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165 F.2d 986

Docket No. 11721.

Numer v. Miller

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided Jan. 29, 1948.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1948-01-29

2 counsel of record

Relies on Platek v. Aderhold

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1948-01-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently March 1978 · most notably Mark O. Hatfield, Governor of the State of Oregon v. Paul R. Bailleaux (1961), Paul Rodger Weller v. Fred H. Dickson, Andrew Emmitte Pope v. Richard A. McGee (1963)

23 federal appellate · 2 district ·

1701948195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Richard A. Numer, in pro. per.

¶2Frank J. Hennessy, U. S. Atty., and Joseph Karesh, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of San Francisco, Cal., for appellee.

¶3Before GARRECHT, MATHEWS, and. HEALY, Circuit Judges.

¶4HEALY, Circuit Judge.

¶5Appellant, an inmate of Alcatraz, applied to the district court for an order in the nature of mandate commanding appellees, who are subordinate officials of the prison, to transmit certain mail matter rejected by these officials. He asserts that they have denied him access to educational facilities afforded all fellow inmates and have abridged his right of free speech. After a hearing in which the petitioner participated the court ordered a dismissal.

¶6The burden of petitioner’s grievance is that he was refused permission to mail some lesson sheets to the extension division of the University of California in connection with a correspondence course in English in which he had been encouraged to enroll. The assignment for the first lesson had asked that the student state his, reasons for taking the course and the benefits he hopes to derive from it. Possessing conscientious scruples against misleading his instructors, says the petitioner, he fulfilled his lesson assignment truthfully. A copy of his efforts in that direction is attached to-the petition as an exhibit. In this paper he states that he is taking the course because he intends upon his release to write a book exposing the brutality of the prison authorities, whom he characterizes as “a sadistic group in charge of the brutality department.” The composition is written throughout in this vein. On reading it the deputy warden told petitioner he would not be allowed to proceed with the course unless he changed his tactics.

¶7Patently there is nothing in this showing which would make out a case cognizable by the district courts. It is not *987their province to supervise prison discipline. Platek v. Aderhold, 5 Cir., 73 F.2d 173. Congress has entrusted that responsibility to the Bureau of Prisons, set up in the Department of Justice. The controlling statute, 18 U.S.C.A. § 753a, provides that the Bureau “shall have charge of the management and regulation of all Federal penal and correctional institutions and be responsible for the safe-keeping, care, protection, instruction, and discipline of all persons charged with or convicted of offenses against the United States.”

¶8As to the asserted violation of constitutional guaranties, we may add that a prisoner who persists in abusing a privilege or opportunity extended to all prison inmates is in no position to complain of unequal treatment if the privilege is taken away from him.

¶9Affirmed.

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