Tallahassee, FL – On October 22, a federal district court in Tallahassee awarded almost $1.2 million in attorneys’ fees and costs in a censorship lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC).
The lawsuit was filed in 2011 by Prison Legal News (PLN), a 72-page monthly publication that covers criminal justice-related issues; PLN is a project of the non-profit, Lake Worth Beach-based Human Rights Defense Center. The suit followed years of censorship by the DOC, which rejected all issues of PLN, purportedly due to an incidental number of advertisements for prison phone services, penpals and companies that purchase postage stamps from prisoners.
PLN, which has published for almost 30 years, is not censored on the basis of its advertisements in the 49 other state prison systems, nor in the federal Bureau of Prisons, including maximum security facilities. PLN raised a First Amendment censorship claim and a due process claim for the DOC’s failure to provide adequate notice when publications were rejected by prison staff.
Following a bench trial, in October 2015 the district court held the DOC’s censorship practices did not violate the First Amendment, but that prison officials had violated PLN’s due process rights.
The court issued a permanent injunction on the latter claim.
PLN appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, which affirmed the district court’s ruling on May 17, 2018. A certiorari petition to the U.S. Supreme Court followed, with support from over 100 amici partners, including briefs filed by former prison officials, law professors, media agencies, prison book programs, advertisers, faith-based groups, conservative organizations such as the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity, and civil rights advocates. PLN was represented before the Eleventh Circuit and the Supreme Court by former U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement with Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and by former White House associate counsel Michael H. McGinley with Dechert LLP. The Supreme Court declined to review the case, resulting in remand to the district court and the entry of the attorneys’ fee order this week.
In his 36-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Mark E. Walker awarded $1,148,210.89 in fees plus $33,448.57 in litigation expenses to PLN as the prevailing party in the case, as it had succeeded on its due process claim. The court had previously awarded $6,204.42 in costs, for a total award of $1,187,863.88. PLN’s attorneys expended over 4,064 hours in litigating the suit, both before the district court and on appeal, and the district court rejected most of the defendants’ objections to the fee award. PLN’s fee expert was William K. Hill with the Gunster law firm.
“This Court finds Plaintiffs success on its Due Process claim imparted a substantial public benefit by having this Court enter an injunction requiring Defendant to comply with its notice provisions,” Judge Walker wrote. “Said otherwise, Plaintiffs victory on its Due Process claim prevented Defendant from continuing to censor without regard to its Due Process obligations under the Fourteenth Amendment.”
“Free speech isn’t free,” said Human Rights Defense Center executive director Paul Wright. “In this case, censorship by the Florida Department of Corrections cost state taxpayers almost $1.2 million – because of the vicious efforts by the prison system to censor HRDC’s publications. The Attorney General’s office spent over 3,000 hours in attorney time fighting this case. The real tragedy is that Florida prisoners remain unable to read PLN and other HRDC publications that will educate and inform them of their rights.”
PLN was represented in the litigation at the trial level by Dante Trevisani and the late Randy Berg with the Florida Justice Institute [FAC NOTE: FJI REPRESENTED PLAINTIFFS IN THE INTERNET IDENTIFIER LAWSUIT ALONG WITH VAL JONAS AND BETH WEITZNER]; by the ACLU Foundation of Florida; and by former HRDC general counsel Sabarish Neelakanta, current general counsel Dan Marshall and staff attorney Masimba Mutamba. The case is Prison Legal News v. Inch, U.S.D.C. (N.D. FL), Case No. 4:12-cv-00239-MW/CAS.
I wonder if FDOC is still going to send to confinement those who are found to have PLN in their possession. I know a lot of guys who experienced that. Maybe FDOC will back off? Naaah.
wish it was 10000000 billion
Sounds like a win….and yes unfortunately, lawsuits to make people do the right thing costs lots of money. The average person that gets screwed doesn’t have it, while the ones in power that do have it are able to do whatever the hell they want and get away with it.
I wish there was a way to punish the corrections department monetarily without punishing the prisoners with lesser services. So, the taxpayers will foot the bill and those that restricted prisoner rights will have lost nothing. Those whose decisions led to this should lose their jobs. They have demonstrated poor decision making that has infringed on people’s rights and cost the taxpayers 1.2 million dollars. This should not be allowed to happen again and by firing those who made these decisions, it will send a message to their replacements and to others in the system who may be tempted to do wrong in the future. Im sure that an employee in the private sector that cost their companies this kind of money would be searching for new employment.
I also seem to see, after re- reading, that the censorship issue was a loss to PLN. The court only found that PLN’s right to due process was infringed upon. I guess the court feels that prisoners don’t get to be told what their rights may be. They must either know them or research them somehow. In other words, let’s keep the prisoners as ignorant as we can.
Someone tell me if I read this wrong.
More lawsuits please. This nation need be taught a lesson, and maybe finally the public will open their eyes to just how corrupt it has been.
Lawsuits take money. Look at our funding meters
So is PLN allowed back in FL prisons? Will FAC still be placing ads?
I don’t have the least problem with burning the government up at any and every level when they operate to trample the rights of the incarcerated just because they think they can do it and get away with it. I don’t care how many millions are wasted since society seems so indifferent to the mistreatment of inmates. I say burn them up every chance that comes along and when the taxpayers get tired of their money being wasted enough to actually stand up and demand better treatment for inmates, they’ll reflect it with their votes.
If society’s willing to turn blind eyes and deaf ears to the abuses of inmates and their rights, then I’m perfectly ok with it costing them multiple millions per incident.