In 1996, nonprofit organizations whose members include journalists (California First Amendment Coalition and Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter), represented by the ACLU of Northern California and private counsel, sued officials at the San Quentin Prison and California ...
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In 1996, nonprofit organizations whose members include journalists (California First Amendment Coalition and Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter), represented by the ACLU of Northern California and private counsel, sued officials at the San Quentin Prison and California Department of Corrections in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Plaintiffs challenged a regulation barring public viewing of lethal injection execution procedures prior to the actual administration of the lethal injection, arguing that the regulation violated the First Amendment.
On May 1, 1996, the District Court (Judge Vaughn R. Walker) entered a preliminary injunction prohibiting defendants from preventing observations of executions. On August 5, 1996, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Judges Proctor Hug, Jr., Mary M. Schroeder, and A. Wallace Tashima) affirmed the preliminary injunction in an unpublished memorandum disposition. Cal. First Amend. Coalition v. Calderon, 92 F.3d 1191, 1996 WL 442471 (9th Cir. 1996).
On February 27, 1997, the District Court granted plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. Cal First Amend. Coalition v. Calderon, 956 F.Supp. 883 (N.D. Cal. 1997). Defendants appealed. On July 23, 1998, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for determination of whether the plaintiffs had produced sufficient evidence to show that the prison regulation was an exaggerated response to the defendants' security and safety concerns. Cal. First Amend. Coalition v. Calderon, 150 F.3d 976 (9th Cir. 1998).
On remand, the District Court heard evidence regarding defendants' security concerns and the reasonableness of the regulation in addressing them. On July 26, 2000, the District Court permanently enjoined the defendants from preventing viewing of the execution procedures. Cal. First Amend. Coalition v. Woodford, No. C-9601291-VRW, 2000 WL 33173913 (N.D. Cal. 2000). Defendants appealed again.
On August 2, 2002, the Court of Appeals (Judges Myron H. Bright, Betty B. Fletcher, and Raymond C. Fisher) affirmed. Writing for the court, Judge Fisher held that the public enjoys a First Amendment right to view executions, and that the prison regulation impermissibly restricted this right. Cal. First Amend. Coalition v. Woodford, 299 F.3d 868 (9th Cir. 2002).
Chris Sullivan - 07/28/2005
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