im not sure about this but it looks like some state prisons will not let convicts read religious newspapers and newsletters but they will not let them read other newspapers such as the new york times or an american atheist newsletter???? Original Article Supreme Court considers prison disciplinary rules Associated Press Mar. 28, 2006 12:00 AM WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court struggled Monday with whether states can keep troublesome inmates from reading secular newspapers and magazines. Pennsylvania prison officials urged the high court to allow them to use access to newspapers and magazines as an incentive to get inmates to behave themselves. The "bottom line" in the case, as Justice Stephen Breyer put it: whether the court should interfere and tell the state how to manage its inmates or whether prison officials have gone too far and infringed on the free-speech rights of prisoners. The case could wind up in a tie because only eight justices are considering it. Justice Samuel Alito did not participate because he wrote a dissenting opinion. He sided with Pennsylvania when he was a member of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Louis Rovelli, Pennsylvania's lawyer, told the justices the state's policy is reasonable because inmates can earn back the privilege of receiving newspapers and magazines as well as personal photographs. Rovelli said the state designed the special unit because most of the 40 or so inmates held there eventually will be released from prison. Before that happens, he said, the state wants to try to "turn them around." The unit's inmates are permitted access to religious newspapers, two paperback books of general interest, their legal documents and letters from family. The case's outcome could affect prison operations nationwide if the justices require state officials to prove that their policies serve legitimate security and rehabilitative interests inside prison walls. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/politics/28scotus.html Curb on Access to News in Prison Gets Hearing By LINDA GREENHOUSE Published: March 28, 2006 WASHINGTON, March 27 Pennsylvania went before the Supreme Court on Monday to defend its policy of denying most newspapers, magazines and photographs to its most incorrigible prison inmates against claims that the restriction violates the First Amendment. The policy is one of the most restrictive in the country. The federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled last year that prison officials had to provide some objective evidence to show that the policy actually accomplished the twin goals they claimed for it: improved security and "behavior modification" of recalcitrant inmates. The appeals court's 2-to-1 ruling set aside a federal district court's judgment for the state, leading to Pennsylvania's Supreme Court appeal. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., then a member of the appeals court, was the dissenter on the three-judge panel. He left the Supreme Court bench Monday morning when the argument began, and will not take part in the case, Beard v. Banks, No. 04-1739. The case is a class-action lawsuit that began when the prison authorities seized a copy of The Christian Science Monitor, to which an inmate, Ronald Banks, had a subscription. The lower courts looked at the policy as a whole, and did not scrutinize its application to individual inmates. The argument in the Supreme Court was more lopsided than the eventual decision might be. Jere Krakoff, a lawyer from Pittsburgh representing the inmates who had brought the lawsuit, was making his first Supreme Court argument and appeared nonplused by questions from the justices that more experienced lawyers would have taken in stride. "I'm obviously not framing my argument in a way that's getting my point across," Mr. Krakoff said at one point in a discouraged tone. At another point, he offered, "My brief may be more coherent than I am today." If Mr. Krakoff was discouraged, the justices who were sympathetic to his legal position, or who at least wanted his position to be articulated, appeared frustrated, intervening to the extent of putting words in his mouth. For example, Mr. Krakoff got into a discussion with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. about an exception in Pennsylvania's policy that permits inmates to have religious newspapers and law-related reading matter in their cells. One of the state's explanations for the general no-newspaper rule was that inmates might set fire to newspapers. Mr. Krakoff, trying to show that, given the exceptions, the policy made little sense, observed that "The Jewish Forward can burn as quickly as The New York Times." "Now you're making your clients' situation worse," Chief Justice Roberts said. He said the state had been willing to take "a more circumscribed approach" in exempting the religious and legal papers. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg intervened at this point, addressing Mr. Krakoff. "I thought you were saying that as a security concern, it doesn't hold up, because the materials they are allowed to have in their cells could be put to the same end," she said. Later, nearing the end of his allotted 30 minutes, Mr. Krakoff told the justices that he would sit down rather than continue. But he was kept on his feet by justices who had more questions. Seeking to summarize as the red light came on to signal that his time was up, Mr. Krakoff observed that some of the hard-core inmates in the special prison unit under discussion would eventually complete their sentences and go back into society, deprived of knowledge of what had been going on in the world. "They could read about ancient wars in the Bible, but not about the war in Iraq," he said. "It's not a healthy situation." Pennsylvania's lawyer, Louis J. Rovelli, executive deputy state attorney general, received his share of skeptical questions but appeared generally unfazed by them, as did Jonathan L. Marcus, an assistant United States solicitor general who also argued on the state's behalf. Justice Ginsburg asked Mr. Rovelli to explain why the policy permitted inmates to order paperback books from the prison library while prohibiting newspapers and magazines. "The rationality of that line escapes me," she said. Mr. Rovelli replied that paperbacks were "small and compact and much more difficult to use as weapons" by the "worst of the worst" inmates to whom the policy applies. About 40 inmates fit into this category at any one time, housed in a special "long-term segregation unit" in the state prison at Fayette, Pa. Chief Justice Roberts asked: "Is a paperback copy of 'War and Peace' less dangerous?" It was a "difficult line to draw," Mr. Rovelli acknowledged, while turning his concession into an opening. That was where the expertise of prison officials, to which judges should defer, came in, he said. He explained that the policy was "guided by the experience