DISCLAIMER: The following unofficial case summaries are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
152231P.pdf 08/15/2016 Richard Yang v. MO Dept of Corrections
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 15-2231
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - Cape Girardeau
[PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Shepherd, Circuit Judge, and Moody,
District Judge]
Prisoner case - Prisoner civil rights. In action alleging prison officials
unreasonably restricted plaintiff's First Amendment rights by censoring
his Chinese-language mail and prohibiting international calling at the
same time, the district court did not err in granting judgment for the
defendants as the restrictions imposed were reasonably related to the
legitimate penological objective of prison security; plaintiff had
alternative means of communicating with outsiders and he failed to
demonstrate that there was a readily available alternative that would have
eased the restriction without imposing undue financial burdens on the
state; there was no evidence that the differential treatment provided
Spanish-speaking inmates was motivated by race or national origin or that
the treatment of plaintiff's Chinese-language mail was a pretext for
discrimination.