OCTOBER TERM, 2000
Syllabus
SHAW ETAL.
v. MURPHY
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH
CIRCUIT
No. 99-1613. Argued January 16, 200l-Decided April 18, 2001
While respondent Murphy was incarcerated in state prison, he
learned that a fellow inmate had been charged with assaulting a
correctional officer. Murphy decided to assist the inmate with his
defense and sent him a letter, which was intercepted in accordance
with prison policy. Based on the letter's content, the prison
sanctioned Murphy for violating prison rules prohibiting insolence
and interfering with due process hearings. Murphy then sought
declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U. S. C. § 1983,
alleging that the disciplinary action violated,
inter alia,
his First Amendment rights, including the right to provide legal
assistance to other inmates. In granting petitioners summary
judgment, the District Court applied the decision in
Turner
v.
Safley, 482 U. S. 78, 89-that a prison regulation
impinging on inmates' constitutional rights is valid if it is
reasonably related to legitimate penological interests-and found a
valid, rational connection between the inmate correspondence policy
and the objectives of prison order, security, and inmate
rehabilitation. The Ninth Circuit reversed, finding that inmates
have a First Amendment right to give legal assistance to other
inmates and that this right affected the
Turner
analysis.
Held:
1. Inmates do not possess a special First Amendment right to
provide legal assistance to fellow inmates that enhances the
protections otherwise available under
Turner. Prisoners'
constitutional rights are more limited in scope than the
constitutional rights held by individuals in society at large. For
instance, some First Amendment rights are simply inconsistent with
the corrections system's "legitimate penological objectives,"
Pell v.
Procunier, 417 U. S. 817,822, and
thus this Court has sustained restrictions on,
e. g.,
inmate-to-inmate written correspondence,
Turner, supra, at
93. Moreover, because courts are ill equipped to deal with the
complex and intractable problems of prisons,
Procunier v.
Martinez, 416
U. S. 396, 404-405, this Court has generally deferred to prison
officials' judgment in upholding such regulations against
constitutional challenge.
Turner reflects this
understanding, setting a unitary, deferential standard for
reviewing prisoners' claims that does not permit an increase in the
constitutional protection whenever a prisoner's communication
includes legal advice. To increase
224
Syllabus
the constitutional protection based upon a communication's
content first requires an assessment of that content's value. But
the
Turner test simply does not accommodate valuations of
content. On the contrary, it concerns only the relationship between
the asserted penological interests and the prison regulation.
Moreover, prison officials are to remain the primary arbiters of
the problems that arise in prison management. 482 U. S., at 89.
Seeking to avoid unnecessarily perpetuating federal courts'
involvement in prison administration affairs, the Court rejects an
alteration of the
Turner analysis that would entail
additional federal-court oversight. Even if this Court were to
consider giving special protection to particular kinds of speech
based on content, it would not do so for speech that includes legal
advice. Augmenting First Amendment protection for such advice would
undermine prison officials' ability to address the complex and
intractable problems of prison administration.
Id., at 84.
The legal text could be an excuse for making clearly inappropriate
comments, which may circulate among prisoners despite prison
measures to screen individual inmates or officers from the remarks.
Pp. 228-232.
2. To prevail on remand on the question whether the prison
regulations, as applied to Murphy, are reasonably related to
legitimate penological interests, he must overcome the presumption
that the prison officials acted within their broad discretion. P.
232.
195 F.3d
1121, reversed and remanded.
THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
GINSBURG, J., filed a concurring opinion,
post, p. 232.
David L. Ohler, Special Assistant Attorney General of
Montana, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs
were
Joseph P. Mazurek, Attorney General, and
Diana
Leibinger-Koch, Special Assistant Attorney General.
Patricia A. Millett argued the cause for the United States as
amicus curiae urging reversal. With her on the brief were Solicitor
General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Ogden, Deputy Solicitor
General Underwood, Gregory G. Garre, Barbara L. Herwig, and John
Hoyle.
