On The Front Lines
Federal Judge Orders Prison System to Allow Muslims to Worships Freely, Cites Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act
U.S. District Court Imposes Preliminary Injunction Against California Dept. of CorrectionsSacramento, Ca.--Citing the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California has issued a preliminary ruling against the California Dept. of Corrections on behalf of Ernest Fenelon, a Muslim prisoner who was denied the right to attend Islamic lunchtime prayer services known as Jumu'ah and retaliated against for seeking redress for the violation of his constitutional rights. According to Muslim belief, Jumu'ah is commanded by the Koran and must be held every Friday between noon and afternoon prayers. The RLUIPA, which was enacted in 2000, prohibits the government from placing a substantial burden on the religious exercise of prisoners without a compelling reason. Institute attorneys have also filed suit on behalf of a class of Muslim prisoners at California Medical Facility, alleging that the treatment Fenelon received is just one example of a system-wide lack of respect for prisoners' constitutional rights.
In March 2000, the district court placed a permanent injunction on the California Medical Facility (CMF) in Vacaville, Calif., finding that the prison's practice of denying inmates the use of Earned Time Off to attend Jumu'ah was unconstitutional. The injunction prohibited the prison from denying Muslim prisoners access to their Jumu'ah services and from retaliating against them for filing the lawsuit. Nevertheless, CMF officials continued to prevent Muslim inmates from attending their weekly services and took retaliatory action against those who had objected to prison policies. In February 2002, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's ruling on the grounds that it did not conform to the specific findings required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The Ninth Circuit also called the appeals court's definition of Jumu'ah "strained," because they categorized the service as a "special" religious service instead of a routine one, which does not qualify for earned time off. Furthermore, the court wanted the district court to explore whether Fenelon could attend Jumu'ah during lunch, negating the need for the use of earned time off. For at least a decade before Fenelon's conversion to Islam in 1993, CMF officials permitted Muslim inmates to attend Jumu'ah during their lunch hour without making them use their earned time off or requiring authorized permission to attend. However, in June 1994 the Supervisor of Academic Instruction, the key defendant in this case, threatened to sanction Fenelon with a "Serious Rules Violation" for leaving class to attend Jumu'ah and issued a memo to all CMF staff stating that inmates were not to be released from their classes for religious programs unless approved by the warden and that Muslim prayer services were not approved for inmate release.
"As the Supreme Court has recognized, Jumu'ah is an essential aspect of worship for Muslims," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "The denial of the right to worship according to the dictates of one's own belief system is an utterly inhumane form of punishment: it cuts prisoners off, not only from society but from values that sustain and perhaps transform them."
The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.
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