SHARIAsource

Plaintiff Joe Burgos Vega, a practicing Muslim prisoner at the Connecticut Department of Corrections (“DOC”), brought this action against the Respondents, officials at the DOC, claiming that Respondents’ 1) denial of the Plaintiff’s request to be circumcised; 2) denial of access to suitable Islamic prayer oils; and 3) frequently canceled Friday congregational prayer constituted a violation of his right to exercise his religion. The Respondents argued that they are entitled to qualified immunity from suit in their individual capacities. The Court sided with the Respondents, finding that 1) prisoners have no constitutional or statutory right to a surgery that is not medically necessary; 2) DOC officers did not violate the Plaintiff’s right with regard to prayer oils, because they provided him with access to the imam-approved commissary oil; and 3) that although prisoners have the right to participate in group religious services, the frequent Friday prayer cancellations were reasonable because they occurred due to a shortage of volunteer imams and that other opportunities for religious practice were available to Muslim inmates.

The Plaintiff, Marcus Leeotis Watts, sued the Respondents, various prison officials at the Perry Correctional Institution in South Carolina, for allegedly violating his rights under RLUIPA and the First Amendment when the prison failed to provide Muslim prisoners with ḥalāl meat. The Respondents contended that the vegetarian meal option that complied with Islamic law was adequate, and sought summary judgment. The District Court granted summary judgment for the Respondents, citing earlier case law providing that the failure to provide a ḥalāl diet containing meat did not substantially burden prisoners' exercise of religion because a Muslim prisoner is not religiously-obligated to eat meat.

Muslim inmate John McGlothlin brought a case under §1983, alleging that the prison chaplain and other prison officials violated his right to free exercise under the First Amendment. The plaintiff claimed that Muslim inmates were treated differently from fellow inmates of other religious beliefs, exemplified by comparing the announcements on the bulletin board for Muslims with one run by the Christian Fellowship. A report by the U.S. Magistrate recommended that this case should be dismissed, and the District Court agreed. Specifically, the Court found that the plaintiff’s claims against the prison’s non-denominational chaplain should be dismissed as the chaplain was not a state actor; it further dismissed the claims against the other officials because the plaintiff’s claims failed to demonstrate a disparity of treatment based on religion.

A group of Muslim employees sued their employer, Celestica Corporation, a manufacturing company, and Adecco USA, Inc., a temporary employment agency, under Title VII and the Minnesota Human Rights Act. The plaintiffs alleged discrimination on the basis of religion, and also claimed that the defendants refused to reasonably accommodate their religiously-mandated prayer schedule despite repeated requests. The defendants argued that they offered the plaintiffs options to accommodate their prayer schedule, including changing shifts. The Court, however, found that there was enough evidence to allow a jury to conclude the defendants did not reasonably accommodate the religion of the plaintiffs; it thus denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment.

Plaintiff Shawn Sharp, an inmate in the custody of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC), brought this civil rights action pursuant to the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and RLUIPA, claiming that two prison facilities unlawfully denied his request to accommodate his particular religious group. The plaintiff claimed that the Sunni Muslim services offered at the DOC did not allow him free exercise of his religion, since he is a member of the so-called Habashi sect of Islam, which has ideological differences from the prison’s recognized Sunni group. The prison’s Muslim chaplain disagreed, stating that if Sharp was a Sunni Muslim, as he claimed to be, then there was no reason why Sharp could not attend the already-provided services of Sunni Muslims. The Court decided in favor of the Defendants, determining that the DOC successfully presented a qualified immunity defense, and that the plaintiff’s request had no rational connection to any legitimate penological interest.

Plaintiff James McRoy claimed that prison officials violated his First Amendment free exercise rights by cancelling some of the scheduled Muslim prayer services without notice, limiting the number of services that Muslim inmates could attend each week, limiting the number of Muslim inmates who could attend each service at any given time, subjecting Muslim inmates to strip searches before they could leave their cells to attend services, prohibiting imams from bringing religious publications onto the prison’s premises, and prohibiting Muslim inmates from exclusively living together in one of the prison’s living units. The prison officials, however, claimed that their actions resulted from a lack of volunteers to organize services and the need to curtail inmate movement on some days because of heightened security concerns. The Court held that McRoy did not sufficiently demonstrate that a jury could conclude that he had been subjected to a violation of his rights. It thus entered summary judgment in favor of the defendants.

Plaintiff Leo Pittman-Bey, a Muslim inmate, sued Texas prison officials for allegedly violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and his constitutional right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment by denying him after-sunset meals during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Previous prison regulations allowed practicing Muslim inmates to receive after-sunset meals during Ramadan, but only if they had attended jumuʿa (Friday prayer) services in the 60 days prior to Ramadan or had received a special exception from the Muslim chaplain. Pittman-Bey did not attend the services because, as an adherent of the Ḥanafī school of Sunnī Islam, he said he believed that jumuʿa services are not proper if conducted in nonpublic settings like prisons. The District Court granted summary judgment for the defendants, determining that denying Ramadan meals in accordance with the jumuʿa attendance policy did not violate the First Amendment.

