Prison officials in New Castle, Indiana, did not violate the First Amendment rights of an inmate by removing him from his job as a library law clerk, a federal district court judge has ruled. The prison officials were motivated by legitimate security concerns, the judge reasoned.
Allenn Peterson, an inmate at New Castle Correctional Facility, worked as an “offender law clerk” at the prison’s law library. Someone reconfigured the law library computer server to allow Internet access, something not allowed in the library.
Prison officials investigated but could not find out who had reconfigured the computer sever. Prison officials responded by firing all of the offender law clerks, including Peterson. This meant that at least 15 people were dismissed as law library clerks, not just Peterson.
However, Peterson claimed that prison officials fired him from the library in retaliation for previous lawsuits he had filed against officials, including two officials who had supervisor authority over the library.
A First Amendment retaliation claim requires a plaintiff to show three things: (1) he engaged in First Amendment-protected activity; (2) he suffered a loss that would deter future First Amendment activity; and (3) a causal connection between the two.
The federal district court dismissed Peterson’s claim in Peterson v. French, because he failed to show the necessary connection between his First Amendment activity (prior lawsuits) and the loss of his law library clerk job.
“The decision to dismiss Mr. Peterson was not because of his First Amendment exercise, but because of the law library computer server reconfiguration,” the court wrote. “Mr. Peterson presents no evidence that defendants’ reason for dismissing him was in retaliation for his having sued them.”
“No reasonable trier of fact could conclude that defendants dismissed plaintiff from his prison law library job because of his exercise of his First Amendment free speech rights,” the court concluded.
Prisoners often have a difficult time mounting the necessary proof to survive summary judgment in First Amendment and other civil rights lawsuits. This case was difficult, because the prison officials seemingly treated all the law library clerks the same by firing them all.
The officials may have harbored some retaliatory feelings toward Peterson but it was almost impossible for him to prove that.