A good illustration of the rippling boredom that fills a federal prison sentence: Inmates are willing to go to court for a jigsaw puzzle.

Lawyer Alan Berkun, who is serving six years in a Miami federal prison for stock fraud, asked his warden for permission to receive a puzzle purchased on Amazon.com. When his request was denied last year, he petitioned a federal judge in Brooklyn, arguing that he had a First Amendment right to, um, jigsaw.

Mr. Berkun, a securities lawyer by training, represented himself. U.S. District Judge John Gleeson, in a 14-page ruling Monday, saw no First Amendment violation.

Berkun has failed to show that his possession of a jigsaw puzzle is expressive and therefore constitutionally protected. A jigsaw puzzle generally consists of an image that has been broken into a number of pieces, which are then reassembled. Even if the reassembled image itself were protected by the First Amendment, Berkun has not shown how the act of assembling the pieces is in any way expressive conduct. I therefore conclude that he has not met his burden of showing that the denial of his request to receive a jigsaw puzzle violated any constitutional right.

H/T New York Post, ABA Journal