THORNBURGH v. ABBOTT

Legal Principle at Issue

Whether federal prison regulations allowing officials to reject publications sent to inmates violated the First Amendment rights of prisoners and publishers?

Action

Vacated and remanded. Petitioning party received a favorable disposition.

Facts/Syllabus

Federal Bureau of Prisons regulations generally permit prisoners to receive publications from the "outside," but authorize wardens, pursuant to specified criteria, to reject an incoming publication if it is found "to be detrimental to the security, good order, or discipline of the institution or if it might facilitate criminal activity." Wardens may not reject a publication "solely because its content is religious, philosophical, political, social, sexual, or . . . unpopular or repugnant," or establish an excluded list of publications, but must review each issue of a subscription separately. 

Respondents, a class of inmates and certain publishers, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming that the regulations, both on their face and as applied to 46 specifically excluded publications, violated their First Amendment rights under the standard set forth in Procunier v. Martinez (1974). The district court refrained from adopting the Martinez standard in favor of an approach more deferential to the judgment of prison authorities, and upheld the regulations without addressing the propriety of the 46 exclusions. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit utilized the Martinez standard, found the regulations wanting, and remanded the case for an individualized determination on the constitutionality of the 46 exclusions.