California jails sued after banning prison publisher. Why was one of its editors arrested?
Two weeks ago, a Florida-based group that advocates for prisoners nationwide sued the Placer County jail system accusing it of violating inmates’ First Amendment rights.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Sacramento, the nonprofit charity Human Rights Defense Center accused the Placer County Sheriff’s Office of refusing to allow its Prison Legal News publication and other literature into its Auburn and South Placer jails.
A week later, the same group sued Tehama County, alleging the same violations and saying its literature is unfairly being kept out of the jails as contraband.
The center has filed such suits nationwide with great success in the past.
But its latest cases may face new scrutiny, thanks to the announcement in Nashville, Tennessee, this week that police had arrested the managing editor of Prison Legal News for allegedly hiding loaded guns and ammunition inside a new jail under construction there.
Alex Friedmann, who until his arrest in January was also an associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center, is being held on $2.5 million bond on a charge of vandalism in excess of $250,000 at the new jail, Nashville police say.
“Friedmann was initially arrested in this case on January 4th and charged with attempted burglary, possession of burglary tools and evidence tampering after he was found by Sheriff’s Office staff to be in the jail facility dressed as a construction worker,” Nashville police said in a news release. “A cooler Friedmann carried into the facility contained bolt cutters, a key chit (used as a security measure to identify keys), and a schematic document of the building.
“Friedmann is alleged to have tried to destroy the document by ripping and chewing it after he was detained. The continuing investigation since Friedmann’s initial arrest resulted in the discovery of three loaded guns and tools hidden within the Downtown Detention Center.”
Friedmann, whose own online bio notes that he was incarcerated in Tennessee jails and prisons for 10 years, lists his “areas of expertise” as including “detention facilities.”
Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall announced the case Wednesday to reporters in Nashville, saying Friedmann had developed a “deliberate, evil” plan to plant weapons and orchestrate a “massive escape,” according to the Tennessean newspaper.
“We are not confident we’ve found everything,” Hall said, according to the newspaper. “We are not going to work here until we’re comfortable.”
Paul Wright, the founder of Human Rights Defense Center and editor of the publication, said Friday he could not comment on Friedmann’s case, but said his employment with the center began in 2005 and ended the day after his arrest. Wright maintains that the case has no bearing on the lawsuits his group is pursuing.
“He wouldn’t have anything to do with the lawsuits,” Wright said Friday. “The policies of the jails are unconstitutional, and we’ve litigated similar issues in different parts of the country.”
Jeffrey Bornstein, a San Francisco-based attorney whose firm has spearheaded such lawsuits successfully for years and has won major cases for inmate rights, also said the arrest will not affect the lawsuits.
“The easy answer is, not at all,” Bornstein said. “He was not involved in any of the work that we’re doing with respect to the lawsuits we file. Our case is about censorship, our case is about our clients’ First Amendment rights to get information to incarcerated persons.”
The Human Rights Defense Center, which operates Prison Legal News, says that since last May the Placer jails have refused to allow its publications to be mailed to prisoners and is seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the practice.
“In my 40 years as a corrections and detention professional, I have never been associated with any correctional or detention institutions that have banned such publications or correspondence,” John L. Clark, a former warden and assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, wrote in a declaration filed with the court. “Managed appropriately, jail security is not in any way threatened by books or magazines.”
Placer Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Andrew Scott said materials from the group started showing up at the jails last year and were not allowed in under jail policy.
“In May of 2019, the Auburn Jail received books addressed to inmates in the jail,” Scott said. “These unsolicited books were not in compliance with jail policy as they did not come from a recognized, approved publisher.
“The jail policy was to refuse these items due to the possibility of contraband being hidden in incoming mail. But accepting books only from known approved publishers, the risk of contraband being brought into the jail is much lower.”
But in July, the jails began receiving smaller paper pamphlets from the same mailing address, Scott said.
“We decided to allow material from the Human Rights Defense Center to enter our jails and have been doing so since last July. We are reviewing this lawsuit and lawsuits they’ve filed against corrections facilities across the United States on this issue to help clarify their concerns regarding these items.”
Scott added that Placer County is now reviewing its policy “to make sure we are striking a fair balance between keeping our inmates safe from contraband and to ensure the rights of those wishing to send literature to our inmates.”
The county’s policy says books, magazines or other printed materials must come directly from the publishers or four distributors: Amazon, Bartleby, Zooba or Christian Book Distributor.
“Books not on this approved list must be approved by jail administration on a case by case basis…,” the county policy says, according to the lawsuit. “The Placer County jails will not accept used books, hardback books and books ordered from distributors not listed on the authorized list of approved vendors.”
As a result, the lawsuit says, dozens of copies of publications sent to prisoners have been returned, including copies of the “Prisoners’ Guerrilla Handbook to Correspondence Programs,” which details available educational courses for inmates, and “Protecting Your Health and Safety,” which offers advice on inmate rights and legal protections.
“Since 1990, HRDC has sent its publications by mail to incarcerated persons and law librarians in more than 3,000 correctional facilities in all 50 states, including at death row housing units and ‘supermax’ prisons, including the federal Administrative Maximum Facility at Florence, Colorado, which is known as the most secure prison in the United States,” the lawsuit says.
(That particular facility houses some of the most notorious inmates in the nation, including Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and shoe bomber Richard Reid.)
But HRDC and Prison Legal News says it has been unable to pierce the protective policies at the jails in Auburn and Roseville that are violating “a right clearly established under existing case law.”
In fact, a similar lawsuit filed by Prison Legal News against the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office in April 2011 ended up costing the county $300,000 to settle, with U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez approving a consent decree allowing distribution of its literature.
In that case, the Sheriff’s Office agreed to distribute the materials after removing staples and address labels, which officials banned because of fear staples could be fashioned into weapons and labels could be used to introduce drugs through the adhesive, according to Sacramento Bee coverage at the time.
The firm that won that settlement, Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld, also filed the suit against Placer County and has a long history of success in advocating for prisoners’ rights in county jails and state prisons.
The Placer lawsuit notes that it distributes materials to county jails throughout California, as well as to all 32 prisons run by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and that it has done so for years without problems.
“In its nearly 30-year history, HRDC is not aware of and has never been notified of any security incident caused by any of its publications or correspondence at any jail or prison,” the lawsuit says.
And the arrest of Friedmann is not affecting the decision to continue filing lawsuits.
In addition to Placer and Tehama counties, Bornstein’s office filed a similar suit late Thursday against Napa County.
This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 8:17 AM with the headline "California jails sued after banning prison publisher. Why was one of its editors arrested?."