Athens, Georgia-based Avid Bookshop sued Gwinnett County Sheriff Keybo Taylor and Gwinnett County Jail commander Benjamin Haynes in March 2024, alleging the policy they instituted violated the shop's First Amendment right to communicate with inmates by prohibiting Avid and other local bookstores from mailing books to the jail inmates.
Attorney Christina Lee and University of Georgia student attorney Carly Judenberg, who received permission from the court to present arguments at the hearing, made similar arguments on Thursday.
Mailing books to jail inmates is Avid's primary form of communication with those individuals, Lee said, and the jail's policy therefore bars the bookstore from exercising its First Amendment right to communicate with those jail residents. That is particularly problematic, she argued, when the U.S. Supreme Court has held there is "an essential right in the distribution of books."
U.S. District Judge Tiffany Johnson acknowledged Lee's argument but noted that most cases to which that holding has been applied involve some sort of content-based restriction.
"Here, there is no connection to the content of the books," Judge Johnson said. "They're simply trying to stop the flow of books into the jail."
Asked whether she knew of any cases recognizing a sellers' right to distribute books that do not involve content-based restrictions, Lee said she wasn't aware of any.
Judenberg argued that the jail policy, which exists to prevent contraband from entering the jail via books that have been tampered with, is applied arbitrarily and undermined by the fact that other booksellers and distributors are allowed to mail books to inmates.
Inmates are allowed to receive books mailed from Amazon and Barnes & Noble under the policy, she said, and the jail collects Bibles and other religious literature from local churches and organizations. It also previously accepted books from Lawrenceville, Georgia, bookstore, she said.
If the argument is that the policy works to prevent "drug-laden" books from entering the jail, Judenberg argued that those exceptions are proof that the policy is not fairly applied to all parties. Avid could easily ensure that books it sends to the jail never see "public hands" if given the chance, she said.
Judenberg also noted that there were no reports of contraband being funneled into the jail through books when it accepted them from the Lawrenceville bookstore.
"Avid stands up for the freedom to read, but it cannot do so without the freedom to speak," Judgenberg said.
Attorney Pearson K. Cunningham, representing Kebo and Haynes, argued that the jail's policy is intended to prevent contraband from entering the jail. He argued that allowing books to be sent from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as five major publishing houses, is a tailored solution that erases potential problems that arise when they are instead sent from local brick-and-mortar stores.
The same said is true for the local groups and organizations from whom religious materials are accepted, Cunningham said, arguing that the jail is "balancing its interest" in preventing contraband from entering the jail against inmates' freedom to have access to those materials.
The policy is "simple" and "direct," Cunningham said.
When asked by Judge Johnson how many times contraband has been found in books that enter the jail, Cunningham could not name any. But he said that wasn't surprising, given how hard it can be to find contraband in the first place.
According to Cunningham, "strips," which he described as paper laced with "psychoactive" substances, can enter the jail through the pages of books. That is something that would likely not be found when books are run through x-ray machines, he said, and is one of the reasons why sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble are preferred. They, he said, can ship directly from "distribution centers," where very few people handle books before they are sent out.
Cunningham also noted that the jail's policy is less strict than the "model policy" offered by the state, which prohibits books being sent by anyone other than the book's publisher.
At the end of Thursday's hearing, Judge Johnson thanked the attorneys for their arguments and said she would work to issue a decision as soon as possible.
Avid Bookshop is represented by Clare R. Norins and Christina Lee of the University of Georgia School of Law's First Amendment Clinic and Zack Greenamyre of Mitchell Shapiro Greenamyre & Funt LLP.
Haynes and Taylor are represented by R. David Ware, Russell A. Britt, Pearson K. Cunningham and M. Blake Walker of Hall Booth Smith PC.
The case is Avid Bookshop LLC v. Taylor et al., case number 1:24-cv-01135, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
--Editing by Amy Rowe.
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