Legal Features

The Rutherford Institute's religious freedom arguments in Hoever v. Belleis

Urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn lower court rulings that deem only “mandatory” religious practices as worthy of First Amendment accommodations, thereby rendering many common religious practices such as reading a Bible unprotected, The Rutherford Institute has asked the Court to ensure that prisoners are afforded the fundamental protections they are entitled to under the U.S. Constitution. In weighing in on the case of Hoever v. Belleis, Rutherford Institute attorneys asked the Supreme Court to hear the case of Conraad Hoever, a Christian inmate whose First Amendment rights were violated after prison officials refused to provide him with one of his own Bibles when he was placed in solitary confinement, and instead gave him a Spanish-language Bible, which he could not read.