Avid v. Taylor – Seeking to protect local bookseller’s First Amendment right to communicate with jail residents

Avid, an independent bookseller located in Athens, Georgia, has a protected First Amendment right to communicate with Jail residents by providing them with books. Books mailed by Avid to the Jail were repeatedly rejected on the ground that Avid was not an “authorized retailer.” Jail officials admitted there was no process or criteria for becoming an  “authorized retailer.” And according to Gwinnett County Sheriff Keybo Taylor, only Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books A Million had ever been designated as “authorized,” although this was not written down anywhere and documents produced by the Jail show that this interpretation of the policy was inconsistently enforced.

After Avid sued, arguing that the Jail’s vague “authorized retailer” policy violated its First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, Sheriff Taylor revised the Jail’s policy to be even more restrictive. Presently Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble warehouses are the only retailers allowed to mail books to the Jail. The revised policy explicitly states that books mailed by retail bookstores will be rejected. The Jail maintains this is to prevent members of the public from inserting contraband into the books before they are mailed. But Jail officials could identify no instances of contraband being found inside of any book mailed to the Jail by a physical bookstore. Further illustrating that the Jail’s revised policy is an exaggerated response, the federal Bureau of Prisons, as well as the three largest state departments of corrections (California, Florida and Texas) and the Georgia Department of Corrections all accept books mailed by bookstores.

In 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denied the Gwinnett County defendants’ motion to dismiss Avid’s First and Fourteenth Amendment claims. After discovery, Avid and the Gwinnett County defendants each moved for summary judgment and a hearing was held on April 9, 2026.

The District Court recognized Avid’s First Amendment interest in communicating with Jail residents but deferred to Jail administrators in allowing the policy as applied to Avid to stand.

This case has been advanced by First Amendment Clinic students Carly Judenberg, Frank Easterlin, Eric Pruitt, Adoris Gibbs, Alex Klein, Madi Blair, Alex Cross, Patrick Johnson, Ellie Wilson-Wade, and Clinic fellows Christina Lee, Urub Khawaja, Allyson Veile and Ashley Fox, all working under the supervision of Clinical Associate Professor & Clinic director Clare R. Norins.

The case is co-counseled with civil rights attorney Zack Greenemyre.

Related news reports: Law360, Georgia Recorder, Georgia Public Broadcasting, Atlanta News First, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fox 5 Atlanta