Gary William Holt v. Jerry Pitts, Sheriff

This is a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Gary Holt, an indigent federal prisoner, claims that his first and fourteenth amendment rights were infringed when, as a prisoner in a Tennessee county jail awaiting trial, the sheriff denied him access to certain personal law-related books. The district court found that although denied access to his books, Holt’s constitutionally-guaranteed right to access to the courts had not been abridged because he had been afforded adequate assistance of legal counsel. We affirm.

Much of the factual and procedural background of this case beyond what…