On September 9, 2011, the Prison Legal News filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Kansas under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the sheriff of Orleans Parish. The plaintiffs, represented by public interest counsel, asked the court for declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as damages, claiming that the defendants' unlawfully censored and excluded the plaintiff's books and magazines protected by the 1st and 14th Amendments, which are sent to individual subscribers in custody at the Orleans Parish Prison (OPP).

The plaintiffs specifically alleged that the policy against the delivery of such publications also failed to provide adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard to review decisions censoring and excluding books and magazines distributed by the plaintiffs to OPP prisoners. In addition, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants had acted in an arbitrary and unreasonable manner in contravention of over thirty years of well-settled case law.

On December 2, 2011, Judge Jay C. Zainey approved a consent judgment for injunctive relief only. The defendants agreed to the distribution of the plaintiffs' monthly publication and to adopt and implement a new written policy regarding "Incoming Publications" for prisoners at the jail.

On September 17, 2012, Judge Zainey ordered judgment in favor of the plaintiffs for a total of $15,000, not including attorney fees and costs. On March 11, 2014, Judge Zainey approved the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation of attorney fees and costs of $72,754.61.

Jessica Kincaid - 04/12/2014


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