Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety (5th Cir.)

The Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic filed amicus briefs on behalf of the Bruderhof and Muslim, Jewish, and Sikh groups in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in support of a devout Rastafarian man who was forced by prison officials to cut his hair in contravention of his religious beliefs.

 

As part of his devout Rastafarian beliefs, Damon Landor believes that he must follow the Nazarite Vow and leave his hair untrimmed. In a prior case, he had received a ruling from the Fifth Circuit recognizing his religious right to do so. But, even though he had that ruling in hand and showed it to prison officials, the prison officials ignored it and illegally forced him to cut his hair. He filed suit to vindicate his rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). The district court ruled that, because the Fifth Circuit has held that RLUIPA only permits injunctive relief, he could not receive any monetary award for this blatant abuse.

 

Our briefs explain that the ability to receive a monetary award under RLUIPA is vitally important for religious minorities to hold prisons accountable for abuses of their religious rights. Without the availability of damages, religious minorities have few options to protect their religious rights. Prisons are able to strategically moot cases by transferring prisoners, or prisoners may be otherwise released before a court can make a ruling supporting their rights. And because a prison may detain very few religious minorities, there is less incentive for prisons to proactively take steps to protect religious rights if they do not fear monetary liability. Thus, religious minorities are disproportionately at risk of having their religious exercise improperly curtailed in prison.