Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01694/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01694-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-1694

TOBIAS PAYTON,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CHRIS CANNON, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 11 C 5955 — Harry D. Leinenweber, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED OCTOBER 29, 2015 — DECIDED DECEMBER 1, 2015

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and POSNER and EASTERBROOK,

Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. Staff of Illinois’s Stateville Prison 

intercepted a number of pornographic magazines that inmate Payton had ordered. These magazines have such 

names as “Bootylicious,” “Black Video Illustrated,” “Players 

Nasty,” “Black Tail,” “Adam Film World Guide Porn Stars,” 

“Tight,” and “Naughty Neighbors.” They mainly contain 

photographs of naked or scantily clad women, but some also 

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contain photographs of sexual acts. The magazines are advertised on the Internet, and we doubt that they would be 

classified as obscene—nor does the prison so designate 

them. But the prison does forbid the inmates to receive any 

magazine that “includes sexually explicit material that by its 

nature or content poses a threat to security, good order, or 

discipline or it facilitates criminal activity” or is “otherwise 

detrimental to security, good order, rehabilitation, or discipline or it might facilitate criminal activity or be detrimental 

to mental health”—and the magazines we’ve listed, along 

with many similar ones, are deemed by the prison to be 

within the prohibition.

The plaintiff claims that the prohibition violates his First 

Amendment rights, for those rights include access to, as well 

as creation and dissemination of, oral and written communications, including magazines. The defendants, however—

members of the prison staff who conduct the interceptions—

moved for summary judgment on the basis of a statement by 

a former warden of Stateville, Marcus Hardy (warden from 

2009 to 2012, and one of the defendants in the present case), 

that 

“publications or photographs that involve any sort of nudity” are a danger in the prison because of the possibility 

that “(1) the inmates will engage in black-market trading 

for the publications and photographs; (2) inmate-oninmate violence and intimidation increases, especially 

when these publications become lost, stolen, and/or when 

there is a perception that the publications are not being 

fairly traded or shared; and (3) female employees at the 

maximum security correctional centers [such as Stateville] 

are more often objectified and harassed by the inmate 

population when the inmates are allowed to receive nude 

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No. 14-1694 3

publications, nude photographs and nude prints. In my 

experience, this has included, but not been limited to Stateville having to address instances of inmates openly pleasuring themselves [i.e., masturbating] before female correctional officers during rounds.”

“When a prison regulation impinges on inmates’ constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” Turner v. Safley, 482 

U.S. 78, 89 (1987). This is true even in the context of printed 

matter. “Prisons have great latitude in limiting the reading 

material of prisoners.” Mays v. Springborn, 575 F.3d 643, 649 

(7th Cir. 2009). Great latitude is not the same as unreviewable discretion, however, and the ex-warden’s statement is 

the only evidence submitted by the defendants concerning 

harm to the prison from materials that the defendants want 

to forbid to the prisoners. But the plaintiff produced no evidence contrary to the warden’s. Nor did he point out that the 

warden’s statement appears to be based on impression rather than on data.

The plaintiff does argue that the prison staff should be 

required to read every issue of every magazine (rather than 

just six consecutive issues, as the staff is currently required 

to do) that it intercepts before deciding to add the magazine

to the censored list; but that would be impractical. He also 

argues that the real reason for the prison’s policy is that the 

staff dislikes pornography. This strikes us as an implausible 

generalization, though doubtless some staff (and not only 

the women) do dislike or disapprove of pornography; in any 

event, he provides no evidence. He has, in short, made no

case against the district judge’s grant of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The suit was therefore rightly 

dismissed.

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That said, we think it important to note for future reference that the ex-warden’s statement, though plausible and 

thus sufficient for judgment given the absence of countervailing evidence, is not ironclad. Why the prison should be 

concerned if the prisoners swap these magazines is nowhere 

explained; nor is it suggested that arguments over sharing 

would cause a nontrivial increase in violence and intimidation. And as for inmates masturbating in front of female 

staff, it seems on the one hand a practice that male inmates 

can be expected to engage in even if they have no access to 

nude photographs and on the other a matter calling for swift 

punishment of the offenders.

As with so many behavioral issues touched by American 

law, one would like to see Stateville’s ban on prisoners’ access to photographs and print analyzed scientifically. That

would not be impossible. There is an extensive academic literature bearing on the issue, some of which challenges the 

intuitions of prison wardens and staff. Illustrative is Corey 

D. Burton & Richard Tewksbury, “Policies on Sexually Explicit Materials in State Prisons,” 24(2) Criminal Justice Policy 

Review 222 (2011), which found “little or no existing evidence 

to support the extension of findings of research from the 

general community [research that, as the article notes, tends 

to find a positive correlation between use of pornography 

and aggressive or even violent behavior toward women] to 

the behavior of prison inmates.” Other studies include Michael Castleman, “Does Pornography Cause Harm? Porn 

Causes No Measurable Harm,” Psychology Today, April 27, 

2009, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/200904

/does-pornography-cause-social-harm (visited November 30, 

2015); Christopher J. Ferguson & Richard D. Hartley, “The 

Pleasure is Momentary ... the Expense Damnable? The InCase: 14-1694 Document: 45 Filed: 12/01/2015 Pages: 5
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fluence of Pornography on Rape and Sexual Assault,” 14 

Aggression & Violent Behavior 323 (2009). According to still 

another study, “the data reported and reviewed suggests ... 

an inverse causal relationship between an increase in pornography and sex crimes.” Milton Diamond, “Pornography, 

Public Acceptance and Sex Related Crime: A Review,” 32 

Int’l J. Law & Psychiatry 304 (2009).

Stateville’s policy may be ineffectual—and it is costly. 

Staff is deflected to skimming boatloads of pornographic 

magazines. Prisoners are denied access to reading material 

that would lighten slightly the burden of imprisonment in a 

maximum-security prison and might reduce rather than increase disciplinary problems at the prison. The Illinois Department of Corrections, which owns and administers Illinois state prisons, might be well advised to study Stateville’s 

pornography policy—and with an open mind.

Nevertheless, for the reasons stated earlier in this opinion, the judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

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