28. Mail.

U.S. Appeals Court

PRIVILEGED CORRESPONDENCE REGULATIONS

Kaufman v. McCaughtry, 419 F.3d 678 (7th Car, 2005). A state prison inmate brought a [section] 1983 First Amendment action against corrections officials, challenging their refusal to permit him to organize an atheism study group among inmates, and challenging his right to receive certain publications by mail. The district court dismissed the action and the inmate appealed. The appeals court affirmed in part and vacated and remanded in part. The court held that the inmate's atheism qualified as a "religion" for the purposes of the First Amendment, where the inmate maintained that his atheistic beliefs played a central role in his life, and there was no dispute that those beliefs were deeply and sincerely held. The court held that officials' refusal to permit an atheism study group did not violate the Free Exercise Clause because the infringement on the inmate's free exercise was not significant, since he was not prohibited from studying atheist literature on his own, consulting informally with other atheist inmates, or corresponding with members of atheist groups. But the court found that the officials violated the Establishment Clause because other religious groups were...