Post by skyloom on Mar 27, 2006 9:07:01 GMT -5
Justices review prison disciplinary rules
By TONI LOCY
Associated Press Writer
Other U.S. Video
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As states have gotten tougher on crime, prisons have cracked down on disruptive inmates by creating high-security segregation units with rules designed to cut off contact with the outside world.
In Pennsylvania, prison officials want to put their most incorrigible inmates in solitary confinement and keep them from reading secular newspapers and magazines, or even possess personal photographs, for months and sometimes years.
Lawyers for the state are asking the Supreme Court on Monday to reject a claim by inmate advocates who say access to reading material and photos cannot be used as an incentive for the state's most troublesome inmates to behave themselves.
The key question is whether prison officials can transform constitutionally protected rights, such as freedom of speech, into privileges that can be taken away unless inmates do as they are told.
The case's outcome could affect prison operations nationwide if the justices require state officials to prove that their policies serve legitimate security and rehabilitative interests inside prison walls.
The Bush administration is siding with Pennsylvania, saying the state's policy deserves deference by the courts because it involves maintaining order in prisons.
"It is a matter of common sense that withholding desirable inmate privileges - as a sanction for misbehavior - may deter prisoner misconduct and induce behavioral reform," Solicitor General Paul Clement told justices in a filing.
But religious and civil liberties groups say fundamental rights are not mere privileges that can be granted or revoked at the whim of a prison official.
Lawyers for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty worry that prison officials won't stop with newspapers but "declare open season on all constitutional rights" by one day possibly barring inmate access to the Bible.
Pennsylvania prison officials allowed the 40 inmates held in the high-security disciplinary unit to have access to religious materials, two paperback books of general interest, their legal documents and letters from family. But newspapers, magazines and personal photographs were banned.
"Although Pennsylvania exempts religious materials from its policy today, it may not do so tomorrow if it decides that withholding access to religious texts would enhance its leverage over prisoners," the Becket Fund lawyers wrote in a friend-of-the-court filing.
The case also is significant because new Justice Samuel Alito won't participate in the arguments. Alito wrote the dissenting opinion - siding with Pennsylvania prison officials - in the case as a judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In October 2001, Ronald Banks filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of himself and other inmates in the disciplinary unit, then located in Pittsburgh, after prison officials barred him from receiving his subscription to the Christian Science Monitor, a newspaper specializing in foreign affairs coverage.
The appellate court's majority sided with Banks, ruling that prison officials had failed to show the policy had any effect on behavior or offer proof that inmates had misused newspapers and magazines to start fires or throw human feces at guards.
The case is Beard v. Banks, 04-1739.
By TONI LOCY
Associated Press Writer
Other U.S. Video
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As states have gotten tougher on crime, prisons have cracked down on disruptive inmates by creating high-security segregation units with rules designed to cut off contact with the outside world.
In Pennsylvania, prison officials want to put their most incorrigible inmates in solitary confinement and keep them from reading secular newspapers and magazines, or even possess personal photographs, for months and sometimes years.
Lawyers for the state are asking the Supreme Court on Monday to reject a claim by inmate advocates who say access to reading material and photos cannot be used as an incentive for the state's most troublesome inmates to behave themselves.
The key question is whether prison officials can transform constitutionally protected rights, such as freedom of speech, into privileges that can be taken away unless inmates do as they are told.
The case's outcome could affect prison operations nationwide if the justices require state officials to prove that their policies serve legitimate security and rehabilitative interests inside prison walls.
The Bush administration is siding with Pennsylvania, saying the state's policy deserves deference by the courts because it involves maintaining order in prisons.
"It is a matter of common sense that withholding desirable inmate privileges - as a sanction for misbehavior - may deter prisoner misconduct and induce behavioral reform," Solicitor General Paul Clement told justices in a filing.
But religious and civil liberties groups say fundamental rights are not mere privileges that can be granted or revoked at the whim of a prison official.
Lawyers for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty worry that prison officials won't stop with newspapers but "declare open season on all constitutional rights" by one day possibly barring inmate access to the Bible.
Pennsylvania prison officials allowed the 40 inmates held in the high-security disciplinary unit to have access to religious materials, two paperback books of general interest, their legal documents and letters from family. But newspapers, magazines and personal photographs were banned.
"Although Pennsylvania exempts religious materials from its policy today, it may not do so tomorrow if it decides that withholding access to religious texts would enhance its leverage over prisoners," the Becket Fund lawyers wrote in a friend-of-the-court filing.
The case also is significant because new Justice Samuel Alito won't participate in the arguments. Alito wrote the dissenting opinion - siding with Pennsylvania prison officials - in the case as a judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In October 2001, Ronald Banks filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of himself and other inmates in the disciplinary unit, then located in Pittsburgh, after prison officials barred him from receiving his subscription to the Christian Science Monitor, a newspaper specializing in foreign affairs coverage.
The appellate court's majority sided with Banks, ruling that prison officials had failed to show the policy had any effect on behavior or offer proof that inmates had misused newspapers and magazines to start fires or throw human feces at guards.
The case is Beard v. Banks, 04-1739.