Court Opinion

ID: 9425694
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:28.890972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.258866
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan joins, ^ concurring.
I
I concur in the opinion and judgment of the Court. I write separately only to emphasize my view that prison authorities do not have a general right to open and read all incoming and outgoing prisoner mail. Although the issue of the First Amendment rights of inmates is explicitly reserved by the Court, I would reach that issue and hold that prison authorities may not read inmate mail as a matter of course.
II
As Mr. Justice Holmes observed over a half century ago, “the use of the mails is almost as much a part of free speech as the right to use our tongues . . . .” Milwaukee Social Democratic Publishing Co. v. Burleson, 255 U. S. 407, 437 (1921) (dissenting opinion), quoted with approval in Blount v. Rizzi, 400 U. S. 410, 416 (1971). See also Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U. S. 301, 305 (1965). A prisoner does not shed such basic First. Amendment rights at the .prison gate.1 Rather, he “retains all the rights of an ordinary citizen except those expressly, or by necessary implication, taken from’ *423him by law.” Coffin v. Reichard, 143 F. 2d 443, 445 (CA6 1944).2 Accordingly, prisoners are, in my view, entitled to use the mails as, a medium- of free expression, not as a privilege, but rather as a constitutionally guaranteed right.3
It seems clear that this freedom may be seriously infringed by permitting correctional authorities to read all prisoner correspondence. A prisoner’s free and open expression will surely be restrained by the knowledge that his every word may be read by his jailors and that his message could well find its way into a disciplinary file, be the object of ridicule, or even lead to reprisals. A similar pall may be cast over the free expression of the inmates’ correspondents. Cf. Talley v. California, 362 U. S. 60, 65 (1960); NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 462 (1958). Such an intrusion on First Amendment freedoms can only be justified by & substantial government interest and a showing that the means chosen' to effectuate the State’s purpose are not unnecessarily restrictive of personal freedoms.
“[E]ven though the governmental purpose be legitimate and substantial, that purpose cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more *424narrowly achieved.” Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479 488 (1960).4
The First Amendment must in each context “be applied ‘in light of the special characteristics of the . . . environment/ ” Healy v. James, 408 U. S. 169, 180 (1972), and the exigencies of governing persons in prisons are different from and greater than those in governing persons without. Barnett v. Rodgers, 133 U. S. App. D. C. 296, 301-302, 410 F. 2d 995, 1000-1001 (1969); Rowland v. Sigler, 327 F. Supp. 821, 827 (Neb.), aff’d, 452 F. 2d 1005 (CA8 1971). The State has legitimate and substantial concerns as to security, personal safety, institutional discipline, and prisoner rehabilitation- not applicable to the community at large. Bu+ these considerations do not eliminate the need for reasons imperatively justifying the particular deprivation of fundamental constitutional rights at issue. Cf. Healy v. James, supra, at 180; Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U. S. 503, 506 (1969).
The State asserts a number of .justifications for a general right to read all prisoner correspondence. The State argues .that contraband weapons or narcotics may be smuggled into the prison via the mail, and certainly this is a legitimate concern of prison authorities. But this argument provides no justification for reading outgoing mail. Even as to incoming mail, there is no showing that stemming the traffic in contraband could not be accomplished equally well by means of physical tests *425such as fluoroscoping letters.5 If physical tests were inadequate, merely opening and. inspecting — and not reading — incoming mail woxild clearly suffice.6
It is also suggested that prison authorities must read all prison mail in order to detect escape plans. The State surely could not justify reading everyone’s mail and listening to all phone conversations on the off chance that criminal schemes were being concocted. Similarly, the reading of all prisoner mail is too great an intrusion on First Amendment rights to be justified by such a speculative concern. There has been no showing as to the seriousness of the problem of - escapes planned or arranged via the mail.' Indeed, the State’s claim of concérn over this problem is undermined by the general practice of permitting unmonitored personal interviews during which any number of surreptitious plans might be discussed undetected.7 When prison authorities have reason to believe that an escape plot is being hatched by a particular inmate through his correspondence, they may well have an adequate basis to seize that inmate’s letters; but there is-no such justification for a blanket policy of reading all prison mail.
It is also occasionally asserted that'reading prisoner mail is a useful tool in the rehabilitative process. The therapeutic model of corrections has come under increasing criticism and in most penal institutions rehabilitative programs are more ideal than reality.8 Assuming the validity of the rehabilitative model, however, the State does not demonstrate that the reading of inmate *426mail, with its attendant chilling effect on free expression, serves any valid rehabilitative purpose. Prison walls serve not merely to restrain offenders but also to isolate them. The mails provide one of the few ties inmates retain to their communities or families — ties essential to the success of their later return to the outside world.9 Judge Kaufman, writing for the Second Circuit, found two observations particularly apropos of similar claims of rehabilitative benefit in Sostre v. McGinnis, 442 F. 2d 178, 199 (1971) (en banc):
“ ‘Letter writing keeps the inmate in contact with the outside world, helps to hold in check some of the morbidity and hopelessness produced by prison life and isolation, stimulates his more natural and human impulses, and otherwise may make contributions to better mental attitudes and reformation.’ ”10
and:
“ ‘The harm censorship does to rehabilitation ... cannot be gainsaid. Inmates lose contact with the outside world and become wary of placing intimate thoughts or criticisms of the prison in letters. This artificial increase of alienation from society is ill advised.’ ”11
The Court today agrees that “the weight of professional opinion seems to be that inmate freedom to correspond with outsiders advances rather than retards the goal of rehabilitation.” Ante, at 412.12
*427Balanced against the State’s asserted interests are the values that are generally associated with freedom of speech in a free society — values which “do not turn to dross in an unfree one.” Sostre v. McGinnis, supra, at 199. First Amendment guarantees protect the free and uninterrupted interchange of ideas upon which a democratic society thrives. Perhaps the most obvious victim of the indirect censorship effected by a policy of allowing prison authorities to read inmate mail is criticism of prison administration. The threat of identification and reprisal inherent in allowing correctional authorities to read prisoner mail is not lost on inmates who might otherwise critic, cize their jailors. The mails are one of the few vehicles prisoners have for informing the community about their existence and, in these days of strife in our correctional institutions, the plight of prisoners is a matter of urgent public concern. To sustain a policy which chills the communication necessary to inform the public on this issue is at odds with the most basic tenets of the guarantee'of freedom of speech.13
The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity but also those of the human spirit — a spirit that demands self-expression. Such expression is an integral part of the development of ideas and a sense of identity. To suppress expression is to reject the basic human desire for recognition and affront the individual’s worth and dignity.14 Cf. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. *428557 (1969). Such restraint may be “the greatest displeasure and indignity to a free and knowing spirit that' can be put upon him.” J. Milton, Aeropagitica 21 (Everyman’s ed. 1927). When the prison gates slam behind an inmate, he does not lose his human quality; his mind does not become closed to ideas; his intellect does not cease to feed on a free and open interchange of opinions; his yearning for self-respect does not end; nor is his quest for self-realization concluded. If anything, the needs for identity and self-respect are more compelling in the dehumanizing prison environment. Whether an O. Henry writing his short stories in a jail ce(l or a frightened young inmate writing his family, a prisoner needs a medium for self-expression. It is the role of the First Amendment and this Court to protect those precious personal rights by which we satisfy such basic yearnings of the human. spirit.
Mk. Justice Douglas joins in Part II of this opinion.

