HRDC Wins Consent Decree, $350,000 in Jail Censorship Suit against California’s Sonoma County
On June 2, 2025, the federal court for the Northern District of California issued a consent decree settling demands for injunctive relief filed by the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC) against California’s Sonoma County over censorship of publications at the Main Adult Detention Facility (MADF) in Santa Rosa. In addition to the agreement, the County also promised to pay HRDC $350,000 to cover its damages, attorney’s fees and legal costs.
HRDC, the non-profit publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News, sued the County and Sheriff Eddie Engram in January 2025, after MADF officials refused to deliver its publications to those incarcerated there— without notice or an opportunity to respond to the censorship. Like other lockups that have tried to censor PLN and other HRDC publications, MADF provided no notice of the refused deliveries, nor any reasons for them; only after HRDC learned of the censorship and filed its complaint did officials come forward with their objections (1) to the staples used to bind publications, as well as (2) the mailing labels used to address them, calling both items a risk to detainees.
In the parties’ consent decree, MADF officials accepted responsibility for removing any staples or mailing labels that they felt endangered detainees, promising then to keep the publication’s pages together and in order when delivered to them. Though the officials retained the right to censor all or part of any publication that they find threatening to the order and safety of the lockup, they also agreed that none of HRDC’s previously censored publications fell into that category.
If any future publications should be found to merit censorship, officials vowed to provide written notice to both the publisher and the intended incarcerated recipient within 15 days, along with an opportunity for their claims or grievances to be heard through an administrative appeals process. Those appeals have a 30-day window for filing after receipt of notice of censorship. That opens another 15-day window for the County to respond to the appeal or grievance, which must be heard by an MADF supervisor who was not a party to the initial censorship decision.
Furthermore, the entire process must be outlined on the MADF website and in its printed handbook given to detainees at booking; staff must also be provided training in the new policies and their implementation. HRDC shared its success by making sure that the consent decree extends to “any publisher, commercial or non-profit distributor of printed materials, or bookstore that does mail order business directly mailed from a publisher or distributor to a named incarcerated person or readers via the United States Postal Service.
“Prisoners have a well-established right to receive books and magazines via the mail from publishers and vendors. It is outrageous that we are having to fight to vindicate rights which were established decades ago,” said Paul Wright, HRDC’s executive director.
In addition to in-house Litigation Director Jonathan Picard, HRDC was represented in its suit by attorneys from Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP in San Francisco. See: Human Rights Def. Ctr. v. Cty. of Sonoma, USDC (N.D. Cal.), Case No. 3:25-cv-00361.
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Related legal case
Human Rights Def. Ctr. v. Cty. of Sonoma
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (N.D. Cal.), Case No. 3:25-cv-00361 |
| Level | District Court |
| Conclusion | Settlement |