Fulton sheriff, county could face legal damages
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
The MF in question
Oh, Myron. Even in your much-desired absence, you continue to afflict us. On Monday, a federal district judge gave the go-ahead for a jury trial for a lawsuit by a magazine accusing former Fulton County Sheriff Myron Freeman of unconstitutional censorship.
It seems there had been a longstanding ban on newspapers and magazines to inmates at the Fulton jail, which is run by the sheriff’s office. But, in response to an inmate’s lawsuit, a federal judge in late 2002 — just before Freeman took office — struck down the ban as unconstitutional.
Still, Freeman allegedly never lifted the ban, despite subsequent legal complaints and lawsuits by inmates, and somehow managed to sport the balls to ask a judge to dismiss a federal lawsuit brought by Prison Legal News, which is “contending that the jail was enforcing an unconstitutional policy that prohibited prisoners from receiving any books, magazines or newspapers other than religious publications,” according to a PLN press release.
As you have guessed by now, Freeman’s motion failed and the judge has cleared the way for the magazine to seek punitive damages against the former sheriff personally.
