U.S. District Court: CONFISCATION PRIVILEGED CORRES.

• Position: Brief Article

Ballance v. Young, 130 F.Supp.2d 762 (W.D.Va. 2000). A state prisoner brought a pro se federal civil rights suit against prison officials, arising out of their seizure of several items of his personal property. The district court held that the prisoner had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell that would make seizure of a letter from his cell a Fourth Amendment violation that could be addressed in a [sections] 1983 suit. The court found that the decision by officials to confiscate...