Athens bookstore Avid files lawsuit against Gwinnett jail for denying books to inmates
Avid Bookshop, a popular local independent bookseller in Athens, is taking Gwinnett County Sheriff Keybo Taylor and Gwinnett County Jail Commander Benjamin Haynes to federal court over the county jail’s policy for sending books to inmates.
The 31-page lawsuit, filed Friday in the Atlanta division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, alleges in part that the Gwinnett jail’s current policy is, in effect, a violation of Avid Bookshop’s First Amendment right to free speech.
The lawsuit also alleges the policy violates the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, relating to due process and equal protection of the law.
According to the lawsuit, a jury trial is being sought in the case.
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At issue in the case, among other things, is part of the county jail’s policy requiring that books coming to inmates be mailed “directly from the publisher or authorized retailer.”
But according to both Luis Correa, Avid Bookshop’s operations manager, and Zack Greenamyre, the Atlanta attorney serving as lead counsel in the case, there is no indication in the policy as to what constitutes an “authorized retailer.”
Correa said he has asked Gwinnett officials about how Avid Bookshop could become an authorized retailer, only to be told that “it’s not possible.”
Apparently, according to Correa, the reason is that Avid Bookshop is a brick-and-mortar bookseller, open to the public, that doesn’t have controls in place to ensure that book packaging isn’t adulterated and won’t contain problematic materials when delivered to the jail.
"The Gwinnett County Sheriff's Office policy maintains the safety and security of our staff and inmates," according sheriff's officials. "It does not limit the content or subject matter of the publication, but only the origin of the shipment. The Gwinnett County Sheriff's Office will not comment further on pending litigation." Neither Taylor nor Haynes returned on Monday phone calls to their offices seeking comment.
According to the lawsuit, the sheriff’s office counsel contends that its policy is in place to “ensure that associates of the (jail) residents cannot soak pages in drugs or otherwise create safety issues.”
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However, Correa explained, the only people who would touch books ordered at Avid Bookshop would be store employees, a guarantee that likely couldn’t be matched by larger booksellers.
In support of that point, the lawsuit outlines an incident in which three books, handled only by Correa, were sent to a Gwinnett County jail inmate on behalf of an Avid customer. The books were returned with a notation that they were “not from (a) publisher (or) authorized retailer.”
According to the lawsuit, both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, the latter of which “has physical bookstores open to the public” appear to be authorized retailers for sending books to the jail.
But, the lawsuit contends, there is “no logical connection between the Jail’s security concerns and its decision to allow certain book sellers … to become Authorized Retailers, while disallowing community-based, physical bookstores from being so-designated.”
“Because Avid can mail new books to Jail residents without any member of the public having had access to the books, book shipments from Avid do not pose a heightened risk of contraband being smuggled into the Jail as compared to book shipments from an Amazon warehouse, an anonymous publisher’s warehouse, or a large bookstore chain like Barnes & Noble,” the lawsuit asserts.
Also according to the lawsuit, an open records request filed with the county in connection with the legal action produced nothing that identifies “who the Jail has designated to be Authorized Retailers,” nor “any criteria or standards for designating Authorized Retailers.”
Additionally, the open records request didn’t produce “any process for applying to become an Authorized Retailer,” nor “any process for appealing being denied Authorized Retailer status,” according to the lawsuit.
In effect, Greenamyre said, the Gwinnett County Jail’s book shipment policy creates a situation in which Avid Bookshop is not allowed to “speak” through the action of sending books purchased by its customers to inmates in the Gwinnett County jail.
Also impacted by the situation are Avid Bookshop customers, whom the lawsuit contends “engage in their own free expression by selecting what books to purchase … to ship to a friend or relative, including to residents at the Gwinnett County Jail.”
“So long as book shipments from Avid are categorically rejected by the Jail, Avid has no alternative means by which to exercise its First Amendment rights, including acting as an intermediary to communicate to Jail residents the free expression of their friends and family members who selected the books,” the lawsuit reads in part.
What the jail’s book shipment policy means, in effect, Greenamyre said Monday, is that Gwinnett officials “get to make arbitrary calls about who can speak and who can’t” concerning the sending of books to inmates.
According to Correa, the lawsuit addresses “an issue that affects jails and prisons nationwide.” If Avid’s legal action changes the situation with the Gwinnett County jail, it can serve as a precedent for assisting other bookstores facing similar situations, Correa suggested.
More immediately, however, Greenamyre said the aim of the lawsuit is to work collaboratively with Gwinnett County officials “to get a better, more lawful, more equitable policy in place” for sending books to jail inmates. Clare Norins, director of the First Amendment Clinic at the University of Georgia School of Law is serving as co-counsel in the case.
Pursuing the federal lawsuit won’t cost anything for Avid Bookshop. Costs of the case are being covered through a grant from The Impact Fund, a California-based nonprofit organization involved in public interest law. The Impact Fund was persuaded to become involved in the case after he went looking for funding assistance, Greenamyre said Monday.
“We have run into issues with prisons and jails in the past,” Correa said, due to those institutions’ ability to set policies for getting books to inmates. “Once I started asking about it is when I noticed that we had a bigger issue at hand.”
Although the lawsuit had been a matter of public knowledge for just a few hours as of late Monday morning, after Avid Bookshop posted news of the filing on its website, community reaction came in quickly.
“We’ve had quite a few messages of support, excitement, congratulations,” Correa said. “People do see this as connected to a lot of other First Amendment issues that have popped up in the last few years.”
Correa added that he expects the community will “be excited to learn how we’re pushing against this type of government control.”
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Lawsuit filed by Avid Bookshop to get books to inmates at Gwinnett jail
