The following excerpt is from Grubbs v. O'Neill, 18-670-pr (2nd Cir. 2018):
The district court engaged in this balancing inquiry when analyzing the surveillance system under the Sixth Amendment, but it misunderstood important Sixth Amendment jurisprudence concerning conduct that chills a detainee's communications with counsel. Specifically, the district court erroneously concluded that a detainee's "subjective impression or belief" that her conversation was being recorded and monitored did not constitute a cognizable burden on the Sixth Amendment.5 Grubbs II, 2018 WL 1225262, at *8. The district court did not appropriately consider the chilling effect that the cameras' presence in the attorney-client booths could have on pre-arraignment detainees' willingness to communicate candidly with their attorneys. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 577 (1974) (considering the chilling effect on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel of a prison's mail-handling policy where the subjective
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beliefs of inmates that their private attorney-client communications were being read could chill the right to counsel); see also Stover v. Carlson, 413 F. Supp. 718, 721 (D. Conn. 1976) (finding that an inmate's "Sixth Amendment right of access to the courts is 'chilled'" by prison officials' practice of opening mail from counsel outside inmates' presence, even absent any evidence that officials were actually reading the mail).
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