Court Opinion

ID: 9498976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:34:22.693163+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:12.448249
License: Public Domain

NOONAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Judge Berzon’s excellent opinion is deserving of support. I would, however, go beyond it to hold; the Orwellian procedure at issue to be always a violation of the personal dignity of which prisoners are not deprived. The procedure violates a prisoner’s bodily integrity by affecting his genitals. The procedure violates a prisoner’s mental integrity by intruding images into *571his brain. The procedure violates a prisoner’s moral integrity by requiring him to masturbate.
By committing a crime and being convicted of it, a person does not cease to be a person. A prisoner is not a mere tool of the state to be manipulated by it to achieve the purposes the law has determined appropriate in punishment. The prisoner retains his humanity and therefore has purposes transcending those of the state. A prisoner, for example, cannot be forced into prostitution to aid the state in securing evidence. A prisoner, for example, cannot be made to perjure himself in order to assist a prosecution. Similarly, a prisoner should not be compelled to stimulate himself sexually in order for the government to get a sense of his current proclivities. There is a line at which the government must stop. Penile plethysmography testing crosses it.