Clement v. California Dept. of Corrections.

• Position: FREE SPEECH, EXPRESSION, ASSOC. - Brief Article

U.S. District Court

INTERNET

MAIL

Clement v. California Dept. of Corrections, 220 F.Supp.2d 1098 (N.D.Cal. 2002). A prisoner brought a civil right action regarding his medical treatment for colon cancer, and a First Amendment claim challenging a prison mail policy that banned the inclusion of Internet-generated materials in regular mail received by prisoners. The court granted injunctive relief to the prisoner, finding that the policy of banning Internet-generated materials in regular mail violated the prisoner's First Amendment right to receive information through incoming mail. The court concluded that the policy was not rationally related to any penological interest in controlling the volume of mail, and was an arbitrary substitute for a more direct means of regulating the volume...