Does a prisoner have a First Amendment right to speak in the presence of a correctional officer?

Moreover, in the prison context, not all speech is protected speech, and a prisoner does not have the same First Amendment rights as a non-prisoner. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520,

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545 (1979). "[A] prison inmate retains those First Amendment rights that are not inconsistent with his status as a prisoner or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system." Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822 (1974). A prisoner's First Amendment claim "must be analyzed in terms of the legitimate policies and goals of the corrections system ..." Id.

Regardless of how Plaintiff describes it, the speech he seeks to characterize as protected is simply an objection to a direct order. In the prison context, "direct, face-to-face confrontation" relating to an order designed to uphold the safety of the prison is not protected speech. See eg. Nunez v. Ramirez, 2010 WL 1222058, *5 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (finding a prisoner's statement that, "If you saw who was drinking, why don't you address that person instead of disrespecting everybody," is not protected speech).