Court Opinion

ID: 9605077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:29:54.70129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:25.903524
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent.
The majority substantially restricts the right of the Department of Corrections to regulate the content of inmate articles submitted for publication in a prison newspaper. In my view, inmates have neither a constitutional nor statutory right to publish their articles in such a newspaper. Accordingly, prison authorities should have broad discretion to select among, and edit or reject, those articles submitted for publication without later being required to justify their actions on institutional, social or penological grounds. Nor would I require the department to formulate elaborate review procedures directed at second-guessing prison, officials’ discretionary decisions on publication matters.
The editing and printing of the Star News is conducted as part of the institution’s vocational and educational program, and inmates prepare and edit the newspaper, supervised by a civilian journalism instructor. The regulation of the *924content of the newspaper is the responsibility of a prison staff member who is vested with “full authority to select, edit or reject submitted articles . . .
According to the department’s administrative manual, the purposes of publishing Star News are to educate and train participating inmates, develop good morale among inmates and their families, disseminate administrative information to inmates, and report activities within the institution and department.
Present regulations permit the publication of a newspaper upon authorization of the warden or superintendent, and further allow inmate staff participation if specifically approved by the warden or superintendent. Current regulations also provide that the warden shall designate a civilian employee as supervising editor to manage planning and publication, that such employee shall be responsible for content, that no material shall be published “which could threaten prison security or order or interfere with program objectives or subject the institution, as publisher, to public censure or disrepute,” and that articles shall not attack any individual, serve as a vehicle for grievances or complaints,. promote personal opinions, take positions on matters pending before the Legislature, or urge support or defeat of any public official. The regulations further exclude obscene, pornographic, and defamatory matter and materials offensive to any race, nationality, religious faith, or similar group. Provision is also made for inmate appeal of the decisions of the supervising editor.
The majority holds that the department’s regulations are overbroad and grant powers of censorship which invade the constitutional and statutory rights of prison inmates. As will appear, I believe that the department acted properly both in vesting prison officials with ultimate control over the content of inmate’s articles, and in promulgating the regulations at issue.
The majority relies primarily upon cases holding that once a governmental entity establishes a public forum for the expression of ideas, it cannot selectively ban those expressions of which it disapproves. (E.g., Wirta v. Alameda-Contra Costa Transit Dist. (1967) 68 Cal.2d 51, 55 [64 Cal.Rptr. 430, 434 P.2d 982]; Bazaar v. Fortune (5th Cir. 1973) 476 F.2d 570, affd. 489 F.2d 225.) The underlying flaw in this argument is that a “prison is most emphatically not a ‘public forum’ ” (Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners ’ Union (1977) 433 U.S. 119, 136 [53 L.Ed.2d 629, 645, 97 S.Ct. 2532]) and, as the department’s regulations make clear, the Star News was never intended as a marketplace for the free expression of ideas, but primarily as a “house organ” to be edited and printed “as part of the educational and vocational training programs . . .” of the institution. (Italics added.) The civilian instructor, supervising the preparation and publishing of the paper, “will participate in the planning of each issue.” The content of the paper “is the responsibility of the designated super*925vising employee” who has full authority to select, edit or reject submissions. The primary purpose of the publication is its “educational and training value for participating inmates.” Although it may also be used for the dissemination of information from the administration and of happenings within the institution, the publication “shall not be designed to cover events and issues outside of the institution . . . .”
Given the limited purpose of the Star News, the bus advertising, school newspaper and other First Amendment cases cited by the majority are wholly inapposite. Moreover, none of these cases involves governmental limitations upon the expression of ideas by prisoners. A restricted prison setting is a very unique environment. Large numbers of prisoners, closely confined, generate discipline problems with potential for violence. Prisons can be very dangerous areas, and in my view those charged with prison administration must have broad discretion to administer prison affairs and to select among, and edit or reject, those articles submitted for publication in a prison newspaper.
An analogous situation arose in Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Union, supra, 433 U.S. 119, where prison officials forbade the formation of a prisoners’ union on the ground that it might create a divisive and potentially disruptive element within the inmate population. Plaintiff union insisted that the denial of union privileges for prisoners was an unreasonable abridgment of their constitutional rights. The high court unequivocally ruled that the union had the burden of proving the unreasonableness of the prison authorities’ concerns regarding the potential dangers of a prisoners’ union. The Supreme Court stated: “Without a showing that these beliefs were unreasonable, it was error for the District Court to conclude that appellants [prison officials] needed to show more. In particular, the burden was not on appellants to show affirmatively that the Union would be ‘detrimental to proper penological objectives’ or would constitute a ‘present danger to security and order.’ . . . Rather, ‘[s]uch considerations are peculiarly within the province and professional expertise of corrections officials, and, in the absence of substantial evidence in the record to indicate that the officials have exaggerated their response to these considerations, courts should ordinarily defer to their expert judgment in such matters.’ Pell v. Procunier [1974] 417 U.S., at [p.] 827. The necessary and correct result of our deference to the informed discretion of prison administrators permits them, and not the courts, to make the difficult judgments concerning institutional operations in situations such as this.” (Pp. 127-128 [53 L.Ed.2d p. 640], italics added; see also Bell v. Wolfish (1979) 441 U.S. 520, 547-548 [60 L.Ed.2d, 447, 474, 99 S.Ct. 1861]; In re Price (1979) 25 Cal.3d 448, 453 [158 Cal.Rptr. 873, 600 P.2d 1330].)
