On December 23, 2025, Human Rights Defense Center filed suit in federal court against the County of Riverside, Sheriff Chad Bianco, and other individual defendants to challenge censorship of its publications. In the complaint, HRDC alleges the defendants have violated its rights under the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 2 of the California Constitution and the right to due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 7 of the California Constitution. The case is Human Rights Defense Center v. County of Riverside, et al., USDC CACD, No. 5:25-cv-03520-DSF-SK. HRDC is represented by RBGG’s Ernest Galvan, Marc J. Shinn-Krantz, and Brenda Muñoz. The complaint is here.
On April 20, 2026 the Court issued a systemwide preliminary injunction covering all five detention facilities in the County of Riverside. The preliminary injunction is here. The County of Riverside is enjoined from rejecting incoming mail sent from HRDC to persons incarcerated at any of its five Detention Facilities on the sole grounds that the mail contains staples. The preliminary injunction requires that the County provide adequate written notice and an administrative appeal process to both the sender and the incarcerated intended recipient if the County denies the delivery of mail from HRDC.
HRDC publishes two monthly educational publications, Prison Legal News and Criminal Legal News. Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld has represented the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC) in a series of successful censorship suits brought against jails and prisons in California and across the U.S. including cases arising from jails operated by Los Angeles, Madera, Mariposa, Napa, Placer, Tehama, Sacramento, San Diego, Sonoma, Tulare, and Ventura counties, and by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry.