Confiscation – 1st amendment

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Kevin A. Williams v. Sharon Hansen, et. al.

Case No.: 15-2236

Officials: POSNER, EASTERBROOK, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Confiscation – 1^st amendment

Defendants provide no evidence that confiscation of death certificate ordered by appellant was not related to legitimate interest.

“Although “prisoners have protected First Amendment interests in both sending and receiving mail,” Rowe v. Shake, 196 F.3d 778, 782 (7th Cir. 1999), a prison can confiscate an inmate’s mail if confiscation “is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89 (1987). But the prison must present “some evidence to show that the restriction is justified.” King v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 415 F.3d 634, 639 (7th Cir. 2005); see also Brown v. Phil‐ lips, 801 F.3d 849, 854 (7th Cir. 2015). The defendants’ brief argues that the “place in hell” note that accompanied the certificate threatened violence against Williams; yes, but violence in hell, not in the prison; no prison official suggested that the note portended violence in the prison. Again with‐ out any supporting statement by a prison official, the defendants argue that Williams could use the death certificate as a “trophy,” which would increase tension within the prison and decrease his chances for rehabilitation. A prison does have a legitimate safety concern about “boasting inmates” carrying around trophies of their victims. But Williams asserted in his deposition and affidavit that he had ordered the death certificate for use in state post‐conviction proceedings rather than to save as a trophy of his crime, and the defend‐ ants have presented no contrary evidence to support their assumption that Williams wanted a trophy. And the prison could have avoided this controversy in the first place by holding on to the death certificate except for the short time needed to include it (or indeed just a xerox copy of it) in Williams’s court filing.”

Affirmed in part

Reversed and remanded in part

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