The Supreme Court struggled Monday with whether states can keep troublesome inmates from reading secular newspapers and magazines. Pennsylvania prison officials urged the high court to allow them to use access to newspapers and magazines as an incentive to get inmates to behave themselves.

The "bottom line" in the case, as Justice Stephen Breyer put it, is whether the court should interfere and tell the state how to manage its inmates, or whether prison officials have gone too far and infringed on the free-speech rights of prisoners.

The case could wind up in a tie because only eight justices are considering it. Justice Samuel Alito did not participate because he wrote a dissenting opinion - siding with Pennsylvania - when he was a member of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Early in the argument, justices appeared concerned about what limits should be placed on states that want to set up high-security segregation units where inmates who can't follow prison rules are kept. But by the argument's end, several justices seemed willing to give Pennsylvania credit for trying to change its worst-behaved inmates.

Louis J. Rovelli, Pennsylvania's lawyer, told the justices the state's policy is reasonable because inmates can earn back the privilege of receiving newspapers and magazines, as well as personal photographs. Rovelli said the state designed the special unit because most of the 40 or so inmates held there eventually will be released from prison. Before that happens, he said, the state wants to try to “turn them around.”

The case's outcome could affect prison operations nationwide if the justices require state officials to prove that their policies serve legitimate security and rehabilitative interests inside prison walls.