Probationers cannot be banned from alcohol use if their criminal offenses had nothing to do with drinking, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California has ruled.

The Los Angeles based Metropolitan News-Enterprise reported Dec. 17 that the appeals court ruled that U.S. District Judge David O. Carter abused his judicial discretion when he ordered probationer Marcus Brandon Betts not to drink as a condition of his supervised release from prison.

"Moderate consumption of alcohol does not rise to the dignity of our sacred liberties, such as freedom of speech, but the freedom to drink a beer while sitting in a recliner and watching a football game is nevertheless a liberty people have, and it is probably exercised by more people than the liberty to publish a political opinion," wrote appeals court judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld.

Betts was involved in a scam to artificially inflate TransUnion credit scores, and pled guilty to conspiracy. He was sentenced to three years probation. The appeals court ruled that Carter erred because he did not establish that banning alcohol consumption would contribute to Betts' rehabilitation, protect the public, or deter him from committing future crimes.

The district court and the local public defender's office have been locked in a dispute that led to Carter's probation conditions: the public defender has been advising clients not to answer probation officers' questions about alcohol or other drug use, so the court, in turn, has been ordering all defendants to undergo drug tests and abstain from alcohol use while on probation.

The appeals court negated that policy, however, saying that parole conditions must be based on "the nature and circumstances of the offense, and the history and characteristics of the defendant."