Latest news with #Rastafarians
Black America Web
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Black America Web
Supreme Court To Hear Rastafarian Lawsuit Over Shaved Locs
Source: JOSPIN MWISHA / Getty The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it will hear the case of Damon Landor, a devout Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were forcibly shaved by prison guards in Louisiana, despite a clear legal precedent protecting his religious right to wear them. According to the lawsuit, Landor, who had vowed not to cut his hair for nearly two decades as part of his faith, entered the Louisiana prison system in 2020 to serve a five-month sentence for a drug-related offense. At the time when he began his sentence, his locs fell nearly to his knees. After serving all but three weeks of his five-month sentence, Landor was transferred to the Raymond Laborde Correction Center. He claims the violation occurred at that facility. Landor states that he entered with a copy of a court ruling that made it clear that practicing Rastafarians should be given a religious accommodation allowing them to keep their dreadlocks. But a prison officer dismissed his concerns, and Landor was handcuffed to a chair while two officers reportedly shaved his head after throwing the documents in the trash. 'When I was strapped down and shaved, it felt like I was raped,' Landor said in a statement. 'And the guards, they just didn't care. They will treat you any kind of way. They knew better than to cut my hair, but they did it anyway.' Upon his release, Landor filed a lawsuit raising various claims, including the one at issue at the Supreme Court, which he brought under a federal law called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, seeking damages for the trauma and violation he endured. Source: JOSPIN MWISHA / Getty Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill said in court papers that the state does not contest that Landor was mistreated and noted that the prison system has already changed its grooming policy to ensure that other Rastafarian prisoners do not face similar situations. At the heart of the case is whether individuals suing under RLUIPA can recover monetary damages. Currently, there's a similar law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that allows for monetary compensation for damages, and Landor's attorneys point out that both statutes contain 'identical language.' In a 2020 decision, the Supreme Court affirmed that money damages were permissible under the RFRA. Landor's lawyers argue that precedent should apply here as well. Nevertheless, both a federal judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the state, barring Landor from collecting damages. Now, the highest court in the country will weigh in. The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in its next term, which begins in October and concludes in June 2026. For Landor and many other incarcerated individuals who practice minority religions, the outcome could determine whether justice is just in name or inclusive of reparations. SEE ALSO: Jamaica Supreme Court Rules School Can Ban Dreadlocks Black Men Sue To Keep Beards And Locks SEE ALSO Supreme Court To Hear Rastafarian Lawsuit Over Shaved Locs was originally published on
Boston Globe
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Supreme Court to hear Rastafarian prisoner's suit over shaved dreadlocks
Advertisement The first four months of Landor's incarceration were uneventful. Then he was transferred to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Cottonport, La. According to his lawsuit, he presented a copy of the 2017 decision to a guard, who threw it in the trash. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up After consulting the warden, two guards handcuffed Landor to a chair, held him down, and shaved his head to the scalp. 'When I was strapped down and shaved, it felt like I was raped,' Landor said in a statement last year. 'And the guards, they just didn't care. They will treat you any kind of way. They knew better than to cut my hair, but they did it anyway.' The question the justices agreed to decide is whether the 2000 religious freedom law allows suits against prison officials for money. Advertisement The case is in an early stage, and courts have assumed that Landor's account of what happened to him is true. Officials in Louisiana have so far not disputed it. Elizabeth B. Murrill, Louisiana's attorney general, agreed the conduct Landor described was appalling, but she said the 2000 law did not allow his suit. 'The allegations in petitioner's complaint are antithetical to religious freedom and fair treatment of state prisoners,' Murrill wrote in a brief urging the justices to deny review. 'Without equivocation, the state condemns them in the strongest possible terms.' She added that 'the state has amended its prison grooming policy to ensure that nothing like petitioner's alleged experience can occur.' Last month, the Trump administration filed a supporting brief urging the justices to hear Landor's case and to rule that he may pursue his suit. Landor's case does not seem to be an outlier. At least five other Rastafarians have filed lawsuits in Louisiana saying their dreadlocks were forcibly shaved by prison officials. Landor sued the warden and the guards under the 2000 law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. When the case reached the 5th Circuit, the same court that had ruled that the law protected Rastafarian prisoners' dreadlocks, a different three-judge panel said that 'we emphatically condemn the treatment that Landor endured." But that condemnation was all the relief the panel was willing to offer Landor. It ruled that he was still not entitled to sue the prison officials for money because the 2000 law had not specifically authorized such suits. In his petition asking the Supreme Court to hear his case, Landor said the 5th Circuit's ruling was at odds with a 2020 decision interpreting identical language in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Advertisement In that case, the court ruled in favor of Muslim men who said their religious rights had been violated when FBI agents put them on the no-fly list in retaliation for refusing to become government informants. The court did not find the question of whether they could sue for money difficult. In a brisk nine-page opinion for a unanimous court in 2020 in the case, Tanzin v. Tanvir, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that 'in the context of suits against government officials, damages have long been awarded as appropriate relief.' In Landor's case, the 5th Circuit ruled that the 2000 law, which applies to the states, was meaningfully different from the 1993 law, which, after the Supreme Court limited its sweep, applies only to the federal government. The full 5th Circuit declined to rehear the panel's ruling. But nine judges in the majority urged the Supreme Court to clarify matters in the case, Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety, No. 23-1197. Prison officials, Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote, 'knowingly violated Damon Landor's rights in a stark and egregious manner, literally throwing in the trash our opinion holding that Louisiana's policy of cutting Rastafarians' hair violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act before pinning Landor down and shaving his head. Landor clearly suffered a grave legal wrong.' But whether he can sue prison officials for money, Clement wrote, 'is a question only the Supreme Court can answer.' Zack Tripp, a lawyer with Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which represents Landor, said he hoped the answer was yes. Advertisement 'Nobody should have to experience what Mr. Landor endured,' he said in a statement. 'A decision in Mr. Landor's favor will go a long way towards holding officers accountable for egregious violations of religious liberty, and ensuring that what happened to Mr. Landor does not happen to anyone else.' This article originally appeared in .
