Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Superintendent Keith Butts
1000 Van Nuys Road
PO Box E
New Castle, IN 47362

February 6, 2014

RE: Illegal censorship of publication to Mr. xxx

Dear Superintendent Butts,

On March 1, 2013 MIM Distributors mailed a publication titled Under Lock & Key issue 35 (November/December 2013) to the above-named prisoner held at New Castle Correctional Facility. The publication was mailed via Presorted Standard mail. The publication was returned to MIM Distributors, unopened, with "Return to Sender, Not Deliverable as Addressed" on the outside.

The prisoner's address is correct according to the Indiana Department of Correction Offender Search, and this prisoner has since written to MIM Distributors from New Castle. Yet, this returned publication was not accompanied with any indication as to why it was being returned.

As you are certainly aware, 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, neither the prisoners, nor MIM Distributors were 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 both the prisoners and 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.

In addition, the practice of holding publications and/or letters for an indefinite time without providing notice of any determination is certainly unconstitutional, as it does not satisfy the obligation that the prison administration has to provide both the sender and the recipient with a decision in a reasonable time and ultimately frustrates the right that both the sender and the prisoner have to appeal a negative determination.

Sincerely,

MIM Distributors
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

CC: Affected parties