Phillip Jean-Laurent brought an action against South Carolina prison officials for allegedly violating his First Amendment right to the free exercise of his Islamic religious tenets and the Eighth Amendment. Specifically, the plaintiff claimed that the respondents prevented his attendance at Islamic religious services during Ramadan as retaliation for him using the law library, and deprived him of evening and morning meals required by Muslim religious exercises during Ramadan, in preparation for fasting during daylight hours. The District Court found that the respondents properly answered the interrogatories as to the policy of forbidding the plaintiff to attend prayer services, but that the respondents did not properly answer questions in document requests regarding the plaintiff's and other Muslim prisoners’ ability to secure Ramadan morning meals.

Muslim inmate Imam Abd’Allah Halim Abdul Akbar (aka Phillip M. Hudson) sued several prison officials under §1983, alleging a violation of his First Amendment free exercise rights. Specifically, the plaintiff alleged that the prison denied his attempts to start a Muslim inmate group. The prison officials argued that the denial resulted from the plaintiff’s failure to follow the proper procedures for creating such a group. The Court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant, concluding that the prison did not deprive the plaintiff of his ability to practice his religion and that the regulations governing creation of inmate groups were consistent with legitimate penological objectives of preventing gang activity and maintaining order in the prison population. 

Petitioner Kofi Easterling, an inmate at Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI), filed suit against the Respondents, various prison officials, alleging that they ignored the Petitioner's instructions as to when Ramadan began. The Petitioner claimed that the Respondents’ Ramadan date violated his religious beliefs under the First Amendment and RLUIPA. In the District Court, the Respondents filed a motion for summary judgment, to which the Plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment in response. The District Court granted summary judgment to the Respondents, finding that the Plaintiff’s RLUIPA claim failed because he had produced no evidence of a substantial burden on his religious exercise. Because the Plaintiff failed to meet his burden under RLUIPA, he similarly failed to establish that the Respondents burdened a “central religious belief or practice” in violation of the Free Exercise Clause. Therefore, the Respondents were entitled to summary judgment on the First Amendment and RLUIPA claims. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

William Knuckles and several other inmates, all adherents of the Nation of Islam, filed a §1983 claim against prison officials, alleging a violation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Specifically, they alleged that they were not allowed to correspond with their religious leaders, receive books and periodicals, "wear Muslim medals," or have a special dietary plan. In finding that the inmates were entitled to be visited by qualified ministers, the Court cautioned that all meetings should remain of a religious nature and could be supervised by prison officials.

A female Muslim police officer, Kimberlie Webb, sued the City of Philadelphia under Title VII and the Pennsylvania Religious Freedom Protection Act, alleging religion- and gender-based discrimination. Specifically, the plaintiff objected to the City barring her from wearing a headscarf (ḥijāb) with her police uniform, and argued that the prohibition amounted to a failure to accommodate her right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. The City argued that the bar was consistent with Philadelphia Police Directive 78 and that allowing her to wear religious garb would cause an undue burden on the City and the Police Department, in that it would compromise a look of cohesiveness and uniformity among officers. The Court concluded that the plaintiff failed to exhaust internal remedies regarding her claim of gender discrimination and found the bar on the headscarf to be a compelling state interest. Accordingly, the Court upheld the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, granting the City’s motion for summary judgment.

Plaintiffs, Muslim prisoners, sued the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, alleging violations of state and federal law, including the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, § 1983, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). Plaintiffs alleged that being patted down by female prison guards violated their First Amendment free exercise rights inasmuch as it contravened the tenets of their Islamic faith, which forbids intimate contact between unrelated members of the opposite gender. The Court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment for most of the claims, but denied it with respect to the RLUIPA and the Massachusetts General Law claims, concluding that a jury would best be able to determine whether the alleged infraction violated the terms of these two statutes.

This case was brought on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, which granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, prison officials (Warden Jack Lee, Assistant Warden Gene Shinault, and Correctional Officer K. Lester). Petitioner Leroy Lovelace was removed from a “pass list” (which gives inmates access to Ramadan prayer services and special meals) after prison officials claimed that he broke his fast by eating during the day. Lovelace argued that his removal was due to his complaints about expired food, and was thus in violation of his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, and the requirements of Section 3 of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) (protecting prisoners from having their religious practices substantially burdened, without a compelling government interest). Section 3 of RLIUPA states that “No government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution, as defined in section 1997 of this title, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person--is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C.A. §2000cc-1(a). The Court vacated the grant of summary judgment in favor of Officer Lester, the prison official who reported the alleged fast breaking, as well as against Warden Lee, who was in charge of overseeing the prison, concluding that both officials played direct roles in the incident. The Court remanded the case to the district court to determine whether the plaintiff had made out a valid due process claim, and the Court affirmed the remainder of the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants.

