Here are some news articles reporting on our case and then win from around the country :
--------------020405010406020207http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/21219editinmates.htmlTucson, Arizona Thursday, 19 December 2002<http://cgi.azstarnet.com/cgi-bin/print/print.cgi> Unlock free speech A badly crafted Arizona law trampled First Amendment rights. A federal court judge has temporarily blocked an Arizona law that aimed to keep sympathetic information about inmates off the Internet. Critics view the injunction as an early Christmas gift to some of the worst felons in Arizona's prison system - a view that completely misses the point.In limiting the information about inmates on the Internet, the Arizonalaw also limits the free speech rights of anyone - inmate, lobbyist orordinary citizen - who would put information about the convict on theInternet. For that reason, the law is likely to be found unconstitutional.The American Civil Liberties Union, acting on behalf of the CanadianCoalition Against the Death Penalty, filed a lawsuit against the ArizonaDepartment of Corrections last July. It contended the state lawillegally seeks to regulate free speech outside prison walls.Some critics of the temporary injunction, issued Tuesday by U.S.District Judge Earl H. Carroll, are no doubt under the impression thatinmates in Arizona prisons have direct access to the Internet. They do not.Inmates are not sitting in their cells with a personal computer and anInternet connection. They cannot surf the net or exchange e-mail withanyone.What they can do, however, is send information about themselves to theCanadian group, which then sets up a Web site for that prisoner. Inmatescan use the space to discuss their cases or request pen pals. Anyone whowanted to do so could then write to the inmate through the regular mail.Arizona law says that if information about a prisoner appears on theInternet, the inmate can be punished. One of the attorneys whochallenged the law says that potential punishment in effect imposesrestrictions on what those outside the state can publish on their Websites. The punishment can be severe: It includes reducing or eliminatingearly release time the prisoner has earned.The Canadian coalition has been publishing Web sites for each inmate onArizona's Death Row, whether or not the inmate requests it. It saysArizona's law embodies a double standard by permitting the Department ofCorrections to post inmate records on its Web site but making it illegalfor anyone else to post any other version of the inmate's information onanother Web site.The Arizona law that is now blocked from enforcement was a poorlycrafted bill that resulted from the emotional appeal of a Tucson womanwhose husband had been murdered. Stardust Johnson's outrage atdiscovering her husband's killer portrayed on the Internet as a kindlyanimal-lover is entirely understandable, but it is not grounds fordisassembling the First Amendment rights of people who are not killers.Mrs. Johnson is the widow of University of Arizona music professor RonJohnson, who was murdered in 1995. The Web site dedicated to theconvicted killer, Beau Greene, "gave no clue he was a brutal murderer,"Mrs. Johnson said in a story in Wednesday's Star. "Instead herepresented himself as a lonely man holding a cuddly kitten who wasmisunderstood."Any victim, or any member of a victim's family, would likely react withthe same degree of anger. Mrs. Johnson channeled her outrage into thelaw, which the federal court has now temporarily blocked. That law says"An inmate shall not send mail to or receive mail from a communicationservice provider or remote computing service."By temporarily blocking Arizona from enforcing that law, Judge Carrollwisely noted that the law infringes upon the First Amendment rights ofthose who have created the Web sites. We do not minimize the despair ofthose who were victimized by brutal, remorseless felons, but emphasisshould be placed on controlling those felons in ways that do not violatethe constitutional rights of free citizens or groups with whom officialsmay happen to have political or philosophical differences.
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Free Speech Radio News: Pacifica Radio Network - Friday, December 27, 2002
Free Speech for Prisoners (10 minutes into the program, 3:59 length) - DOWNLOAD MP3 of the program (About 13MB)
" Prisoner's rights advocates are praising a recent ruling that has temporarily put a stop to an Arizona law that prohibits prisoners from having their names posted on websites. The groups contend the law is a violation of prisoners' constitutional right for free speech. For now, a federal judge agrees. More on the story from Leslie George." Dave Parkinson is speaking from the CCADP.
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ACLU Lawsuit Pits First Amendment Rights Against Victims' Rights and Prison Security
By Bryan Robinson - ABCnews.com
July 30 — Arizona prisoners hope they do not appear on various advocacy groups' Web sites, or else they may be charged with a crime or have more time added to their sentences.
