Toston v. Thurmer’s Empirical Analysis
689 F.3d 828 · 2012
Citation profile
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Turner v. Safley · Stanley v. Georgia · Wilkinson v. Austin · Overton Director Michigan Department of Corrections et al. v. Bazzetta et al. · Beard v. Banks
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The refusal to allow King to obtain a book on computer programming presents a substantial First Amendment issue. Freedom of speech is not merely freedom to speak; it is also freedom to read. Forbid a person to read and you shut him out of the marketplace of ideas and opinions that it is the purpose of the free-speech clause to protect. Not that there aren’t valid penological reasons for limiting prison inmates’ access to certain types of book. A prison need not allow prisoners to buy books detailing famous prison escapes, or even, we suppose, books on how to make yourself as strong as Mike Tyson through exercise. Were King in prison for computer hacking or other computer-related crimes, the prison could, in the interest of rehabilitation (i.e., preventing recidivism), forbid him to buy a book that would enable him to increase his ability as a hacker when he’s released. But he claims to want the book precisely for purposes of rehabilitation — to equip him to work as a programmer when he is released. That is a proper goal; whether it is his actual goal the record does not enable us to determine. The only reason the prison has given for not wanting King to have the book he ordered, which teaches C//, a standard language in which computer programs are written, is that he might write programs with it that would disrupt the prison’s computer system. However, computers that prisoners are permitted to use are not connected to the prison network, or any other network. The prison’s law”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[PJrison librarians cannot be required to read every word of every book to which inmates might have access to make sure the book contains no incendiary material. ... And even if a librarian read the book and decided that on the whole it was [acceptable,] that decision would not preclude disciplinary proceedings against an inmate who copied incendiary passages from it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.