Rastafarian who had his hair forcibly cut in prison takes dispute to Supreme Court
Rastafarian who had his hair forcibly cut in prison takes dispute to Supreme Court
Interpretation of federal religious-freedom law at issue
Damon Landor’s rights were violated in a “in a stark and egregious manner” when Louisiana prison guards physically forced him to have his hair cut in 2020, a majority of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judges told him in a Feb. 5 decision. But that same majority saw itself as powerless to award him monetary damages, agreeing that “only the Supreme Court can answer” whether that is legally possible.
So Landor is trying to make sure that happens. His attorneys filed papers earlier this month taking his dispute to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, if it agrees to hear the case, will decide on how a federal religious-freedom law designed to protect prisoners should be interpreted.
The case is Damon Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety.
The legal issue the high court is being asked to decide is whether the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act allows a person (often a prisoner) harmed under the terms of the act to sue for damages the culpable public officials in their personal capacity.
RLIUPA is a law passed by Congress in 2000 to correct some deficiencies in the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Rastafari is an Abrahamic religion that originated in Jamaica about a century ago. As a Rastafarian, Landor took what is known as the Nazarite vow1 not to cut his hair. In a decision last year, this is how a panel of the appeals court described the sequence of events leading to the lawsuit:
Landor was incarcerated in 2020. During his brief stint in prison, Landor was primarily housed at two facilities, St. Tammany Parish Detention Center and LaSalle Correctional Center. Both stays were relatively uneventful — each facility respected Landor’s vow and allowed him to either wear his hair long or to keep it under a “rastacap.” LaSalle even went as far as to voluntarily2 amend its grooming policy to allow Landor to keep his dreads. Then, after five peaceful months — and with only three weeks left in his sentence — Landor was transferred to RLCC [the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center].
Upon arrival, Landor was met by an intake guard. Acting preemptively, Landor explained that he was a practicing Rastafarian and provided proof of past religious accommodations. And, amazingly, Landor also handed the guard a copy of our decision in Ware v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, 866 F.3d 263 (5th Cir. 2017), which held that Louisiana’s policy of cutting the hair of Rastafarians violated RLUIPA. Unmoved by our caselaw, the guard threw Landor’s papers in the trash and summoned RLCC’s warden, Marcus Myers. When Myers arrived, he demanded Landor hand over documentation from his sentencing judge that corroborated his religious beliefs. When Landor couldn’t instantly meet that demand, two guards carried him into another room, handcuffed him to a chair, held him down, and shaved his head.
The panel “emphatically” (its word) condemned the treatment that Landor endured. But it said it was bound by a precedent that the appeals court set in an unrelated case in 2009.
There is no way to know how soon the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the case.
See Numbers 6:5. The most famous person associated with the Nazirite vow is Samson from the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. According to Judges, Samson lost his immense strength after his hair was cut as a result of betrayal by a woman he loved, Delilah.
Emphasis in original.