of prison administrators," who had observed the "high value" that prisoners placed on access to newspapers and magazines. These were therefore removed to give prisoners an incentive to change their behavior in order to gain a transfer to a lower-security area of the prison. This was a justification that the appeals court had found insufficient in the absence of any evidence that it worked or had "any basis in real human psychology," the majority opinion said. The majority added that far from disregarding Supreme Court precedents requiring deference to prison administrators' judgment, it was simply trying to determine "whether an asserted goal is logically connected to the prison regulation." If the Supreme Court agrees, the case will go back to Federal District Court in Pittsburgh for a trial. A 4-to-4 tie, in Justice Alito's absence, would have the effect of affirming the appeals court's ruling. Justice David H. Souter told Mr. Rovelli that the state's behavior-modification theory appeared to justify depriving inmates of access to legal papers. Questioning the state's approach, Justice Souter said: "Tell them, 'No, you may not receive any legal material because it's something you very much want to do.' Can the state do that?" It could, the state's lawyer replied, as long as the prisoner was left with other means of access to court, including the unlimited visits from lawyers that the policy permits for these high-security inmates. Any prisoner who was deprived of a meaningful access to court, a right to which the Supreme Court has given constitutional protection, could bring another lawsuit challenging the policy "as applied," Mr. Rovelli said. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx?id=16696 Prisoners' side struggles in reading-material case By Tony Mauro First Amendment Center legal correspondent 03.28.06 WASHINGTON The newspaper industry may be in some trouble nationwide. But inside prisons, newspapers are such a prized commodity that inmates have gone all the way to Supreme Court to press their First Amendment right to receive them. Justices yesterday heard arguments in Beard v. Banks, a class-action suit brought by what the State of Pennsylvania describes as the worst of the worst inmates in its state prisons against a disciplinary policy that deprives them of all publications except religious and legal newspapers in their cells. But from the tenor of the arguments, inmates would be wise not to start their New York Times subscriptions just yet. The lawyer for the inmates struggled, without apparent success, to overcome the states two justifications for the policy: security and behavior modification. A tightly rolled newspaper, argued Deputy Pennsylvania Attorney General Louis Rovelli, can be as effective a weapon as a nightstick. And depriving inmates of something they really want, he argued, gives inmates an incentive to end the bad behavior that got them into the long-term segregation unit in the first place. The goal, said Rovelli, is to turn these inmates around. Those arguments did not persuade a majority of a panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though then-judge Samuel Alito Jr. dissented. Because he had ruled on the case, now-Justice Alito did not participate in the arguments yesterday. But inmates lawyer Jere Krakoff stumbled as he tried to convince the justices that the policy should be struck down in spite of the Courts 1987 Turner v. Safley precedent, which gives prison officials substantial deference in devising regulations that impinge on inmates rights. Krakoff, a Pittsburgh lawyer, argued there was no rational distinction between the security problem posed by religious publications, which are allowed, and by secular publications, which under the Pennsylvania policy are not. The Jewish Forward can burn as quickly as The New York Times, he said. But that argument seemed to backfire, since a logical answer to his point might be to ban religious publications, too. Krakoff also seemed to lose ground when he argued that prisoners in the segregated unit are deprived of so much that the state should accommodate their desire for newspapers. Justice David Souter asked if that amounted to an Eighth Amendment argument that taking away newspapers was cruel and unusual punishment. Krakoff said no. An incredulous Justice Stephen Breyer asked, Your argument is that they are so bad, you might as well give them everything they want? Flustered by his inability to get his points across, Krakoff said, My brief may be more coherent than I am today. At another point, seeing he had made no headway, Krakoff tried to end his argument prematurely but justices did not let him, persisting with questions. That gave Krakoff a chance to give perhaps his best line, arguing that depriving inmates of news about the outside world would hamper them when they eventually return to society. They can read about an ancient war [in the Bible], but not the war in Iraq. Related High court to decide if prisons can bar inmate access to news Justices agree to take case from 3rd Circuit in which Supreme Court nominee dissented. 11.14.05 Justices hear case involving prisoners' reading material Alito sits out Beard v. Banks because he took part in 3rd Circuit case concerning denial of publications to help control unruly inmates. 03.27.06 http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_3645885 Article Launched: 03/28/2006 1:00 AM MST u.s. supreme court High court weighs limits on prisoners By Charles Lane The Washington Post Washington - A newspaper has many uses - fish wrap, puppy training. In Pennsylvania, some prisoners fill a rolled-up paper with toothpaste, let it harden - and use it as a club. That glimpse of prison reality came at the Supreme Court on Monday, from a lawyer explaining why Pennsylvania denies about 40 of its most violent inmates reading materials unless they obey the rules. The policy, Pennsylvania Executive Deputy Attorney General Louis Rovelli said, is "logically connected to both rehabilitation and security." Prisoner Ronald Banks sued when his Christian Science Monitor was barred, claiming a violation of his First Amendment rights. Last year, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled in his favor. The state appealed, setting up Monday's oral argument in Beard vs. Banks. The case will help define how much the Constitution permits officials to restrict inmates' already limited freedom for the sake of order, security and rehabilitation. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seemed skeptical, noting a religious publication could also be rolled up and fashioned into a club. Rovelli answered that, in the experience of prison officials, inmates are less likely to use religious materials as weapons. "I don't see the logical stopping point if we accept the behavioral-modification theory," Justice David Souter noted. "Why wouldn't it allow for the deprivation of all communication except access to counsel?"