Jeffrey T. Renz argued the cause and filed a brief for
respondent. *
*Briefs of
amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
the State of Florida et al. by
Robert A. Butterworth,
Attorney General of Florida,
Thomas E. Warner, Solicitor
General, and
Cecilia Bradley, Assistant Attorney
225
JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. Under our
decision in
Turner v.
Safley, 482 U. S. 78 (1987),
restrictions on prisoners' communications to other inmates are
constitutional if the restrictions are "reasonably related to
legitimate penological interests."
Id., at 89. In this case,
we are asked to decide whether prisoners possess a First Amendment
right to provide legal assistance that enhances the protections
otherwise available under
Turner. We hold that they do
not.
I
While respondent Kevin Murphy was incarcerated at the Montana
State Prison, he served as an "inmate law clerk," providing legal
assistance to fellow prisoners. Upon learning that inmate Pat Tracy
had been charged with assaulting Correctional Officer Glen Galle,
Murphy decided to assist Tracy with his defense. Prison rules
prohibited Murphy's assignment to the case,l but he nonetheless
investigated the assault. After discovering that other inmates had
complained about Officer Galle's conduct, Murphy sent Tracy a
letter, which included the following:
General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective
States as follows:
Bill Pryor of Alabama,
Mark Pryor
of Arkansas,
M. Jane Brady of Delaware,
James E. Ryan
of Illinois,
Thomas J.
Miller of Iowa,
Carla
J.
Stovall of Kansas,
Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana,
Thomas F.
Reilly of Massachusetts,
Don
Stenberg of Nebraska,
Philip T. McLaughlin of New
Hampshire,
Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota,
Betty D.
Montgomery of Ohio,
W A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma,
Jan Graham of Utah,
William H. Sorrell of Vermont,
and
Mark L. Earley of Virginia; and for the Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation by
Kent S.
Scheidegger and
Charles
Daniel L. Greenberg, John Boston, Elizabeth Alexander, Margaret
Winter, David C. Fathi, and Stephen Bright filed a brief for the
Legal Aid Society of the City of New York et al. as amici curiae
urging affirmance.
1 Tracy had requested that Murphy be assigned to his case. App.
84.
Prison officials, however, denied that request because prison
policy forbade high-security inmates, such as Murphy, from meeting
with maximumsecurity inmates, including Tracy. App. to Pet. for
Cert. 19. Prison officials offered Tracy another law clerk to
assist him. App. 84.
226
"I do want to help you with your case against Galle. It wasn't
your fault and I know he provoked whatever happened! Don't plead
guilty because we can get at least 100 witnesses to testify that
Galle is an over zealous guard who has a personal agenda to punish
and harrass [sic] inmates. He has made homo-sexual
[sic] advances towards certain inmates and that can be
brought up into the record. There are petitions against him and I
have tried to get the Unit Manager to do something about what he
does in Close II, but all that happened is that I received two
writeups from him myself as retaliation. So we must pursue this out
of the prison system. I am filing a suit with everyone in Close I
and II named against him. So you can use that too!
"Another poiont [sic] is that he grabbed you from behind.
You tell your lawyer to get ahold of me on this. Don't take a plea
bargain unless it's for no more time." App.50.
In accordance with prison policy, prison officials intercepted
the letter, and petitioner Robert Shaw, an officer in the
maximum-security unit, reviewed it. Based on the accusations
against Officer Galle, Shaw cited Murphy for violations of the
prison's rules prohibiting insolence, interference with due process
hearings, and conduct that disrupts or interferes with the security
and orderly operation of the institution. After a hearing, Murphy
was found guilty of violating the first two prohibitions. The
hearings officer sanctioned him by imposing a suspended sentence of
10 days' detention and issuing demerits that could affect his
custody level.
