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The ruling came more than two years after the case was filed, and the job status of the officers with ties to the motorcycle club has since changed.
One of the four plaintiffs currently works for the department, but one has retired, another has resigned, and the fourth was fired on a charge not directly associated with his involvement in the motorcycle club, department spokesman Brian Garnett said.
The plaintiffs are James Kight, Gary Piscottano, Mark J. Vincenzo, and Walter C. Scappini.
"We are very pleased with the ruling," Garnett said. "We've maintained since day one that the association with a group such as the Outlaws is inconsistent with what is expected of a correctional professional within the law enforcement community."
Kight, Piscottano, and another correctional officer, Randy Sabettini, were fired in April 2004 after investigators said they had been "less than truthful" about their affiliation with the club during interviews. Each had previously admitted being involved with the group.
Vincenzo and Scappini received counseling after the initial round of Correction Department hearings on their Outlaws ties in 2004. But Vincenzo was fired later in 2004 after being seen at an event co-sponsored by the Outlaws at the American Veterans, or AmVets, hall in Enfield.
Piscottano was reinstated in 2006 and currently works at the Willard-Cybulski Correctional Institution in Enfield, Garnett said.
Kight, who apparently also returned to work with the department, has been fired as a result of unrelated conduct, according to the spokesman.
Vincenzo was reinstated two years after his firing and has since retired, Garnett said, adding that Scappini has resigned.
In late 2003, when new leadership had taken charge in the Correction Department, administrators decided that officers' membership in the club posed a security risk to prisoners. The department had received an anonymous letter claiming that several employees were Outlaws members.
The lawsuit over the disciplinary action went first to U.S. District Court in New Haven, where Judge Mark R. Kravitz ruled against the correctional officers. They appealed his decision to the 2nd Circuit.
The lawyer representing the four correctional officers, Kathleen Eldergill of Manchester, couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.
She argued during the court case that the disciplinary action imposed on the officers as a result of their association with the Outlaws violated their constitutional rights to freedom of association and due process of law.
She also claimed their due-process rights were violated because the Correction Department's "administrative directive" on employee conduct failed to put them on notice that they could be disciplined for associating with the Outlaws.
But the appeals court said the Correction Department had information that the Outlaws were involved in illegal activities, at least in other states, involving drug trafficking, selling stolen goods, prostitution, and racketeering involving violence such as arson, bombings, and murder.
"It is not beyond the intelligence of an ordinary person, much less that of a correctional officer, to recognize that a criminal-justice-system officer's association with an organization whose affiliates engage in criminal activity reflects negatively on the agency that employs him," Kearse wrote for the court.
Joining her in the decision were Judges Robert D. Sack of the 2nd Circuit and Timothy C. Stanceu of the U.S. Court of International Trade, who was designated to sit with the 2nd Circuit in the case.
