A CORRECTION LAW PROVISION INSULATED THE PETITIONER-INMATE FROM DISCIPLINE FOR SENDING A LETTER REQUESTING AN INSTITUTIONAL POLICY CHANGE REGARDING VENDORS WHICH SUPPLY PACKAGES TO PRISONS (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined petitioner-inmate should not have been disciplined for a letter to vendors which supply packages to prisons. Petitioner was opposed to a pilot program awarding eight vendors the exclusive right to supply packages to prisons. Petitioner sent a letter urging excluded vendors to “fight back” and was disciplined under a provision of the Institutional Rules of Conduct which prohibits inmates from soliciting goods or services from businesses. The Second Department held that the letter was subject a Correction Law provision which prohibits discipline for requests for policy changes:

… [B]ecause the letter did not solicit goods or services from any business, the record does not support the hearing officer’s determination that rule 103.20 (7 NYCRR 270.2[B][4][ii]) was violated. Moreover, even if construed to violate the rule, the petitioner’s conduct was insulated from discipline by Correction Law § 138, which provides that “[i]nmates shall not be disciplined for making written . . . requests involving a change of institutional conditions, policies, rules, regulations, or laws affecting an institution” (Correction Law § 138[4]). The petitioner’s December 15, 2017, letter was a “request[ ] involving a change of institutional . . . policies” (id. ) in that he invited certain organizations adversely affected by the DOCCS’s [NYS Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s] new policy to undertake action in opposition to that new policy. The respondents thus disciplined the petitioner in contravention of Correction Law § 138(4). Matter of Miller v Annucci, 2020 NY Slip Op 04167, Second Dept 7-22-20