LANSING, Mich. -- The lights aren't on, the phone doesn't work and five people are squeezed on one chair in a space the size of a coat closet. The man they call son, brother and uncle looks at them from a behind a pane of glass.

Two of the visitors, 5 and 7, are seeing the inmate they know as Uncle Mario for the first time. Mario Bueno went to prison for murder before they were born, and they'll probably be driving before he gets out.

"We were all crying," said Ysabel Benejam, Bueno's mother and the children's grandmother. "We want to hug, he wants to hold them and here they are behind the glass."

This is the only way Bueno can see his nephew and niece because a Michigan Department of Corrections policy restricts who can have contact with inmates. Before last year, they weren't allowed to visit at all.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on just how far Michigan can go in restricting visits to prison inmates.

Balancing act

The court will weigh a state's ability to control its prisons against the rights of inmates, a balancing act that in the past has tilted in favor of government. For Bueno and the more than a million other inmates in the United States, its decision could mean greater access to visitors -- or more restrictions.

The last time the high court handled a major prison visitation case was in 1989, when justices upheld Kentucky's right to prevent inmates from having certain visitors without having to explain why.

In Michigan, the state imposed stricter rules in 1995 to better protect visitors and to stop the smuggling of drugs and weapons. Minors who weren't an inmate's child or grandchild were no longer allowed to visit nor were former prisoners, unless they were immediate family. Inmates with two substance abuse violations in prison could have visitation privileges taken away altogether.

That same year, a group of inmates challenged the rules in court. The lawsuit was dismissed, but the inmates appealed and won a favorable decision from the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Even those imprisoned for serious crimes still have basic constitutional rights, the appeals court said.

Since the court battle began, the state has eased up on the rules. Contact visits by children who are siblings and non-contact visits by child nieces and nephews have resumed, and prisoners with one drug violation now can have non-contact visits.

Need family contact

The lower court's ruling was welcomed by those who have argued for less restrictive visitation policies. They say inmates need family contact to prepare them for life after prison and reduce repeat offenses.

"In order to come back and be a citizen of our society you need assistance and there's no assistance out there but family," said Deborah LaBelle, an attorney for the inmates.

LaBelle said the burden for protecting visitors is on prison officials, not inmates. Restrictions should be applied case by case and should take into account nontraditional families, she said.

The Corrections Department believes the rules are fair and constitutional, said spokesman Russ Marlan.

"The real issue is that we believe the corrections professionals should be deciding visitation policy and not the courts," Marlan said.

But Benejam, Bueno's mother, said she feels her family is being punished.

Bueno, 24, was convicted in 1996 of second-degree murder for killing a man over marijuana. He was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.

"It happened and here we are and it doesn't mean that the family can't at least get together," Benejam said.

Robert Shier, 49, of Milan, said the visitation policies also hurt his family.

When Shier's son, Robert Shier Jr., was imprisoned in 1994 on a rape conviction, the elder Shier took his two youngest children to visit. One time, without warning, he said, he was told they couldn't visit anymore.

"They just did what they wanted to do ... and made life miserable for us," said Shier. His son served nearly three years.

The case before the Supreme Court is Overton v. Bazzetta, 02-94.

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On the Net:

Michigan Department of Corrections, http://www.michigan.gov/corrections

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov