Latest news with #ReligiousLandUseandInstitutionalizedPersonsAct
Black America Web
5 days ago
- 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.
23-06-2025
- Politics
SCOTUS to hear case of Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were shaved by prison guards
WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear the appeal of a former Louisiana prison inmate whose dreadlocks were cut off by prison guards in violation of his religious beliefs. The justices will review an appellate ruling that held that the former inmate, Damon Landor, could not sue prison officials for money damages under a federal law aimed at protecting prisoners' religious rights. Landor, an adherent of the Rastafari religion, even carried a copy of a ruling by the appeals court in another inmate's case holding that cutting religious prisoners' dreadlocks violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Landor hadn't cut his hair in nearly two decades when he entered Louisiana's prison system in 2020 on a five-month sentence. At his first two stops, officials respected his beliefs. But things changed when he got to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Cottonport, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Baton Rouge, for the final three weeks of his term. A prison guard took the copy of the ruling Landor carried and tossed it in the trash, according to court records. Then the warden ordered guards to cut his dreadlocks. While two guards restrained him, a third shaved his head to the scalp, the records show. Landor sued after his release, but lower courts dismissed the case. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lamented Landor's treatment but said the law doesn't allow him to hold prison officials liable for damages. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the fall. Landor's lawyers argue that the court should be guided by its decision in 2021 allowing Muslim men to sue over their inclusion on the FBI's no-fly list under a sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. President Donald Trump's Republican administration filed a brief supporting Landor's right to sue and urged the court to hear the case. Louisiana asked the justices to reject the appeal, even as it acknowledged Landor's mistreatment. Lawyers for the state wrote that 'the state has amended its prison grooming policy to ensure that nothing like petitioner's alleged experience can occur.' The Rastafari faith is rooted in 1930s Jamaica, growing as a response by Black people to white colonial oppression. Its beliefs are a melding of Old Testament teachings and a desire to return to Africa. Its message was spread across the world in the 1970s by Jamaican music icons Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, two of the faith's most famous exponents. The case is Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, 23-1197.
Hamilton Spectator
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Hamilton Spectator
Supreme Court will hear case of Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were shaved by Louisiana prison guards
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear the appeal of a former Louisiana prison inmate whose dreadlocks were cut off by prison guards in violation of his religious beliefs. The justices will review an appellate ruling that held that the former inmate, Damon Landor, could not sue prison officials for money damages under a federal law aimed at protecting prisoners' religious rights. Landor, an adherent of the Rastafari religion , even carried a copy of a ruling by the appeals court in another inmate's case holding that cutting religious prisoners' dreadlocks violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Landor hadn't cut his hair in nearly two decades when he entered Louisiana's prison system in 2020 on a five-month sentence. At his first two stops, officials respected his beliefs. But things changed when he got to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Cottonport, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Baton Rouge, for the final three weeks of his term. A prison guard took the copy of the ruling Landor carried and tossed it in the trash, according to court records. Then the warden ordered guards to cut his dreadlocks. While two guards restrained him, a third shaved his head to the scalp, the records show. Landor sued after his release, but lower courts dismissed the case. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lamented Landor's treatment but said the law doesn't allow him to hold prison officials liable for damages. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the fall. Landor's lawyers argue that the court should be guided by its decision in 2021 allowing Muslim men to sue over their inclusion on the FBI's no-fly list under a sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. President Donald Trump's Republican administration filed a brief supporting Landor's right to sue and urged the court to hear the case. Louisiana asked the justices to reject the appeal, even as it acknowledged Landor's mistreatment. Lawyers for the state wrote that 'the state has amended its prison grooming policy to ensure that nothing like petitioner's alleged experience can occur.' The Rastafari faith is rooted in 1930s Jamaica , growing as a response by Black people to white colonial oppression. Its beliefs are a melding of Old Testament teachings and a desire to return to Africa. Its message was spread across the world in the 1970s by Jamaican music icons Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, two of the faith's most famous exponents. The case is Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, 23-1197. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
