By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The Associated Press reports a federal court says the Lewis County Jail cannot restrict inmate mail to post cards, noting a preliminary injunction issued yesterday.
According to the AP story published at KOMOnews.com, U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Richard Creatura said the policy was a significant burden on the free speech rights of prisoners and their outside correspondents alike, regarding the lawsuit filed by Prison Legal News.
Read about it here
Beenthere says:
Some of the inmates are seving time in the jail because they have been found guilty or pled guilty to a crime.
Very true, but by definition just being arrested means you’ve lost some of your rights, otherwise you could just walk out.
After all, It’s not like the person next to you coughs and you catch a crime. These folks did something to get where they are at. There is no “get arrested lottery”
@GoodGrief, I’m curious which “rights” you feel have been violated with the use of postcards? They are being provided with a means of communication, so you can’t claim that their speech is inhibited. I don’t assume all incarcerated are or will be found guilty. A quick, random review of the crimes a few of our current inmates are being housed for reveal…sexual molestation of a child, 3rd degree DWSL, thefts & burglaries, violent acts against others. Every one of these crimes are are avoidable & preventable, especially the driving with suspended license for the 3rd time for crying out loud!! And with the exception of the DWSL…these folks are accused of violating OTHER CITIZENS property, safety, and security rights.
The jail staff did not put these people behind bars…so why would you promote making THEIR job more difficult, “Disgusted”?
I believe we need to hold ourselves accountable and responsible for our actions. Teach our children & grandchildren to be good citizens. Teach them that if they don’t agree with laws there are appropriate ways to change them. Instead of blaming the people who are tasked with keeping inmates safely housed, we need to keep ourselves in check and assume responsibility for our choices. And of course, I’m glad we have a system which affords us an opportunity to defend all of our citizens. It isn’t a perfect system, but it works better than the justice system in many other parts of the world. Because of our system, many guilty parties walk our streets because of legal technicalities that have nothing to do with their innocence or guilt. So there IS some balance.
We have the right to pursue happiness. There is no inalienable guarantee that we will find it. The pursuit isn’t a violation of our laws as long as your pursuit doesn’t tromp on the rights of other citizens or violate the laws of our citizen government!!!
But remember, there is no constitutional RIGHT to steak, Disney channel, cell phones……or writing paper.
WendyC If we could assume that everyone was always good or absolutely identify without a chance at making a mistake, those who are bad, then I would be in agreement with you.
But as good as our system is – it is run by humans. Humans make mistakes, sometimes terrible ones.
Our founding fathers understood that power itself can cause people to choose badly and become tyrants. So they created a constitution and a system to balance power.
Despite ALL those checks and balances, we have drifted toward power getting all bunched up into a few hands. And the draw of that power is STRONG. Unfortunately, the ones drawn to power are not always good hearted and well-intentioned.
More and more often, we are seeing that some very small-minded persons are drawn to positions of power. And more and more often, our citizens want to overlook and ignore that possibility. The more we overlook, the more corruption can grow.
Our country’s laws really are based on the idea of “presumed innocent until proven guilty”. And that is done to protect those few innocents who unintentionally get caught up. If it was your husband, child, brother or friend – and you KNEW they were innocent – wouldn’t you be relieved our laws are constructed that way? That there are certain “rights” in this country?
It is simple and easy to say, I believe in the rights of victims, not criminals!!! But if that is REALLY true, then you have to remember that an accused person who is actually innocent is truly a victim without an advocate. And the only thing to protect THAT victim are our Rights – such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a free press, and free assembly; the right to keep and bear arms; freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
This quote come to mind:
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.” Lord Acton
@WendyC
Some of the inmates are seving time in the jail because they have been found guilty or pled guilty to a crime. Other inmates in the jail are waiting for thier day in court and have not been found guilty of anything, are innocent untill proven guilty and should not have thier rights taken from them because they are accused of a crime. People get arrested and found innocent every day, one day it could be you who has done nothing wrong and finds yourself in jail untill you prove your innocent. Do you think about things being on the opposite foot or are you one of the people that getting arrested could never happen too? I was a “that could never happen to me” person, I now know diffrently.
It wasn’t the jail staff or a judge who put those inmates in jail. It is the inmate themselves who are responsible for the actions which led to their incarceration!! When are we going to have adults accept responsibility for their own poor decisions??? How can we expect our youth to learn if our adults continue to provide such sad examples??? I’m interested in advocating for the rights of victims instead of for those who continually thumb their nose at our laws and blame everyone and everything else for their situation. I’m guessing the taxpayers should probably pay for a personal secretary to type each inmates correspondence so it may be legible and literate enough to understand.
From what I’ve seen, the waxed postcards and “non-lethal pencils” provided inmates is intentioned to keep them from being able to write to others on the outside while maintaining an appearance of not violating the inmates first amendment rights. The pencils don’t write and no one has explained to me why a waxed card is so necessary. It really looks like an attempt by jail administration to “punish” those awful, awful inmates. While some folks might support that stance by jail administration, they should remember that the jail administration are not the judges and are not the jury and they flat-out do NOT get to make a determination about whether an inmate is punished or not. So why are they hired and retained? THAT would be a question for the Sheriff. And we’ve seen already that this Sheriff has a penchant for angry outbursts. I can only imagine what HIS view of punishing offenders might be and what sort of staff he wants to surround himself with.
Snaza and Green are both running for the next election. You might want to ask them if THEY agree with the way the jail is run, with treating the inmates as lesser humans, and what he looks for in a “good” jail administrator.
Doesn’t matter, their mail is opened and read by the jailhouse staff before it goes to the inmates. Ha-ha!
I agree, this is another case of Lewis County being looked as the worst county in the state and the Sheriff yet again gets the taxpayers to bail him out by interpreting what he thinks is the law
This is good news. Anything to make those assholes’ (jail staff) lives a little more challenging is something I am all for. The inmates must be forced to use dull pencils or something like that to write with, because you can barely read whatever it is the poor bastards have tried to write.