ACLU pushes inmates’ right to marry
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio is demanding that Madison County Probate Court abandon what the ACLU says is an unconstitutional practice of denying marriage licenses to prison inmates.
Madison County is home to two prisons, Madison Correctional Institution and London Correctional Institution, which together house about 4,700 men. ACLU of Ohio staff attorney Elizabeth Bonham said the organization made the demand in a letter sent Thursday, after receiving complaints about the court’s refusal to allow incarcerated people to marry.
She said that to deny a license to a prison inmate clearly violates the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment and the guarantee of the fundamental right to marry.
The letter, addressed to the court’s chief deputy clerk, Lynne Pulver, cited several 14th Amendment cases.
“Madison County is essentially enforcing a ban on legal marriage,” Bonham said.
Madison County Probate Judge Christopher J. Brown is in his first six-year term on the bench, elected in November 2014. He ran unopposed after longtime Judge Glenn Hamilton did not seek re-election.
Contacted Thursday, Pulver said that she was not authorized to comment on the matter or answer questions, and that only the judge could do so. She said the judge had instructed her to say he had no comment.
The court’s policies on its website do not appear to specifically address the marriage issue, but the site does say that to apply for a marriage license, “both bride and groom will need to be present at the same time in the probate office located on the first floor of the Madison County Courthouse.”
Bonham said people do not relinquish their constitutional rights when they enter a prison. She said what Madison County is doing is also ethically wrong.
“It further stigmatizes these people and erases them from society,” she said of the prisoners.
Bonham said she hopes the letter will be enough to prompt the court to immediately change its policy or practice. She said she could not discuss specifics of the complaints because of confidentiality, so she would not disclose how many licenses might have been denied. She also could not provide a time frame as to when the complaints to the ACLU were made, but said they were recent.
The ACLU also sent a letter this year to Hamilton County Probate Court in Cincinnati, accusing it of the same practice and demanding that the court change its policies. When reporting on that letter, the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote that the court’s website read that it “would not issue licenses to incarcerated individuals under any circumstances.”
Bonham said that after the letter went to Hamilton County, the court there immediately changed its policy and published information about how inmates could obtain a license.
“We were happy with that result,” she said. “We are anxious to hear from Madison County.”