In response, Murphy brought this action, seeking declaratory and
injunctive relief under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983. The
case was styled as a class action, brought on behalf of himself,
other inmate law clerks, and other prisoners. The complaint alleged
that the disciplining of Mur-
227
phy violated due process, the rights of inmates to access the
courts, and, as relevant here, Murphy's First Amendment rights,
including the right to provide legal assistance to other
inmates.
After discovery, the District Court granted petitioners' motion
for summary judgment on all of Murphy's claims. On the First
Amendment claim, the court found that Murphy was not formally
acting as an inmate law clerk when he wrote the letter, and that
Murphy's claims should therefore "be analyzed without consideration
of any privilege that law clerk status might provide." App. to Pet.
for Cert. 24. The District Court then applied our decision in
Turner v.
Safley, 482 U. S. 78 (1987), which
held that a prison regulation impinging on inmates' constitutional
rights is valid "if it is reasonably related to legitimate
penological interests," id., at 89. Finding a "valid, rational
connection between the prison inmate correspondence policy and the
objectives of prison order, security, and inmate rehabilitation,"
the District Court rejected Murphy's First Amendment claim. App. to
Pet. for Cert. 25.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. It premised
its analysis on the proposition that "inmates have a First
Amendment right to assist other inmates with their legal claims."
195 F.3d
1121, 1124 (1999). Murphy enjoyed this right of association,
the court concluded, because he was providing legal advice that
potentially was relevant to Tracy's defense. The Court of Appeals
then applied our decision in
Turner, but it did so only
against the backdrop of this First Amendment right, which, the
court held, affected the balance of the prisoner's interests
against the government's interests. Concluding that the balance
tipped in favor of Murphy, the Court of Appeals upheld Murphy's
First Amendment claim.
Other Courts of Appeals have rejected similar claims.
See,
e. g.,
Gibbs v.
Hopkins, 10 F.3d
373, 378
(CA6 1993) (no constitutional right to assist
other inmates with legal
228
claims);
Smith v.
Maschner, 899
F.2d 940, 950 (CAlO 1990) (same);
Gassler v.
Rayl, 862 F.2d
706, 707-708
(CA8 1988) (same). To resolve the conflict,
we granted certiorari. 530 U. S. 1303 (2000).
II
In this case, we are not asked to decide whether prisoners have
any First Amendment rights when they send legal
correspondence to one another. In
Turner, we held that
restrictions on inmate-to-inmate communications pass constitutional
muster only if the restrictions are reasonably related to
legitimate and neutral governmental objectives. 482 U. S., at 89.
We did not limit our holding to nonlegal correspondence, and
petitioners do not ask us to construe it that way. Instead, the
question presented here simply asks whether Murphy possesses a
First Amendment right to provide legal advice that enhances the
protections otherwise available under
Turner. The effect of
such a right, as the Court of Appeals described it, 195 F. 3d, at
1127, would be that inmate-to-inmate correspondence that includes
legal assistance would receive more First Amendment protection than
correspondence without any legal assistance. We conclude that there
is no such special right.
Traditionally, federal courts did not intervene in the internal
affairs of prisons and instead "adopted a broad handsoff attitude
toward problems of prison administration."
Procunier v.
Martinez, 416
U. S. 396, 404 (1974). Indeed, for much of this country's
history, the prevailing view was that a prisoner was a mere "slave
of the State," who "not only forfeited his liberty, but all his
personal rights except those which the law in its humanity accords
him."
Jones v.
North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union,
Inc., 433 U. S.
119, 139 (1977) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (quoting
Ruffin v.
Commonwealth, 62 Va. 790, 796 (1871))
(alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). In recent
decades, however, this Court has determined that incarceration does
not divest prisoners of all constitutional protections. Inmates
229
retain, for example, the right to be free from racial
discrimination,
Lee v.
Washington, 390 U. S. 333 (1968)
(per curiam), the right to due process,
Wolff v.
