Court grants inmate right to sue prison officials for surgically removing marbles from his penis

...as an alleged invasion of his right to privacy. Here's a taste:

By a 3-0 vote, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Adrian King could pursue claims that officials at Huttonsville Correctional Center illegally threatened him into consenting to the June 2013 surgery, or risk being segregated from other inmates and lose his eligibility for parole.

 

Circuit Judge Roger Gregory found “overwhelming evidence” that the intrusion was unreasonable, despite the asserted need by prison officials to police the security threat posed by inmates carrying contraband within their bodies.

 

“The interest in bodily integrity involves the most personal and deep-rooted expectations of privacy, and here, the nature of the surgery itself, surgery into King’s penis, counsels against reasonableness,” Gregory wrote for the Richmond, Virginia-based appeals court.

 

King had had the marbles implanted in and tattoos drawn on his penis in late 2008, prior to his incarceration, during a “body modification” craze.