HAGERSTOWN, Md. — A prison guard fired for nude photos that appeared on the Internet and in a magazine must be rehired and given back pay, a judge ruled.
Corrections officials had argued that inmates would eventually see the photos of Marcie Betts, 22, leading them to perceive her solely as a “sex object” and threatening her ability to control them.
Lawyers for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services were reviewing the ruling Thursday before deciding on their next step, spokeswoman Jacqueline Lampell said.
The state has until Dec. 12 to file a notice of appeal to the courts.
Betts said she was ready to return to work.
“I’m very excited. It’s very, very cool,” she said.
Her lawyer, Lawrence G. Walters, of Altamonte Springs, Fla., said justice had prevailed.
“The basic issue here is that the security concerns voiced by the department have to give way to the First Amendment and our client’s right to free speech,” Walters said.
Corrections officials had also argued allowing Betts to continue working at the prison would threaten the safety of other correctional officers, leading to lower staff morale if not assaults on the guards by prisoners.
Administrative Law Judge D. Harrison Pratt, of the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings, said the state’s argument was “speculative” and lacking in supportive evidence.
“In the balancing process, the employee’s constitutional right to take photographs of herself and publish them far outweighs the minimal impact that such activities ‘might’ have on the DPSCS’s ability to protect staff and inmates, and to efficiently operate its facilities,” Pratt wrote.
He noted that Betts was not a department employee when the photos were taken or published. Furthermore, the department never told Betts that such activity could be considered “conduct unbecoming a corrections officer” that could lead to dismissal, according to Pratt’s ruling.
Betts was fired from Roxbury Correctional Institution near Hagerstown on Jan. 29, two months after she was hired as a correctional officer. She had been asked about the photos nine days earlier by a fellow officer and an inmate, according to testimony at her September hearing. A copy of Tabu Tattoo magazine containing one of the photos was found in an inmate housing unit the day before she was fired, according to the case files.
Maryland prison inmates are allowed to have sexually explicit material, including magazines and photographs, but they are not permitted to use computers that can access the Internet, according to the case files.
Betts has said that she and her husband took the pictures last year, after she took a state test for the prison job, but before she was hired.
Betts, who has a large tattoo of birds, flowers and a skull across her chest, said about 80 photos were published on the web site BurningAngel.com, which paid her $300, and one was published without her knowledge in Tabu Tattoo.