled to the presumption of validity or because its over-breadth will readily overcome the presumption. That is clearly the kind of nice question of interpretation of a general guideline that can await a proper case for consideration.
With these caveats, I concur in Judge Pell’s disposition of the appeal.

. See 489 F.2d at 1346 (1973).

. I note that my somewhat laborious reaction to the state’s ad hoc approach to this -case is not unlike the recent reaction of the Supreme Court (in quite a different context, of course) to “what amounts to an unpubished ad hoc determination,” see Morton v. Ruiz, 415 U.S. 199, 94 S.Ct. 1055, 39 L.Ed.2d 270 (1974).

. Professor Hart has identified the kinds of situation where such regulation is appropriate. “Sometimes the sphere to be legally controlled is recognized from the start as one in which the factors of individual cases will vary so much in socially important but unpredictable respects, that uniform rules to be applied from case to case without further direction cannot usefully be framed by the legislature in advance.” Administrative regulations of industry under a “fair rate” standard, or the adjudication of negligence cases on the standard of “due care” are discussed as examples of legal situations where precise regulation by rule is impossible. See H.U.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, 127-130 (1961). Manifestly, the concern with not deterring protected speech in the regulation of the unprotected makes ad hoc regulation on the basis of overly broad standards inappropriate to the First Amendment context. See, e. g., N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 432-433, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405; see also Harlan, J., dissenting, 371 U.S. at 453-155, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405.