This has prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to file a federal lawsuit against the Arizona Department of Corrections, alleging that the state law barring prisoners from communicating with the Web sites of advocacy groups violates the First Amendment rights of both the inmates and the organizations that want to tell their story. The law, adopted by Arizona in 2000, prohibits inmates from
communicating with Internet service providers, remote computer services and Web sites, either directly or through other parties.
"It's really a matter of both infringing on both the First Amendment rights of the prisoners and the groups," said David Fathi of the ACLU National Prison Project. "The Corrections Department has the right to prevent prisoners from communicating with groups who want to put these prisoners on their sites. Organizations have been told that any mail sent to prisoners will be confiscated. So the First
Amendment rights of both have been heavily burdened."
However, Arizona prison officials say the issues surrounding the law involve more than freedom of speech. The law is intended to ensure both prison security and the rights of victims' families who feel violated by prisoners' presence on Web sites.
Advocating Free Speech — For Everyone
Under the law, Arizona inmates and their stories are not allowed to appear on sites outside the one maintained by the Department of Corrections. And if officials find stories about inmates posted on
outside sites, they can threaten the prisoners with punishment, even if they never initiated contacted with their advocates.
"It is extraordinary that Arizona prison officials believe they can tell international groups opposed to the death penalty what they can and cannot say online about prisoners in Arizona," said Eleanor Eisenberg,
executive director of the ACLU of Arizona. "It is equally absurd that this law punishes prisoners even when they are not responsible for the posting of information about them on these outside Web sites."
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of three groups — Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Stop Prisoner Rape. Before the
prisoner-internet law was adopted, Arizona inmates were not allowed to have direct computer access to the outside world.
Plaintiff lawyers said the goal of the lawsuit is not give direct computer access to prisoners and opportunities to conduct or plan crimes in cyberspace. They are trying to preserve the right to freedom
of expression of both inmates and the prisoner rights groups.
"We're not talking about giving prisoners access to computers with a modem or anything like that. We're talking about their communicating with groups through letters, phone calls, or they're telling other
parties to tell their story on the Web," said Fathi. "In the state's legislative history, it has not been an issue of prison security or maintaining prison security. There have been people out there who have
been annoyed that prisoners have been able to get information about them out there, saying things like, "I need a lawyer' or 'I'm innocent' or even things such as 'I'm lonely. I need someone to talk to.' This is really about nothing more than the suppression of free speech."
Preserving Victims’ Rights and Prison Security
However, Arizona prison officials there is more to the law than alleged suppression of speech. The families of murder victims were horrified when they learned that their loved ones' killers has postings on the Web asking for pen pals and professing their innocence without revealing all the details of their crimes.
Jennifer Johnson Lopez was disgusted when she found out that her father Roy Johnson's convicted killer, Beau Greene, appeared in a picture of a Web site searching for pen pals. Convicted killers are prohibited from contacting their victims' families in any way, and Roy Johnson's family, believing that Greene had violated their privacy, urged the Arizona state legislators to pass a law prohibiting other prisoners from telling what may be distorted versions of their stories.
"The law started when the wife and daughter of the victim of a homicide came across a picture of her father's killer, Beau Greene, and he was talking about how he was such a great lover of cats," said Gary Phelps, chief of staff for the Arizona Department of Corrections. "They were very upset, and she [the daughter] felt that her privacy had been violated."
Phelps also pointed out, despite the ACLU's arguments, that the law is also intended to buffer prison security. He recalled a 1997 foiled prison escape where Floyd Bennett Thornton Jr., a death row inmate, and his wife Rebecca were killed in a hail of gunfire. Thornton had enlisted his wife's help in his attempted escape as she fired a semiautomatic rifle at authorities before guards killed her and her husband near the prison fence.
Phelps said that further investigation showed that inmates were using the Internet to solicit help in escape plans.
"As we were investigating the incident we found that some inmates were using a very remote Internet access system to try to solicit help with escapes, escape routes, maps," he said.
An Inmate’s Alleged ‘Catch-22’
Still, the ACLU argues that the Arizona law is too broad. Inmates, the federal complaint alleges, have received notices from officials who threaten to charge them with crimes or add time to their
sentences if they do not tell the advocacy groups to remove their names from their sites.
