Playboy isn't going to the pokey if the jail system doesn't want it to - the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed jail systems to bar prisoners from possessing materials depicting frontal nudity. The justices thus rejected an appeal from an Arizona jail inmate who wanted to subscribe to Playboy and argued the ban violated his Constitutional right.
This case sprang from the ban imposed by Mariposa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, who claimed jail inmates used sexually oriented materials to harass female guards, waving pictures and taunting the women. Inmate Jonathan Mauro's 1995 request for a Playboy subscription was rejected by jail administrators, then sued over under the First and 14th Amendments.
Mauro tried to argue the ban included medical, educational, and artistic materials which included nude figures - even an inmate's own art work, and even if the inmate was in jail awaiting trial, as he had been at the time his subscription was rejected.
The ban was upheld two years ago by a federal judge, but a federal appeals court panel overturned that ruling. A full appeals court vote upheld the ban.
