The following excerpt is from Gaut v. Sunn, 792 F.2d 874 (9th Cir. 1986):
Prisons being the kinds of places that they are, prison guards being the kinds of people that they often are, and prisoners being subject to control under often severe circumstances, we have no doubt that when threats of bodily harm are made against prisoners to discourage them from pursuing legal redress, those threats are likely to be successful. Thus they are an improper interference with the undoubted constitutional right of the prisoner to access to the courts. As to that right, see Bounds v.
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