The excessive court docket has upheld a ruling that prisoners can’t sue jail workers for cash damages underneath non secular liberties legislation.
Printed On 23 Jun 2026
The USA Supreme Court has decided {that a} Rastafarian man can’t sue jail officers who lower his dreadlocks for violating his religious beliefs.
On Tuesday, the court docket’s conservative majority dominated that Damon Landor, a previously incarcerated man, can’t file a lawsuit towards jail workers for violations of the Spiritual Land Use and Institutionalized Individuals Act (RLUIPA), a legislation meant to uphold religious liberties for these behind bars.
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Writing for almost all, Justice Neil Gorsuch didn’t argue that Landor’s non secular rights had not been violated.
As a substitute, he wrote that it was improper to sue the jail officers, as that they had not consented to be liable underneath the RLUIPA legislation.
“Mr. Landor’s case can’t proceed towards them any greater than a breach of contract motion may proceed towards a defendant who by no means shaped a contract,” Gorsuch wrote.
The ruling upheld a decrease court docket’s resolution which discovered that incarcerated folks can’t search monetary damages from particular person staff, even in circumstances the place their rights have been violated.
Landor, nevertheless, launched an announcement by way of his attorneys indicating he would proceed his pursuit of justice.
“I’m disenchanted however not defeated,” Landor stated in an announcement from his attorneys. “What occurred to me violated my religion and my dignity. I’ll proceed pursuing accountability. What occurred to me shouldn’t occur to anybody else.”
Landor served a five-month jail time period in Louisiana in 2020. He’s Rastafarian, a faith that requires him to develop his hair as an indication of his religion.
As he entered the jail system, he carried a replica of a 2017 appeals court docket ruling that discovered that slicing a spiritual prisoner’s dreadlocks violated federal legislation.
Jail officers initially revered Landor’s beliefs. However after he was transferred to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Middle in Louisiana, a jail guard threw the doc within the trash, and the ability’s warden then ordered his hair lower, in accordance with court docket filings.
Two guards held Landor down as a 3rd shaved his head.
In writing for the six-member majority, Gorsuch maintained that the legislation imposes obligations solely on the state or native entity receiving federal funds, not on particular person staff, as they haven’t consented to be topic to lawsuits underneath the statute.
The court docket’s three liberal justices dissented, arguing that RLUIPA is a legislation reasonably than a contract.
Writing for the dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that the excellence was key. Jail officers, she stated, would have little motive to abide by authorized protections for prisoners, absent any penalties for his or her actions.
“It’s not usually {that a} real-life incident so clearly illustrates Congress’s causes for adopting laws, or the Structure’s knowledge in enabling it,” Brown Jackson wrote.
