Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Director's Review Committee
Bill Clements Unit
9601 Spur 591
Amarillo, TX 79107-9606

January 22, 2015

RE: Censorship of Under Lock & Key to XXX and YYY

Dear DRC,
MIM Distributors received letters from Mr. XXX and Mr YYY notifying us that they did not receive the publications we mailed to both of them in the past few months.

For Mr. XXX this includes:
? Under Lock & Key 40 September 2014 (mailed on September 26)
? Under Lock & Key 41 November 2014 (mailed on December 10)

For Mr. YYY this includes:
? Under Lock & Key 40 September 2014 (mailed on September 26)
? Under Lock & Key 35 November 2013 (mailed on August 13)
? Under Lock & Key 36 January 2014 (mailed on August 13)
? Under Lock & Key 37 March 2014 (mailed on August 13)
? Under Lock & Key 38 May 2014 (mailed on August 13)

Per your policy BP03.91 IVD: "The offender and the sender or addressee shall be provided a written statement of the disapproval and a statement of the reason for disapproval within three business days after receiving the correspondence. The notice shall be given on Correspondence Denial Forms. The offender shall be given a sufficiently detailed description of the rejected correspondence to permit effective use of the appeal procedures." In violation of this policy, we did not receive any notification of this mail rejection.

The U.S. Supreme Court has clearly stated that both the sender and the prisoner have a right, under the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, to receive notice and an opportunity to be heard when prison administrators or staff prevent the sender?s expressive materials from reaching their intended recipients (Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S.396. 94 S.Ct 1800, as reaffirmed on the point by Turner V. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987) and Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401 (1989) and Montcalm Publ'g Corp. v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105, 106 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 928 (1996)). In plain and striking contradiction with these principles, MIM Distributors was not notified of the censorship decision or actually of any decisions that the Mailroom staff has made with regard to the publications listed above.

In refusing to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard to the publisher (MIM Distributors), under local policies and/or practices, prison administrators and staff violated clearly established constitutional law and acted under color of state law for purposes of 42 U.S.C. ? 1983.

Per Texas DOC policy (BP-03.91 (rev.3)): "V. B. Any offender, other correspondent, or sender of a publication may appeal the rejection of any correspondence or publication. They may submit written evidence or arguments in support of their appeal. An offender or a correspondent may appeal the placement of the correspondent on the offender?s negative mailing list. An offender or a correspondent may appeal to the DRC for reconsideration of the negative mailing list placement after six months." Based on this we formally request an appeal of this censorship.

In your review of this censorship, please note that your own policy (BP-03.91 (rev.3)) states: "Publications shall not be rejected solely because the publication advocates the legitimate use of offender grievance procedures, urges offenders to contact public representatives about prison conditions, or contains criticism of prison authorities." In order to reject these publications for content, per your policy, you must demonstrate that the publication "contains material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes, riots, or STG activity".

With this letter MIM Distributors requests
- Notification of all future denials of our mail to any prisoners in Bill Clements Unit
- Appeal of these specific instances of censorship
- and that future incoming mail from MIM Distributors to prisoners held at Bill Clements Unit be handled in accordance with TDCJ policies and procedures, and federal and state law.


Sincerely,

MIM Distributors
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties