Charles Farrell v. Howard Peters, George Wilson, and Jane Higgins

The plaintiff, an Illinois state prisoner, brought this civil rights suit against prison officials who forbade him to correspond v/ith his “common law” wife, an inmate of another Illinois prison, in reliance on a rule of the Illinois Department of Corrections that — the plaintiff argues — violates the First Amendment. The rule provides that “permission for committed persons to correspond between intra-state and inter-state correctional facilities shall require the approval of the Chief Administrative Officers of both facilities and shall be based on safety and security concerns.”…