Turner v. Safley

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Turner v. Safley

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued January 13, 1987
Decided June 1, 1987


Full case name:	William R. Turner, et al. v. Leonard Safley, et al.

Citations:	482 U.S. 78; 107 S. Ct. 2254; 96 L. Ed. 2d 64; 1987 U.S. LEXIS 2362; 55 U.S.L.W. 4719

Prior history:	Judgment in part for plaintiffs, 586 F. Supp. 589 (W.D. Mo. 1984); affirmed, 777 F.2d 1307 (8th Cir. 1985); certiorari granted, 476 U.S. 1139 (1986)

Holding

A Missouri prison regulation restricting inmates from marrying without permission violated their constitutional right to marry because it was not logically related to a legitimate penological concern, but a prohibition on inmate-to-inmate correspondence was justified by prison security needs and so was permissible under the First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth. Eighth Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded.

Court membership

Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia

Case opinions

Majority by: O'Connor
Joined by: Rehnquist, White, Powell, Scalia; Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens (in part III-B only)
Concurrence/dissent by: Stevens
Joined by: Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun

Laws applied

U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV

Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the constitutionality of prison regulations. Applying a lower standard of review due to the reduced liberty and greater security needs of the prison context, the Court upheld a regulation that prohibited inmates at one prison from corresponding with those at another, but struck another regulation that prohibited inmates from marrying without the permission of the warden.