Pell v. Procunier

Mr. Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court.

These cases are here on cross-appeals from the judgment of a three-judge District Court in the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs in the District Court were four California prison inmates — Booker T. Hillery, Jr., John Larry Spain, Bobby Bly, and Michael Shane Guile — and three professional journalists — Eve Pell, Betty Segal, and Paul Jacobs. The defendants were Raymond K. Procunier, Director of the California Department of Corrections, and several subordinate officers in that department. The plaintiffs brought the suit to challenge the constitutionality, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, of § 415.071 of the California Department of Corrections Manual, which provides that “[p]ress and other media interviews with specific individual inmates will not be permitted.” They sought both injunctive and declaratory relief under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Section 415.071 was promulgated by defendant Procunier under authority vested in him by § 5058 of the California Penal Code and is applied uniformly throughout the State’s penal system to prohibit face-to-face interviews between press representatives and individual inmates whom they specifically name and request to interview. [*820] In accordance with 28 U. S. C. §§ 2281 and 2284, a three-judge court was convened to hear the case.[1]

The facts are undisputed. Pell, Segal, and Jacobs each requested permission from the appropriate corrections officials to interview inmates Spain, Bly, and Guile, respectively. In addition, the editors of a certain periodical requested permission to visit inmate Hillery to discuss the possibility of their publishing certain of his writings and to interview him concerning conditions at the prison.[2] Pursuant to § 415.071, these requests were all denied.[3] The plaintiffs thereupon sued to enjoin the continued enforcement of this regulation. The inmate plaintiffs contended that § 415.071 violates their rights of free speech [*821] under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Similarly, the media plaintiffs asserted that the limitation that this regulation places on their newsgathering activity unconstitutionally infringes the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.