McDonnell, 418
U. S. 539 (1974), and, as relevant here, certain protections of
the First Amendment,
Turner, supra.
We nonetheless have maintained that the constitutional rights
that prisoners possess are more limited in scope than the
constitutional rights held by individuals in society at large. In
the First Amendment context, for instance, some rights are simply
inconsistent with the status of a prisoner or "with the legitimate
penological objectives of the corrections system,"
Pell v.
Procunier, 417
U. S. 817, 822 (1974). We have thus sustained proscriptions of
media interviews with individual inmates, see id., at 833-835,
prohibitions on the activities of a prisoners' labor union, see
North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc., supra, at 133,
and restrictions on inmate-to-inmate written correspondence, see
Turner, supra, at 93. Moreover, because the "problems of
prisons in America are complex and intractable," and because courts
are particularly "ill equipped" to deal with these problems,
Martinez, supra, at 404-405, we generally have deferred to
the judgments of prison officials in upholding these regulations
against constitutional challenge.
Reflecting this understanding, in
Turner we adopted a
unitary, deferential standard for reviewing prisoners'
constitutional claims: "[W]hen a prison regulation impinges on
inmates' constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is
reasonably related to legitimate penological interests." 482 U. S.,
at 89. Under this standard, four factors are relevant. First and
foremost, "there must be a 'valid, rational connection' between the
prison regulation and the legitimate [and neutral] governmental
interest put forward to justify it."
Ibid. (quoting
Block v.
Rutherford, 468 U. S. 576, 586
(1984)). If the connection between the regulation and the asserted
goal is "arbitrary or irrational," then the regulation fails,
irrespective of whether the other factors tilt in its
230
favor. 482 U. S., at 89-90. In addition, courts should consider
three other factors: the existence of "alternative means of
exercising the right" available to inmates; "the impact
accommodation of the asserted constitutional right will have on
guards and other inmates, and on the allocation of prison resources
generally"; and "the absence of ready alternatives" available to
the prison for achieving the governmental objectives.
Id.,
at 90.
Because
Turner provides the test for evaluating
prisoners' First Amendment challenges, the issue before us is
whether
Turner permits an increase in constitutional
protection whenever a prisoner's communication includes legal
advice. We conclude that it does not. To increase the
constitutional protection based upon the content of a communication
first requires an assessment of the value of that content.2 But the
Turner test, by its terms, simply does not accommodate
valuations of content. On the contrary, the
Turner factors
concern only the relationship between the asserted penological
interests and the prison regulation.
Id., at 89.
Moreover, under
Turner and its predecessors, prison
officials are to remain the primary arbiters of the problems that
arise in prison management.
Ibid.; see also
Martinez,
supra, at 405 ("[C]ourts are ill equipped to deal with the
increasingly urgent problems of prison administration and reform").
If courts were permitted to enhance constitutional protection based
on their assessments of the content of the particular
communications, courts would be in a position to assume a greater
role in decisions affecting prison administration. Seeking to
avoid" 'unnecessarily perpetuat[ing] the involvement of the federal
courts in affairs of prison administration,'"
Turner, 482 U.
S., at 89 (quoting
Martinez, supra, at 407) (alteration in
original), we reject
2 The Court of Appeals made such an assessment when it
"'balance[d] the importance of the prisoner's infringed right
against the importance of the penological interest served by the
rule.'''
195 F.3d
1121, 1127
(CA9 1999) (quoting
Bradley v.
Hall, 64 F.3d
1276, 1280
(CA9 1995)).
231
an alteration of the
Turner analysis that would entail
additional federal-court oversight.
Finally, even if we were to consider giving special protection
to particular kinds of speech based upon content, we would not do
so for speech that includes legal advice.3 Augmenting First
Amendment protection for inmate legal advice would undermine prison
officials' ability to address the "complex and intractable"
problems of prison administration.
Turner, supra, at 84.
