Two self-representing inmates at the Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe brought a suit demanding television rights in their prison cells through Riverside Superior Court and the Court of Appeal, but lost in a June 3 published opinion.
While most prisons in the state allow personal televisions, the Chuckawalla prison did not, due to both an overloaded electrical system, now resolved, and a reception issue, according to the appellate ruling.
Prisoners who may have owned a personal television at their former prisons are required to sell or get rid of the television when they arrive.
Alan Dohner filed his petition for writ of mandate April 4, 2017, originally represented by sole practitioner Robert Young of Oxnard. William Gerber and six other inmates filed a joint first amended petition in June, 2017.
They claimed Chuckawalla was the only one of the 32 state prisons that does not allow personal television ownership.
“This state of affairs is unfair to CVSP inmates in that Respondents and the (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) require these same inmates, in every aspect of their lives and duties, to abide by the rules and regulations of the department with the expectation that they will earn vested privileges to television possession,” Dohner’s petition reads.
The complaint claimed inmates are deprived of information relating to mental health programs, flu and vaccine information, condom use, visiting and family procedures, parole services, CDCR rules and regulations, education programs, inmate-produced videos and a host of other services that are displayed in the television in the common room.
The petition claimed inmates have repeatedly requested personal television access since Chuckawalla was built in 1988.
The inmates also have been unable to receive radio in their cells due to the concrete structure, the petition claimed.
Inmates instead stand in the yard during the summer months to receive national news and listen to music, the petition claimed. The petitioners claimed the radio reception can be easily fixed by installing an antenna.
Riverside Superior Judge Russell Moore dismissed the case, but offered some of the petitioners the opportunity to refile it. Dohner filed an amended petition, which Moore also dismissed, without leave to amend. The other petitioners did not take the chance to amend their own petition, and the case was fully dismissed.
Dohner and Gerber each appealed.
Appellate ruling
The unanimous appellate ruling found that the prisoners have no right to a television.
“They have not cited any case that holds there is a constitutionally protected right to watch television at all while incarcerated or detained, let alone the right to possess a personal television so programs can be watched privately, rather than on a shared television. On the contrary, to our knowledge, courts have universally rejected such arguments” the ruling reads.
The ruling quoted seven court cases as precedent.
The ruling agreed with the inmates that the Supreme Court has found that the First Amendment guarantees “not only the right to speak and publish but also the right to hear, to learn, to know.” That right does not guarantee inmates access to any particular source of information from their cells, the ruling found.
Although inmates retain some property rights in prison, those rights do not extend to possessing any particular item, including a television, the appellate ruling found. The requirement for Chuckawalla inmates to mail home or dispose of their property is not an unconstitutional taking, the ruling found.
Inmates have no constitutional rights to rehabilitative or educational programs delivered through television, and the California Constitution gives CDCR the authority, but not the requirement, to provide rehabilitative credits, the ruling found.
Case information
Alan Dohner and William Gerber represented themselves on appeal.
Attorney General Rob Bonta, Assistant Attorney General Phillip Lindsay, and Deputy Attorneys General Amanda Murray and Linnea Piazza represented the state and the prison’s employees.
Riverside Superior Judge Russell Moore presided.
Associate Justice Michael Raphael of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, wrote the opinion. Art McKinster, acting presiding justice, and Associate Justice Richard Fields joined the opinion.
Riverside case number BLC1700076.
Appellate case number E072797.
Read the complaint here.
Read the appellate ruling here.
