Pell v. Procunier
United States Supreme Court
417 U.S. 817 (1973)
California's prison regulations prohibited media interviews with specific individual inmates chosen by the press, though inmates could still communicate by mail and receive visits from family, clergy, attorneys, and prior acquaintances, and the press could tour prisons and interview randomly selected inmates; journalists (plaintiffs, represented by Pell) sued warden Procunier (defendant), challenging the regulation as unconstitutional, but the district court denied relief, and the journalists appealed to the Supreme Court.
Whether a prison regulation prohibiting press interviews with specific, individually selected inmates violates the First Amendment rights of either the inmates or the press, given the existence of alternative channels of communication.