Court Gives Prisoner’s Playboy Case Green Light

If you’re a prisoner and your Playboy magazine is confiscated, the matter isn’t frivolous, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a hearing for a Washington state prisoner who claimed his First and 14th Amendment rights were violated.

Mark LaRue alleged that prison officials confiscated his February and March 1996 Playboy magazines under a policy prohibiting sexually explicit material. He claimed the prison arbitrarily enforced the policy and that he and other prisoners generally were allowed Playboy and the more explicit Hustler magazine.

U.S. District Judge Alan McDonald, in Yakima had refused to hear the case, dismissing it as frivolous.

The appeals court panel disagreed, citing earlier decisions.

“A prison must show that the restricted material poses a threat to a legitimate penological interest and is not ‘so remote as to render the policy arbitrary or irrational,”’ the federal appeals court ruled.

The judges sent the case back to the lower court for further proceedings.

The case is Mark LaRue vs. Jim Blodgett, deputy director, No. 96-35658.