Clay v. Pelle

This lawsuit challenges a new policy of the Boulder County Jail that forbids prisoners to send letters and instead restricts their outgoing correspondence to postcards supplied by the jail. The only exceptions are correspondence that fits the jail’s category of “legal mail” or “official mail.”

The policy severely limits the available space available for prisoners’ written correspondence and also chills their willingness to communicate sensitive personal information.

The ACLU argues that the policy unjustifiably limits the First Amendment rights of the prisoners as well as their free-world correspondents who wish to receive the prisoners’ written communications.

Update: The litigation ended with a settlement agreement in which Jail authorities agreed to rescind the challenged policy. The ACLU succeeded in defeating a similar postcard-only policy adopted by the El Paso County Jail.

“Boulder County pays ACLU $65,000 to settle lawsuit over postcard-only jail policy,” Westword, April 14, 2011

“ACLU suit against Boulder County Jail for postcard policy gets class action status,” Daily Camera, March 8, 2011

“ACLU sues Boulder County Jail over new postcard-only mail policy,” Daily Camera, August 3, 2010

ACLU sues over Boulder jail’s mail policy,” The Denver Post, August 3, 2010

"ACLU suing Boulder over postcards-only policy for inmates," Westword, August 3, 2010