The same due deference to the responsible prison administrators which was mandated by Jones, supra, 433 U.S. 119, should be extended to officials who, *926as here, select the contents of a prison newspaper. Given the highly volatile and unpredictable environment existing behind prison walls, and the complexity of balancing rehabilitative efforts with overall prison security and discipline, the scope of discretion vested in prison officials must include the right to edit or refuse to publish any articles which prison officials in the fair exercise of their professional judgment reasonably deem potentially disruptive, provocative or inflammatory. Within this context, I observe a marked distinction between a free society and prison environment. Open criticism may, indeed should, properly flourish in the former. In a prison setting, however, with its potential for violent overreactions to the printed word, closer control over published expression seems clearly warranted.
The majority suggests that freedom from censorship is among those rights protected by Penal Code section 2600. By its terms, section 2600 allows prison authorities to deprive inmates “of such rights, and only such rights, as is necessary in order to provide for the reasonable security of the institution . . . and for the reasonable protection of the public.” Significantly, however, the section does not purport to create new rights, but only to preserve preexisting ones. It bears emphasis that prior to their confinement, inmates as law-abiding private citizens enjoyed no right of publication on demand, or freedom from editorial censorship. Rather, whether in public or private publications, private citizens are required to meet whatever publication or editorial standards are demanded of them. The Supreme Court has reminded us that “The choice of material to go into a newspaper, and the decisions made as to limitations on the size and content of the paper, and treatment of public issues and public officials—whether fair or unfair—constitute the exercise of editorial control and judgment.” (Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974) 418 U.S. 241, 258 [41 L.Ed.2d 730, 741, 94 S.Ct. 2831]; see Pell v. Procunier (1974) 417 U.S. 817, 821-822 [41 L.Ed.2d 495, 501, 94 S.Ct. 2800] and cases cited.) A private citizen’s letter to the editor may or may not be published. His submitted articles or comments may or may not be accepted. I cannot fairly conclude that a person’s constitutional rights are enlarged by the sole fact of his felony conviction or confinement in prison. By what strained reasoning do a citizen’s First Amendment rights become greater inside than outside prison walls?
Moreover, there are reasonably adequate alternative means of communication available to the inmate. If he seeks to disseminate his views and opinions among his fellow inmates, he may express them orally in the prison yard, dining hall or workshop. If his eye is on the larger audience outside the prison, he can write or express his views through personal visits with his family, the clergy, attorneys, or friends. (See Pell, supra, 417 U.S. at pp. 824-825 [41 L.Ed.2d at pp. 502-503].)
*927Nor is section 2601 of the Penal Code apposite here. That section confers upon prisoners the right to “purchase, receive, read . . . newspapers ... accepted for distribution by the United States Post Office, except those which describe the making of any weapon . . . .” (Subd. (c).) It confers no right of publication. It simply preserves an inmate’s preexisting right to obtain and read newspapers received from outside prison walls.
None of the prisoners’ rights cases relied upon by the majority is dispositive of the issue before us. Procunier v. Martinez (1974) 416 U.S. 396 [40 L.Ed.2d 224, 94 S.Ct. 1800], merely upheld the right of “civilians” to correspond by mail with prisoners without undue censorship. The issue of the inmates’ rights to receive mail was neither examined nor resolved. The Luparar v. Stoneman (D.Vt. 1974) 382 F.Supp. 495 (app. dism. (2d Cir. 1975) 517 F.2d 1395), involved a prison’s attempt to suppress by a total ban the publication of an inmate newspaper because of the inclusion of various articles to which prison officials objected. Although such total suppression was deemed excessive, the Luparar court acknowledged that prison authorities had broad discretion to regulate the content of an inmate newspaper. (P. 501.) Pittman v. Hutto (4th Cir. 1979) 594 F.2d 407, upheld the censorship of a prison magazine based upon the reasonable penological concerns of prison officials. The court did not purport to place on these officials the burden of establishing the legitimacy of these concerns.
Finally, Pell v. Procunier, supra, 417 U.S. 817, upheld prison restrictions on face-to-face interviews between inmates and the press. In resolving this issue, the high court focused upon the particular rights which were alleged to have been affected. The court observed that although inmates may have had a preexisting “free speech” right to “communicate [their] views to any willing listener, including a willing representative of the press for the purpose of publication by a willing publisher” (p. 822 [41 L.Ed.2d 495, 501]), considerations of prison security justify reasonable restrictions on such interviews. Very significantly for our purposes, the high court further emphasized that “the constitutional right of free speech has never been thought to embrace a right to require a journalist or any other citizen to listen to a person’s views, let alone a right to require a publisher to publish those views in his newspaper [citations] . . . .” (Pp. 821-822 [41 L.Ed.2d, p. 501], italics added.)
A prison newspaper may serve many valid and diverse purposes such as educating inmates, promoting prison morale, encouraging rehabilitation, lessening tensions, improving inmate-guard relations, recognizing literary merit, and providing a balanced reading diet. But the determination of the goals to be served and the means for implementing them is a matter which should be entrusted to the sound discretion of the prison administrators.
*928I would reverse the judgment.
Mosk, J., concurred.