Judge allows Wisconsin prisoner to pursue First Amendment claims

By The Associated Press

06.01.02

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MADISON, Wis. — An inmate at the state's super-maximum security prison at Boscobel may proceed with a lawsuit contending officials violated his First Amendment rights by refusing to deliver mail that included news clippings and confiscating writing paper sent to him, a judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb said Nathaniel Lindell could go ahead with the lawsuit against prison officials on some of his claims, including the argument that he could not draw and write religious poetry and "spellcraft," as required by the Heathen religion, because some of his writing paper was confiscated.

Lindell also argued that restrictions on his telephone access violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act because there were no Odinist religious services or counselors available to Supermax inmates. The law requires prison officials to avoid imposing a 'substantial burden' on a prisoner's religious exercise.

Since the constitutionality of the act is currently under scrutiny as part of another federal court case, those claims should be put on hold until that case is resolved, Crabb said.

Lindell, of La Crosse, was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree intentional homicide, arson and burglary as party to a crime in 1996. The victim, Donald Harmacek, was killed when his house was set on fire in 1996.

Crabb ruled Lindell could not proceed with the part of his lawsuit alleging his First Amendment rights were violated because he was not provided with adequate writing paper by prison officials.

Officials do not have to provide inmates with as much writing paper as they desire, Crabb ruled.

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