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INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (CJLF)⁽¹⁾ is a non-profit California corporation organized to participate in litigation relating to the criminal justice system as it affects the public interest. CJLF seeks to bring the constitutional protections of the accused into balance with the rights of the victim and of society to rapid, efficient, and reliable determination of guilt and swift execution of punishment.

The present case involves the creation of a new right for prisoners, a right to act as a law clerk separate from their right of access to the courts. Recognizing this right would disrupt delicate balance of interests maintained by the prisoner right-of-access cases. This threatens prison security, endangering guards and prisoners alike, and intrudes upon the prison administration's discretion to manage prisons free from judicial influences. The dangerous expansion of the prisoner's right to association threatens public safety and is therefore contrary to the interests that CJLF was formed to protect.

SUMMARY OF FACTS AND CASE

The plaintiff in this case, Kevin Murphy, is a prisoner law clerk in the Montana State Prison. Murphy v. Shaw, 195 F. 3d 1121, 1123 (CA9 1999). In early 1995 he became aware that Pat Tracy, another inmate, was charged with assaulting Correctional Officer Glen Galle. Ibid. Murphy had previously given legal assistance to Tracy and found out that Tracy wanted his help in the assault case. Murphy also knew that Tracy already had appointed counsel for that case. Ibid. Since Tracy was in the maximum security wing, they could not directly meet each other. Ibid. Murphy, as an inmate in the "high" security classification, was not allowed to visit the maximum security unit, but another inmate clerk with a low security classification was allowed to visit Tracy. Pet. for Cert. 4.

After investigating the matter, Murphy wrote a letter to Tracy in February 1995 in which he asked Tracy not to plead guilty. Murphy, supra, 195 F. 3d, at 1123. Murphy claimed to have found " 'at least 100 witnesses to testify that Galle is an over zealous [sic] guard who has a personal agenda to punish and harass inmates.' " Ibid. The letter further alleged that Officer Galle had made homosexual advances to inmates. Ibid. Murphy stated that "[t]here are petitions against" Galle, and that Murphy would be "filing a suit with everyone in Close I and Close II named against him." Ibid.

The letter was read by prison officials, who kept it from reaching either Tracy or his attorney. See ibid., and n. 1. As a result of the letter, Murphy was punished by prison officials for violating prison regulations against insolence and interference with due process hearings. Id., at 1124. The latter finding is implicitly a finding that Murphy's allegations against Officer Galle were false. See id., at 1124, n. 3 (quoting Rule 022); Pet. for Cert. 5. In October 1995, Murphy filed a class action civil rights suit on behalf of all inmate law clerks at the prison, claiming that disciplining him violated the First Amendment, and denied prisoners their right of access to the courts. He also asserted that the prison regulations used to punish him were void on the their face and as applied to legal advice given by law clerks. Murphy, supra, 195 F. 3d, at 1124. The District Court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment on all claims. Ibid. The Ninth Circuit reversed on the First Amendment claim, finding that Murphy was entitled to summary judgment in his favor on this claim. Id., at 1128. The Ninth Circuit did not decide the right of access claim, ibid., while upholding the District Court's dismissal of the facial challenge to the regulations. Id., at 1129. This Court granted Montana's certiorari petition on September 26, 2000.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

While this case is best analyzed under the prisoner's right of access to the courts, that right was not implicated by the acts of the Montana authorities. The prisoner that the plaintiff sought to assist through his letter already had counsel under the Sixth Amendment, a more than adequate alternative to a prisoner law clerk. Furthermore, the administration did not prevent the plaintiff from filing a civil rights suit on behalf of any prisoner allegedly harmed by Officer Galle. There is no right to be a law clerk separate from the right of access to the courts. Since all prisoners had at least adequate access, this right is not implicated.

The First Amendment right of association does not support a right to be a prisoner law clerk. The cases giving civilian organizations the right to find adequate legal representation for their members have no place in prisons. These cases create a civilian right of access to the courts which is much more extensive than the prison right. Importing these concepts inside the prison walls would disrupt the delicate balance found in the prisoner right-to-access decisions. Finally, these civilian cases are based upon the right of association, the First Amendment right that is the most heavily curtailed within prisons. Since the organizations that are protected under the association right can be banned inside prisons, applying these First Amendment cases to prisons is particularly inappropriate.

The administration did not violate the plaintiff's free speech rights. Although imprisonment does not end prisoners' rights, it necessarily restricts their constitutional protections. The difficulty of running a prison and the important federalism interests in keeping the courts from interfering with prison operation combine to support a very deferential standard for reviewing limitations on prisoners' First Amendment rights. Appropriate deference to prison administrators is achieved by applying the four-part test of Turner v. Safley.

The Montana authorities satisfied the Turner standard. The interest served by their actions, security, is legitimate and content-neutral. Keeping prisoners from using the courts to harass guards through false accusations and keeping prisoners of different security classifications from communication with each other are both rationally related to this interest, thus satisfying Turner's first factor. The second Turner factor, the presence of alternate means of communication, is also available, as the plaintiff was not prevented from voicing prisoner complaints against Officer Galle through the prison grievance process or through civil rights litigation. Turner's third factor, the effect that accommodating the plaintiff prisoner would have on the guards and other prisoners, again favors the administration. Accommodating the plaintiff threatens institutional security, placing both guards and other prisoners in danger. The fourth Turner factor, the absence of ready alternatives, also favors the administration, since the plaintiff's desire to communicate with Tracy cannot be accommodated without compromising the prison's interests in preventing guards from being harassed and segregating prisoners of different security classifications.

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1. This brief was written entirely by counsel for amicus, as listed on the cover, and not by counsel for any party. No outside contributions were made to the preparation or submission of this brief.

Both parties have given written consent to the filing of this brief.