Plaintiff Peter McDaniels sued various prison officials, alleging that they intentionally failed to provide him with pre-sunrise meals during Ramadan and with an Eid al-Fitr meal at the conclusion of Ramadan, in violation of his First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion. The Plaintiff also contended that the lack of provision of ḥalāl meat and deprivation of an Arabic Qurʾān for nine months were discriminatory violations of his rights. The Respondents moved for summary judgment. The District Court granted the Respondents' request for summary judgment on the Ramadan meals issue, stating that the Plaintiff failed to show that such failures to provide a meal on isolated incidents imposed a significant restriction on his religious practice. However, the District Court decided that the Respondents did not meet their burden of demonstrating that the religious diet policy furthers a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling interest. The District Court dismissed the plaintiff's claim that the Respondents deprived the Plaintiff of his rights by not allowing him access to a Qurʾān, finding that the Respondents were not required to provide the Plaintiff with an Arabic Qurʾān or dates to be used in his devotional practice, given the absence of any showing that Respondents prevented him from obtaining such items. The Plaintiff did not seek injunctive relief, but the Court found that the individual Respondents were entitled to qualified immunity, so they could not be held liable for personal damages under RLUIPA.

The plaintiff, Raymond Miller, brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the defendants, employees at the St. Lawrence County Correctional Facility (New York), violated his free exercise rights under the First Amendment by restricting his ability to practice Islam. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants only allowed him to wear his kufi headgear when inside his cell. The District Court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, determining that the defendants' policies were not irrational or unreasonable, and that the plaintiff had failed to demonstrate "that a more reasonable accommodation could have been made."

Plaintiff Tabari Strong, a Muslim prisoner in Beeville, Texas, filed a lawsuit alleging that the prison's grooming policy requiring all inmates to be clean-shaven violated his statutory rights under RLUIPA. He also claimed that the policy violated his right to exercise his religion under the First Amendment, and that enforcement of the policy violated his right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment, claiming that he is entitled to a declaratory judgment. The District Court refused to grant the plaintiff's request for injunctive relief as an "extraordinary remedy," but maintained that it would be contrary to justice not to grant the relief requested by the plaintiff to have a quarter-inch beard.

Plaintiff Marlo Thomas, incarcerated at the Ely State Prison (ESP), brought this action against former ESP Warden E.K. McDaniel, former ESP Associate Warden Renee Baker, and former ESP Associate Warden Debra Brooks, for an alleged violation of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Plaintiff claimed that he was placed in administrative segregation by the Respondents because they had a personal grudge against him because he was a Muslim inmate. The Respondents filed a motion for summary judgment. The District Court found that the Plaintiff failed to submit any evidence to support several elements of his First Amendment free exercise claim and his Fourteenth Amendment claim. The District Court found that the Plaintiff produced no evidence that he sincerely believed he must engage in group worship to satisfy the tenants of his Islamic faith. Furthermore, the District Court found that the Plaintiff produced no evidence that Respondents' decision to confine him in administrative segregation was not reasonably related to the prison's legitimate penological interests, and instead found that the Plaintiff was placed in administrative segregation for safety and security reasons unrelated to religious discrimination.

The plaintiff submitted that he and the defendant (bank) had entered into a Murabahah (sale-purchase) agreement on 25 July 2013, pursuant to which the plaintiff owed to the defendant IDR 415 million. As a security, the plaintiff leveraged his property. Over a period of 60 months, the plaintiff had agreed to make monthly repayments of IDR 6,950,000. Over the first 12 months the plaintiff successfully made these monthly repayments, which totalled IDR 83,4000,000. When the plaintiff's business suffered from the late arrival of certain stock, however, the plaintiff defaulted on his payments over three months in 2014, causing the defendant to exercise the option to auction the plaintiff's property. The plaintiff submitted the defendant's actions were reactionary and dismissive of his attempts to negotiate with the defendant for more time. They also denied the plaintiff his right, under art 18 of the agreement, to deliberative dispute resolution.

As both parties failed to attend court, however, the court ruled a mistrial and ordered the plaintiff to pay costs.

In this circuit court decision, which affirms the district court's judgment striking down the Oklahoman constitutional amendment to prohibit courts from considering "Sharia Law" in their decisions, the Court rules that the constitutional amendment violates Muslim petitioner's right to free exercise, as the ban imposed prevents him from engaging in many religious acts such as executing a will. The amendment also sends an unmistakable message to the Muslim community that they are considered outsiders - a message that is impermissible under the Federal Constitution.