For the third time in as many years, attorneys for the ACLU of Rhode Island and the RWU Law Prisoners’ Rights Clinic have sued the R.I. Department of Corrections (RIDOC) over its refusal to accommodate the religious practices of Native American prisoners at the ACI.
The lawsuit, filed by Jared Goldstein, Director of the Clinic, and ACLU of RI cooperating attorney Lynette Labinger, is on behalf of five prisoners of Native American ancestry housed at the ACI’s maximum security facility. The complaint argues that RIDOC has refused to accommodate an array of religious practices that Native Americans are routinely allowed to practice in federal and state prisons across the country. They include the right to hold religious ceremonies, to possess religious items such as headbands and dreamcatchers that express their religious traditions, and to be given a diet consistent with their religious beliefs.
The lawsuit documents the plaintiffs’ repeated unsuccessful efforts over the course of a year to get RIDOC to accommodate their religious beliefs. The suit notes that “prison systems around the country have adopted comprehensive policies for accommodating the religious practices of Native Americans,” while RIDOC has adopted no such policies. The lawsuit also points out that “[t]his is not a new problem. For years, Native American prisoners have complained about the absence of any religious accommodations at the ACI, but RIDOC has ignored those concerns.”
For example, two years ago, the clinic and the ACLU successfully represented a prisoner in medium security who had been barred from wearing a Native American headband, despite the ability of Muslim inmates to wear kufis and Jewish inmates to wear yarmulkes. In response to that suit, RIDOC relented and allowed him to obtain and wear the desired headband, but they did not agree to any similar accommodations for other prisoners.
Last year, the clinic and the ACLU sued on behalf of a group of other Native American prisoners in that facility, challenging their inability to obtain religious items, engage in religious ceremonies, obtain a diet consistent with their religious traditions, and meet with a Native American elder. That case, Smith v. RIDOC, is pending.
This lawsuit, like the other two, was brought under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a federal law that bars states from imposing any substantial burden on a prisoner’s exercise of religion unless it furthers a compelling interest and is the least restrictive means available. The suit seeks a court order requiring RIDOC to accommodate the prisoners’ religious beliefs that have been denied them as laid out in the complaint. The plaintiffs are Jaquontee Reels, Anthony Moore, Louis Seignious, Craig Robinson, and Wallace Cable.
Attorney Goldstein said today: “The constitution and federal law protect the right of everyone to practice religion, and that protection applies wherever you are, even in prison. Yet two years after the RWU Prisoners’ Rights Clinic and ACLU of RI sued to enforce the right of a Native American to wear a headband in prison, and a year after we sued to enforce the right of other Native Americans prisoners to hold drum circles and pipe ceremonies, Native American prisoners in Rhode Island still cannot practice any aspect of their religion. Prisons around the country accommodate all the traditional practices these prisoners are asking for, but Rhode Island continues to deny them. This has got to stop.”
Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of RI, added: “Even after two other lawsuits, RIDOC continues to disregard of the rights of incarcerated Native American people. Even in prison, freedom of religion remains a fundamental right, and we will continue to work to prevent the suppression of that right at the ACI.”
A copy of the complaint can be found here.