 See, e. g., Cruz v. Beto, 405 U. S. 319 (1972); Cooper v. Pate, 378 U. S. 546 (1964); Brown v. Peyton, 437 F. 2d 1228, 1230 (CA4 1971); Howland v. Sigler, 327 F. Supp. 821, 827 (Neb.), aff’d, 452 F. 2d 1005 (CA8 1971); Fortune Society v. McGinnis, 319 F. Supp. 901, 903 (SDNY 1970).

 Accord, Moore v. Ciccone, 459 F. 2d 574, 576 (CA8 1972); Nolan v. Fitzpatrick, 451 F. 2d 545, 547 (CA1 1971); Brenneman v. Madigan, 343 F. Supp. 128, 131 (ND Cal. 1972); Burnham v. Oswald, 342 F. Supp. 880, 884 (WDNY 1972); Carothers v. Follette, 314 F. Supp. 1014, 1023 (SDNY 1970).

 See, e. g., Sostre v. McGinnis, 442 F. 2d 178, 199 (CA2 1971) (en banc); Preston v. Thieszen, 341 F. Supp. 785, 786-787 (WD Wis. 1972); cf. Gray v. Creamer, 465 F. 2d 179, 186 (CA3 1972); Morales v. Schmidt, 340 F. Supp. 544 (WD Wis. 1972); Palmigiano v. Travisono, 317 F. Supp. 776 (RI 1970); Carothers v. Follette, supra.

 The test I would apply is thus essentially the same' as the test applied by the Court:
“[T]he regulation ... in question must further an important or substantial governmental interest unrelated to the suppression of expression . .. [and] the limitation of First Amendment freedoms must be no greater than is necessary or essential to the protection of the particular governmental interest involved.” Ante, at 413.

 See Marsh v. Moore, 325 F. Supp. 392, 395 (Mass. 1971).

 See Moore v. Ciccone, supra, at 578 (Lay, J., concurring); cf. Jones v. Wittenberg, 330 F. Supp. 707, 719 (ND Ohio 1971), aff'd sub nom. Jones v. Metzger, 456 F. 2d 854 (CA6 1972).

 Palmigiano v. Travisono, supra.

 See generally J. Mitford, Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business (1973).

 See, e. g., National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Corrections 67-68 (1973).

 See Palmigiano v. Travisono, supra, at 791.

 Singer, Censorship of Prisoners’ Mail and the Constitution, 56 A. B. A. J. 1051, 1054 (1970).

 Various studies have strongly recommended that correctional authorities have the right to inspect mail for contraband but not to read it. ' National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Stand*427ards and Goals, Corrections, Standard 2.17, pp. 66-69 (1973); see California Board of Corrections, California Correctional System Study: Institutions 40 (1971); Center for Criminal Justice, Boston University Law School, Model Rules and Regulations on Prisoners’ Rights and Responsibilities, Standards IC-1 and IC-2, pp. 46-47 (1973).

 See, e. g., Nolan v. Fitzpatrick, 451 F. 2d, at 547-548.

 Emerson, Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment, 72 Yale L. J. 877, 879-880 (1963).