Although supervised inmate legal assistance programs may serve
valuable ends, it is "indisputable" that inmate law clerks "are
sometimes a menace to prison discipline" and that prisoners have an
"acknowledged propensity ... to abuse both the giving and the
seeking of [legal] assistance."
Johnson v.
Avery, 393
U. S. 483, 488, 490 (1969). Prisoners have used legal
correspondence as a means for passing contraband and communicating
instructions on how to manufacture drugs or weapons. See Brief for
State of Florida et al. as
Amici Curiae 6-8; see also
Turner, supra, at 93 ("[P]risoners could easily write in
jargon or codes to prevent detection of their real messages"). The
legal text also could be an excuse for making clearly inappropriate
comments, which "may be expected to circulate among prisoners,"
Thornburgh v.
Abbott, 490 U. S. 401, 412
(1989), despite prison measures to screen individual inmates or
officers from the remarks.
We thus decline to cloak the provision of legal assistance with
any First Amendment protection above and beyond the protection
normally accorded prisoners' speech. In-
3 Murphy suggests that the right to provide legal advice follows
from a right to receive legal advice. However, even if one right
followed from the other, Murphy is incorrect in his assumption that
there is a freestanding right to receive legal advice. Under our
right-of-access precedents, inmates have a right to receive legal
advice from other inmates only when it is a necessary "means for
ensuring a 'reasonably adequate opportunity to present claimed
violations of fundamental constitutional rights to the courts.'''
Lewis v.
Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 350-351
(1996) (quoting
Bounds v.
Smith, 430 U. S. 817,825
(1977)).
232
stead, the proper constitutional test is the one we set forth in
Turner. Irrespective of whether the correspondence contains
legal advice, the constitutional analysis is the same.
III
Under
Turner, the question remains whether the prison
regulations, as applied to Murphy, are "reasonably related to
legitimate penological interests." 482 U. S., at 89. To prevail,
Murphy must overcome the presumption that the prison officials
acted within their "broad discretion."
Abbott, supra, at
413. Petitioners ask us to answer, rather than remand, the question
whether Murphy has satisfied this heavy burden. We decline
petitioners' request, however, because we granted certiorari only
to decide whether inmates possess a special First Amendment right
to provide legal assistance to fellow inmates.
***
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case
is remanded for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE GINSBURG, concurring.
I agree with the Court that the Ninth Circuit erred in holding
that the First Amendment secures to prisoners a freestanding right
to provide legal assistance to other inmates. I note, furthermore,
that Murphy does not contest the prison's right to intercept
prisoner-to-prisoner correspondence. But Murphy's § 1983 complaint
does allege that the prison rules under which he was
disciplined-rules forbidding insolence and interference with due
process hearings-are vague and overbroad as applied to him in this
case. * The Ninth Circuit passed over that charge when it
*The rule forbidding insolence defines "insolence" as "[w]ords,
actions or other behavior which is intended to harass or cause
alarm in an employee." Mont. State Prison Policy No. 15-001, Inmate
Disciplinary Pol-
233
ruled, erroneously, that an inmate's provision of legal
assistance to another inmate is an activity specially protected by
the First Amendment.
195 F.3d
1121, 1128 (1999). The remand for which the Court provides
should not impede Murphy from reasserting claims that the Court of
Appeals so far has left untouched.
icy, Rule 009 (App. 10) (emphasis added). The policy includes
the following examples of insolence: "Cursing; abusive language,
writing or gestures
directed to an employee."
Ibid.
(emphasis added). The disciplinary report citing Murphy for
violating the rule against insolence contains no finding that
Murphy's letter was "directed to" Officer Galle or that the letter
was "intended to harass" Officer Galle. App. 52. Although Murphy
undoubtedly knew that his letter to Tracy would be read by prison
officials, there is no record evidence contesting Murphy's sworn
statement that he "did not believe that Officer Galle would read
the letter." Murphy Mfidavit ~ 10 (App. 88).
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