UPI
23-06-2025
- Politics
- UPI
U.S. Supreme Court to rule over Rastafarian inmate hair religious exempts
1 of 2 | On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court took on a new religious case regarding a former Louisiana inmate of Rastafarian belief whose dreadlocks were forcibly cut off by prison officials. The court will hear oral arguments in the case and issue a ruling during its next term starting October and ending next year in June. File Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI | License Photo June 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday took on a new religious case regarding a former Louisiana inmate of Rastafarian belief whose dreadlocks were forcibly cut off by prison officials, but only after after a lower court "emphatically" condemned the ex-inmate's treatment as he seeks financial relief. Damon Landor served all but three weeks of a five-month jail sentence in 2020 on a drug-related criminal conviction when he was transferred to Raymond Laborde Correction Center in Avoyelles Parish roughly 30 miles south of Alexandria in east-central Louisiana. He took with him a copy of a 2017 decision by the state's 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saying Louisiana's policy of cutting the hair of Rastafarians violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and Landor then showed the intake guard. The federal act forbids regulations that impose a "substantial burden" on the religious exercise of jailed persons, but a prison official rebuffed his concern. He was eventually handcuffed to a chair held down by two guards while a third shaved him bald on the warden's instructions order, according to Landor's legal appeal. Landor's lawsuit pointed to a number of claims such as the issue at play under the federal RLUIPA. The appeal noted the Supreme Court's 2020 ruling that government officials can be sued in their individual capacity for damages for violations of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and that relevant language in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act was identical. In court papers, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the state did not disagree that Landor was mistreated and noted how the prison system had reportedly switched its policy to accommodate Rastafarian prisoners, but Murrill added that Landor's lawsuit didn't qualify for compensation as relief. However, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said that to deny Landor the option to seek damages as a remedy in a purported violation of RLUIPA would "undermine that important purpose." "And the circumstances precluding relief here are not unique," Sauer wrote in a court filing. Landor's legal team noted in a legal petition how more than one million people are incarcerated in state prisons and local jails. "Under the prevailing rule in the circuit courts, those individuals are deprived of a key remedy crucial to obtaining meaningful relief," the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Casey Denson wrote in its agreement with Sauer, adding that the broad implications warrant court review. Meanwhile, the nation's high court is expected to hear oral arguments in the case and issue a ruling during its next term starting October and ending June 2026.
France 24
23-06-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Top US court takes case of Rastafarian whose hair was cut in prison
Damon Landor is seeking permission to sue individual officials of the Louisiana Department of Corrections for monetary damages for violating his religious rights. Landor, who had been growing his hair for nearly two decades, was serving the final three weeks of a five-month sentence for drug possession in 2020 when his hair was cut. Landor presented prison guards with a copy of a 2017 court ruling stating that Rastafarians should be allowed to keep their dreadlocks in line with their religious beliefs. A prison guard threw the document away and Landor was handcuffed to a chair and had his head shaved, according to court records. An appeals court condemned Landor's "egregious" treatment but ruled that he is not eligible to sue individual prison officials for damages. Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill, in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court, acknowledged that the treatment of Landor by prison guards was "antithetical to religious freedom." "The State has amended its prison grooming policy to ensure that nothing like Petitioner's alleged experience can occur," Murrill said. But federal law does not permit "money damages against a state official sued in his individual capacity," she added. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case during its next term, which begins in October. Rastafarians let their hair grow, typically in dreadlocks, as part of their beliefs in the religion which originated in Jamaica and was popularized by the late reggae singer Bob Marley.
NBC News
23-06-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Supreme Court takes up religious claim by Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were cut by prison officials
WASHINGTON — Taking up a new religious rights case, the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to weigh a claim for damages brought by a devout Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were cut by Louisiana prison officials against his wishes. At the time of the incident in 2020, Damon Landor had kept a religious vow not to cut his hair for almost 20 years. Landor had served all but three weeks of his five-month sentence imposed for a drug-related criminal conviction in Louisiana when he was transferred to the Raymond Laborde Correction Center. He was holding a copy of a court ruling that made it clear that practicing Rastafarians should be given a religious accommodation allowing them to keep their dreadlocks. But a prison officer dismissed his concerns and Landor was handcuffed to a chair while two officers shaved his head. Upon his release, Landor filed a lawsuit raising various claims, including the one at issue at the Supreme Court, which he brought under a federal law called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. At issue is whether people who sue under that statute can win money damages. Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill said in court papers that the state does not contest that Landor was mistreated and noted that the prison system has already changed its grooming policy to ensure that other Rastafarian prisoners do not face similar situations. But she contests whether Landor can get get money damages for his claim. A federal judge and the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the state, saying that money damages are not available. Landor's lawyer point to a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that allowed such damages in claims arising under a similar law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The laws have "identical language," they said in court papers. The court will hear oral arguments and issue a ruling in the case in its next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2026.
