concluding that a jailhouse lawyer’s retaliatory transfer for providing legal assistance to other prisoners was actionable where the prison had no law library and the plaintiff was the prison’s sole jailhouse lawyer
How later courts described this case
- concluding that a jailhouse lawyer’s retaliatory transfer for providing legal assistance to other prisoners was actionable where the prison had no law library and the plaintiff was the prison’s sole jailhouse lawyer
- arguing that the Supreme Court allowed an inmate writ writer to raise fellow inmates' right of access to court to attack a general prohibition of writ writing and applying the precedent to an individual claim that an inmate's transfer violated other inmates' access to court if state did not show alternative access. Citing Johnson v. Avery, discussed below
- holding that prisoners may be entitled to damages for violations of their First Amendment rights
- holding that jailhouse lawyer “may have First Amendment associational rights in writ writing”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
McMILLEN, District Judge,
concurring.
In view of footnote 1, supra, I concur with the foregoing decision, except that I would not remand for the determination of damages arising from plaintiff’s transfer to the State Prison. He is, however, entitled to provable damages on his own behalf for *234 interference with his constitutional rights as an advocate for certain innovations at the State Farm.
Plaintiff seeks damages for his inferior living conditions at the State Prison, despite the fact that he lost no good time and was not otherwise punished. Plaintiff had no constitutional right to remain at the State Farm. Although defendants have the right to reassign him to the prison at any time without any reason or hearing, they are nevertheless now being subjected to the possibility of paying^ damages for doing what they had a right to do. Declaratory or injunctive relief should fully resolve plaintiff’s grievance. To award him damages for living under less desirable conditions than he enjoyed at the Farm is an unmerited windfall and an unwise departure from precedent.