Inmates suing state aim to broaden suit

ROCKLAND – The Maine prison inmates suing the state over a new mail policy say they want to broaden the lawsuit.

A court document asking that the lawsuit be considered a class action was filed earlier this week in Knox County Superior Court, along with an amended complaint regarding the inmates’ allegations that the state’s new mail rules violate their rights.

They say the policy essentially gives prison staff a blank check to open inmates’ letters and packages.

In the amended document, the prisoners seek compensation for property that may have been destroyed or discarded so far by state workers, said Waldoboro attorney Andrews Campbell, who represents the prison’s so-called Long Timers Group, on Thursday.

The inmates also question whether the state Department of Corrections followed procedures in adopting the new mail regulations.

The Long Timers Group, which filed the lawsuit in August against the Department of Corrections, its commissioner, a warden and a deputy warden, claims the mail rules violate their constitutional rights. The group is a nonprofit organization with more than 150 members who are inmates at prisons statewide.

Just before the lawsuit was filed, the state updated its mail policy, Associate Corrections Commissioner Denise Lord has said. It also further defined some terms, such as what should be considered sexually explicit material, she said.

The lawsuit file at Knox County Superior Court is already several inches thick and is accompanied by a separate folder of the same size that is filled with numerous affidavits and documents from inmates. Some of the documents are notifications from prison staff to inmates informing them that their mail was being discarded under the new rules. One inmate’s notice was in regard to his subscriptions to Celebrity Skin and Hustler magazines.

“Is a skin magazine pornographic?” Campbell said rhetorically. The rules are “very over-inclusive,” he said.

One of the key concerns among prisoners is the new policy’s restriction on photocopied or computer-generated materials. The policy, which does not define “computer-generated,” makes an exception for legal materials received through privileged correspondence.

A judge has approved a temporary restraining order that is in effect until the court makes a more formal ruling. The judge’s temporary order requires that prisoners’ mail be retained and not destroyed or returned to senders, unless it meets specific criteria as outlined by the judge. One of those conditions is if the mail contains alcohol, drugs, weapons, food items, or any material or subjects that depict nude children or are of a sexually explicit nature.

In the complaint, Campbell calls the mail policy “ambiguous, irrational, confiscatory, excessively and needlessly restrictive … and is arbitrary and discriminatory in granting unfettered administrative discretion.”