United States Ninth Circuit

In a First Amendment case regarding punishment of an Oregon state prisoner for writing letters vulgarly describing prison officials, dismissal of plaintiff's section 1983 claim is reversed and remanded where: 1) censorship of prisoner mail is justified only if the regulation furthers a substantial governmental interest unrelated to the suppression of expression and the limitation on expression is no greater than necessary to the protection of the particular governmental interest involved; 2) plaintiff properly pleaded that he was punished for the content of his letters; and 3) the district court erroneously relied on case law concerning prisoner to prisoner communications.

Appellate Information

• Argued 03/14/2008
• Decided 09/22/2008
• Published 09/22/2008

Judges

• PER CURIAM:, Before:  B. FLETCHER and RICHARD A. PAEZ, Circuit Judges, and WILLIAM W. SCHWARZER, District Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Leonard J. Feldman, Heller Ehrman LLP, Seattle, WA, for plaintiff-appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Hardy Myers, Attorney General, Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General, Janet A. Metcalf, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, OR, for defendants-appellees.