Case Citator › Keenan v. Hall

Keenan v. Hall

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Declined by some courts
Court
Ninth Circuit
Citation
83 F.3d 1083
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
114 of 114
Citing cases (total)
977
Treatment dates
2003
Declined by some courts
At least one reviewed court has declined to follow this case. No reviewed court has overruled it. Keenan v. Hall has been declined by the Sixth Circuit on whether mail from courts is protected legal mail. All 114 flagged citations have been read.
More on how this was screened

Sallier v. Brooks adopted the opposite rule, as listed below. Other opinions applied Keenan's rules on prison conditions or used nearby adverse language for other cases. Withdrawn or vacated opinions supplied no treatment.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

977 later cases cite Keenan v. Hall; 114 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Keenan v. Hall?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Declined to follow

  • The Sixth Circuit rejected Keenan's exclusion of court mail from protected legal mail and held that such mail cannot be opened outside the requesting prisoner's presence.

    Sallier v. Brooks · Sixth Circuit · filed

    but see Keenan v. Hall, 83 F.3d 1083, 1094 (9th Cir.l996)(citing Martin for the proposition that “mail from the courts, as contrasted to mail from a prisoner’s lawyer, is not legal mail”). ... However, prior decisions from our court have used the term “legal mail” to include mail from the courts and have expressed disagreement with Martin’s rationale that mail from a court is automatically a matter of public record. ... we hold that mail from a court constitutes “legal mail” and cannot be opened outside the presence of a prisoner who has specifically requested otherwise.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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