| Turner v. Safley | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued January 13, 1987 Decided June 1, 1987 |
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| Full case name | William R. Turner, et al. v. Leonard Safley, et al. | |||||
| Citations | 482 U.S. 78 (more) 107 S. Ct. 2254; 96 L. Ed. 2d 64; 1987 U.S. LEXIS 2362; 55 U.S.L.W. 4719 |
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| 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 | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, White, Powell, Scalia; Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens (in part III-B only) | |||||
| Concur/dissent | 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 two prison regulations. Citing the reduced liberty and greater security needs of the prison context, the Court declined to use the strict scrutiny standard of review. It upheld a regulation that allowed prison officials to prohibit inmates at one prison from corresponding with those at another in certain cases, calling it "reasonable and facially valid". It struck down another regulation that prohibited inmates from marrying without the permission of the warden, finding that it was "not...reasonably related to legitimate penological objectives" and "impermissibly burdened" their right to marry. This decision is in line with the Supreme Court's decision in Loving v. Virginia that the right to marry is a fundamental right protected by the liberty element of the due process clause.