Court Opinion

ID: 9464010
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:22:51.287766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:24.817954
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I am in general agreement with the majority that procedural due process, particularly as spelled out in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, would require something more than was here involved before summary judgment would be proper. This would seem to be particularly true where the claim for relief was based upon one of our most fundamental constitutionally guaranteed liberties, that of freedom of speech. Nevertheless, upon the record before us I think the district court properly entered summary judgment terminating litigation which I do not conceive could reach a different result no matter how much notice was given, no matter how much evidence was adduced, and no matter how *1092much irrelevant and immaterial factual conflicts might be developed.
Here the material and dispositive facts existed not only without substantial controversy but, indeed, without any controversy. Those material facts as to which there was no genuine issue are stated in the majority opinion:
On June 18,1976, two months after being hired as a probationary correctional officer at the prison, Choudhry called the press to his home to express concern about security conditions at the prison. He also criticized the fact that he had received no formal training during his . employment. [Footnote omitted.]
Not surprisingly another fundamental First Amendment freedom, that of the press, was promptly exercised and under the headline, “Guard blows whistle on prison,” the lead paragraph read as follows:
A guard who mans one of the towers at the Indiana State Prison admits that he doesn’t know how to fire a gun and a lot of the other prison guards don’t either.
The next paragraph then quoted the plaintiff:
Khalid Choudhry said that is just one indication of how lax and disorganized security is at the state prison in Michigan City.
In his brief in this court, the plaintiff refers to contested issues of fact such as the dispute as to whether he had received any on-the-job training with a gun, what information about specific procedures in the prison was classified, and whether some of the so-called confidential information was not in fact known to the inmates. The significant facts which are not disputed are that a novice guard called what amounted to a press conference and told reporters that he did not know how to use a gun and that security was lax and disorganized. In his brief, furthermore, Choudhry contends that these are true. If the truth or falsity of some of these statements created genuine issues of material fact then, of course, summary judgment was improper. I cannot conceive, however, in the tinderbox context of any prison dependent upon security exceeding the purely minimal that the bare facts recited above, as to which there is no controversy, would not require the discharge of the employee irrespective of whether the reporters did or did not embellish some of the supporting specific factual details.
Even in the case of the public school teachers, while they may not be compelled to relinquish First Amendment rights, the “problem in any case is to arrive at a balance between the interests of the teacher, as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205, Will County, 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 1734, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968).
In arriving at a balance between the right of a prison guard to speak freely about the prison at which he is employed and the efficiency of the public service, the purlieus would seem far removed from the public schools, as tempestuous as some of the occurrences may now be in the cloistered halls.
The prison scene is the appropriate context for the balancing here just as it was in the matter of prison correspondence:
The case at hand arises in the context of prisons. One of the primary functions of government is the preservation of societal order through enforcement of the criminal law, and the maintenance of penal institutions is an essential part of that task. The identifiable governmental interests at stake in this task are the preservation of internal order and discipline, the maintenance of institutional security against escape or unauthorized entry, and the rehabilitation of the prisoners. [Footnote omitted.]
Procunier, Corrections Director v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 412, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 1811, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974).
The Supreme Court likewise differentiated the prison scene and disciplinary pro*1093ceedings therein from the considerations applicable to parole revocation in Wolff, Warden v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 561-62, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2977, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974):
Prison disciplinary proceedings, on the other hand [as contrasted with parole revocation proceedings] take place in a closed, tightly controlled environment peopled by those who have chosen to violate the criminal law and who have been lawfully incarcerated for doing so. Some are first offenders, but many are recidivists who have repeatedly employed illegal and often very violent means to attain their ends. They may have little regard for the safety of others or their property or for the rules designed to provide an orderly and reasonably safe prison life. Although there are very many varieties of prisons with different degrees of security, we must realize that in many of them the inmates are closely supervised and their activities controlled around the clock. Guards and inmates co-exist in direct and intimate contact. Tension between them is unremitting. Frustration, resentment, and despair are commonplace. Relationships among the inmates are varied and complex and perhaps subject to the unwritten code that exhorts inmates not to inform on a fellow prisoner.
In the Court’s words in Wolff it is against this background that we must make our constitutional judgments. In so balancing the respective interests of the individual to exercise his freedom of speech without regard to possible deleterious consequences to the governmental interests and still retain his employment, I think the public interest is entitled to very heavy weight in the measuring scales. While no doubt there has been considerable retreat from Judge (later Justice) Holmes’ simplistic approach in McAuliffe v. Mayor of City of New Bedford, 155 Mass. 216, 220, 29 N.E. 517 (1892) that “[t]he petitioner may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman,” see Thompson v. Gallagher, 489 F.2d 443, 446 (5th Cir. 1973), I do not conceive that the public weal is not entitled to a standard which while according the public employee the right to speak as he wishes also requires him to be responsible for his statements. “When his speech is disruptive of the proper functioning of the public’s business the privilege of governmental employment may be withdrawn without it being said that he was denied his freedom of speech.” Jenson v. Olson, 353 F.2d 825, 828 (8th Cir. 1965).
These cases of necessity require case-by-case analysis. I do not suggest that in every case a prison guard should be precluded from commenting upon conditions in the prison; in considering the public interest we must be mindful that the public has an interest in knowing about the operation of its government. I am simply saying that this plaintiff with virtually no experience in the position showed such a blatant disregard for his responsibilities that the patent potentially incendiary nature of his remarks properly deprived him of the speech freedom mantle. That disastrous results did not follow the widespread dissemination of Choudhry’s statements concerning prison security laxity, made deliberately for the purpose of that dissemination, is not attributable to any quality of restraint on the part of Choudhry but simply because of good fortune.
I also hold no brief for prison conditions as they exist generally throughout the country; but I would be ignoring reality if I did not also recognize that prison administrators are facing almost insuperable problems, which certainly were not bettered by the irresponsible mouthing of this plaintiff, not at a corner bar gabfest but at a press conference called by him. In sum, I would affirm the district court judgment as being one that should have been entered under the particular undisputed dispositive facts here involved.
I also add that it appears to me, in fairness to the district court judge, it should be observed that while he did comment during the course of the extended hearing on July 19, 1976, that what was before the court was the matter of the temporary restraining order, he also stated near the conclusion *1094of the hearing that there were exhibits in evidence which he had not had an opportunity to read. He indicated also that he wanted to give “this a little more thought and a little research.” It would seem that after doing so for a reasonable length of time he concluded that the plaintiff’s claim was meritless and with this I agree. I therefore respectfully dissent.