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Civil rights Keyed to Jeffries, 5th Ed.
Crawford-El v. Britton
Citation:
523 U.S. 574 (1998)Facts
Leonard Crawford-El was a prisoner in the District of Columbia correctional system who had filed several lawsuits, assisted other prisoners with legal matters, and provided interviews to reporters about prison conditions. In 1988-1989, due to overcrowding, Crawford-El was transferred between several facilities, ultimately ending up at a federal prison in Marianna, Florida. Three boxes containing his personal belongings, including legal materials, were to be transferred separately. When the boxes arrived at the D.C. Department of Corrections, respondent Britton asked Crawford-El’s brother-in-law to pick them up rather than sending them directly to Crawford-El’s next destination. The boxes were eventually shipped to Florida by Crawford-El’s mother at his expense, but he was initially denied permission to receive them because they had been sent outside official prison channels. He finally recovered his property several months after arriving in Florida. Crawford-El claimed that Britton deliberately misdirected his property to retaliate against him for exercising his First Amendment rights, citing specific incidents where his protected speech had allegedly provoked her hostility.
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