XPost: talk.politics.drugs, talk.politics.guns, alt.current-events.usa   
   XPost: talk.politics.misc, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.usa.republican   
   XPost: alt.politics.bush, alt.law-enforcement   
   From: DEMI_GOD_@SHAW.CA   
      
    SPR Home   
      
         News Articles   
      
      
      
      
      
         SPR in the News   
      
         Nicholas M. Horrock, Arizona Prison Ban Struck Down   
      
      
         WASHINGTON, -- Prisoner-rights groups are closely watching a proposed   
   rule in Florida Wednesday that would bar inmates from "advertising" for pen   
   pals and other outside contacts after winning a major federal court ruling   
   in Arizona that struck a law barring inmates from letting information appear   
   on the Internet, advocacy officials said.   
      
         Tracy Lamourie, a director of the Canadian Coalition Against the Death   
   Penalty, said if Florida adopts the rules, proposed earlier this year, her   
   group and others might consider another legal challenge. The proposed   
   Florida rule would become part of prison regulations and would bar prisoners   
   from advertising for anything.   
      
         "Inmates who post ads or have ads posted with the assistance of   
   another person shall be subject to disciplinary action," the Florida   
   regulation says.   
      
         The Arizona ruling and actions in other states underscore the power of   
   the Internet both as a tool for social advocacy groups and a place where   
   critics say prison inmates can make improper contacts and endanger the   
   public.   
      
         U.S. District Judge Earl H. Carroll, sitting in Phoenix, ruled Friday   
   that when Arizona moved to bar prison inmates from directly or indirectly   
   providing information for the Internet it violated not only the prisoner's   
   First Amendment rights, but also the rights of advocacy groups who set up   
   Web pages.   
      
         Under pressure from the widow of a murder victim, the Arizona   
   legislature passed a law in 2000, House Bill 2376, which forbade prisoners   
   from communicating with any organization that had a Web site and from   
   allowing their names and material about them to be displayed on the   
   Internet, even if they had no control over its use.   
      
         The widow, Stardust Johnson, noticed in 1999 that the man who is   
   serving a life sentence in the Arizona State Penitentiary for brutally   
   beating her 59-year-old husband to death in 1995, had a Web page advertising   
   for people to correspond with him through a service called   
   "PrisonPenPals.com." Penpals, she told an Arizona legislative committee, was   
   an Internet provider that sold prison inmates Web pages for $19.95.   
      
         The ad, she said, showed the inmate, Beau John Greene, holding a   
   kitten, portraying him as a submissive person and gave no hint he had   
   committed a crime in 1995 that prosecutors called "heinous and very   
   depraved."   
      
         Johnson wanted to know what gifts, money and pen pals Greene acquired   
   through the ad.   
      
         Johnson and other witnesses told the committee that access to these   
   Web pages made it possible for inmates to stalk former victims, carry out   
   fraudulent activity, and make improper contacts with children and other   
   unsuspecting people.   
      
         Inmates in Arizona prisons did not have direct access to the Internet,   
   but communicated with Internet providers by sending a letter. Under   
   Johnson's prodding and the pressure of prison officials, the legislature   
   passed a law that said "an inmate shall not receive mail from a   
   communication service or service provider or remote computing service."   
      
         In addition to paid providers, prison-rights advocacy groups such as   
   the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Citizens United for   
   Alternatives to the Death Penalty, and Stop Prisoner Rape use the Internet   
   to press social issues.   
      
         The Canadian Coalition puts pictures on the Web of inmates from around   
   the world facing death sentences and publishes the details of legal cases   
   where there have been questions about fairness and the guilt or innocence of   
   the prisoner.   
      
         The coalition came under attack from an Alabama state Sen. Bill   
   Armistead, R-Columbiana, who said it gave "death row inmates a forum, on the   
   World Wide Web, to vent all their thoughts against society, along with   
   so-called poems and artwork."   
      
         Shortly after the Arizona law was passed, prison authorities passed a   
   regulation that even if prisoners did not purposefully lend their names and   
   case details for a Web page, they could face punishment within the prison   
   and possible criminal charges. The prisoners were told it was their   
   responsibility to have their names removed from the Internet though the   
   regulations prohibited their getting in touch with the providers.   
      
         The ACLU filed a lawsuit in July 2002 charging that the law's purpose   
   was to "suppress the flow of information from prisoners to the outside   
   world, and to chill the advocacy of plaintiffs and other anti-death penalty   
   and prisoner-rights organizations."   
      
         The suit said the "Internet has revolutionized social political   
   advocacy.   
      
         "In the past, advocacy had to pay for postage and stationary to send   
   information to their members and supporters, and these costs imposed limits   
   on the number of persons these groups could reach with their message. Now   
   such groups can make information available to an unlimited number of persons   
   at no marginal cost simply by posting it on the organization's Internet Web   
   site."   
      
         Prison experts agree the Internet has become a powerful tool for   
   spreading information on bad conditions in prisons, abuse of prisoners and   
   other difficulties.   
      
         Many advocates, like Lamourie, agree some prison ads are   
   inappropriate, but that this is offset by need to have some sort of human   
   contact with the outside world for the 2 million prisoners in American   
   institutions.   
      
         Carroll found that in addition to protecting victims, the Arizona's   
   law had the intention of silencing outsiders, the advocacy groups that used   
   the Web pages. He found that prisoners trying to misuse contacts could be   
   prevented from doing so by current regulations that allow mail to be read by   
   authorities and that other monitoring powers could also protect the public.   
      
         "The statutes codifying HB 2376 are not rationally related to   
   legitimate penological objectives and are therefore unconstitutional," he   
   wrote. He ordered Arizona prison authorities to immediately stop enforcing   
   the law.   
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
   [SoupGate killed UU-encoded file title_features.gif (4559 bytes)]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)