Large damage awards certainly are nice—but sometimes, advocating for basic rights of incarcerated individuals to have access to books and magazines brings another level of satisfaction for attorneys and their clients.
Following several years of litigation and appeals on a First Amendment case, U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks of the Western District of Arkansas recently ruled in favor of the publishers of Prison Legal News, declaring the mail policy of Arkansas’ Baxter County Detention Center (BCDC) to be unconstitutional. It’s another win for the publisher, Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), as it advocates for such cases and effectuates change to illegal mail policies at correctional facilities across the country.