However, the prisoners, under the law, cannot contact the sites, leaving them in a no-win situation.
"It's really a Catch-22," said Fathi. "The prisoners are told to contact the sites and get their name off the sites or risk being charged with a crime. But if they contact the sites, they are still violating the law."
New York has a similar Internet prisoner access law forbidding inmates from receiving mail from third-party services. However, they are allowed to send mail to these services, as long as they disclose that they are prison inmates.
Arizona prison officials, Phelps said, do their best to monitor traditional correspondence between inmates and the outside world, inspecting all their letters. However, they will do anything
necessary to monitor non-traditional correspondence, especially if prison security is at risk.
"It's an issue that faces this country, even as we try to track down and protect the nation from terrorists," Phelps said.
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Dec. 23, 2002. 01:00 AM
www.thestar.comFree speech win for Canadians
They block ban on information about prisoners on Web Arizona statute violated broader rights, judge rules
TRACEY TYLER - LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER - TORONTO STAR
In what's being hailed as a victory for free speech, a Toronto couple has persuaded a United States federal judge to block a law that bans information about Arizona prisoners from the Internet.Inmates in Arizona faced severe punishments if information about them or their cases appeared on a Web site, sanctions that included the possibility of being charged with a misdemeanor and loss of good-behaviour credits. That is, until Tracy Lamourie and Dave Parkinson came along.The Toronto couple, founders of the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, took the state to court, alleging the law was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.Citing fears of "irreparable harm" to the First Amendment, U.S. District Court Judge Earl H. Carroll issued an injunction last week halting enforcement of the law. Experts predict it will be struck down as unconstitutional at a full hearing expected early next year before the same judge."It's such a relief," said Lamourie, who says she and her spouse are long-time activists who started the coalition after Canadian citizen Stan Faulder was executed in Texas in 1999. "This is not just a prisoners' rights issue," Parkinson said. "This is a free person's issue and involves the right to operate a Web site outside ... Arizona."The law was enacted two years ago to stop inmates from communicating with an Internet service provider, but in practice its sweep was much broader. Arizona inmates have no access to computers, but were presumed to be behind details about their cases that appeared on the Web.State officials monitored the Internet and told prisoners whose names appeared on Web sites they had to get the information removed within three weeks or face criminal charges."They continued to do this and punish the prisoners, even if we notified them they (inmates) had nothing to do with the information on our Web site," Lamourie said.Civil rights and advocacy groups like the coalition faced the choice of deleting information on their Web sites or taking the risk that prisoners they tried to help would be punished, said the American Civil Liberties Union, which has represented the coalition in its battle against the director of the Arizona Department of Corrections.Carroll's ruling was applauded by the Arizona Daily Star in an editorial on Thursday. "Critics view the injunction as an early Christmas gift to some of the worst felons in Arizona's prison system — a view that completely misses the point," the newspaper said. "In limiting the information about inmates on the Internet, the Arizona law also limits the free speech rights of anyone — inmate, lobbyist or ordinary citizen — who would put information about the convict on the Internet. For that reason, the law is likely to be found unconstitutional."However, the decision was less well received by Stardust Johnson, widow of a murdered University of Arizona music professor. "They (the coalition) ought to go back to Canada and take care of their own business there," she told the Arizona Daily Star, which called the law "a poorly crafted bill" that resulted from Johnson's emotional but understandable appeals.Her husband, Roy Johnson, 58, was bludgeoned to death in 1995 after leaving an organ recital. Beau Greene, the man sentenced to death for the murder, later appealed for pen pals through the Internet. A posting titled "Lonely on the Row" had him posing with a kitten.In an interview with the Toronto Star, Johnson said she believes the law prevents convicted felons from preying on vulnerable people and doesn't unduly restrict the rights of advocacy groups like the coalition.The coalition maintains that Web sites like its own are an important vehicle for inmates who claim to be wrongly convicted to get information to the public."My heart bleeds for anyone convicted of something they didn't do," Johnson said. "But I believe convicted felons are mostly manipulators and sociopaths who prey on the vulnerable. Vulnerable women do crazy things." Some 53 inmates had been charged with violations of the law and 24 were disciplined
Toronto Star
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