Court Upholds Ban on Nude Pictures in Arizona Jail

An Arizona jail system’s ban on nude pictures is a reasonable effort to protect female guards from sexual harassment and does not violate free expression, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The 7-4 ruling Tuesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the 1993 policy by Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio that had been ruled unconstitutional by a three-judge panel last year.

Dissenting judges sided with last year’s ruling, which said the county had gone too far with a policy that would outlaw possession of National Geographic and classic artworks as well as Playboy and Hustler. But the court majority said the policy, while not fine-tuned, was “reasonably related” to legitimate government purposes.

“The relationship between the possession of sexually explicit materials and the problems sought to be addressed by the policy--sexual harassment of female officers, jail security and rehabilitation of inmates--is clear,” said the opinion by Judge Thomas Nelson.

He said harassment of female guards dropped sharply after the ban was imposed. Previously, inmates regularly taunted guards with nude pictures from magazines, he said.

Inmates have a constitutional right to receive sexually explicit communications. Nelson, in Tuesday’s ruling, said the jail policy does not violate that right because it allows pictures of clothed women and sexually explicit letters.

In one dissenting opinion, Judge Mary Schroeder said the county policy was not justified because it would prohibit “a photograph of a nude Christ painted by Michelangelo,” in addition to pornography.