The ACLU of Rhode Island announced today the favorable settlement of a lawsuit that challenged the R.I. Department of Corrections’ (RIDOC) restrictive policies governing the religious freedom of people incarcerated at the ACI and, in particular, the agency’s refusal to accommodate the religious practices of a Native American prisoner. The settlement includes an award of $40,000 in attorneys’ fees.
The lawsuit, filed by Jared Goldstein, Director of the RWU Law Prisoners’ Rights Clinic, and ACLU of RI cooperating attorney Lynette Labinger, had argued that RIDOC’s refusal to allow prisoner Wolf Pawochawog-Mequinosh to wear an Apache headband, along with its policy of delegating to itself decisions as to what religious beliefs and practices align with an inmate’s religious designation, violated his rights under a federal law that protects the religious freedom of incarcerated individuals. The lawsuit noted that RIDOC allows Muslim and Jewish prisoners to wear kufis and yarmulkes.
Under the settlement agreement, in addition to the award of attorneys’ fees, RIDOC has agreed to allow Wolf to wear the requested headband. More broadly, RIDOC is also required within 120 days to adopt a process to allow all prisoners whose religion is not specifically recognized by the agency to seek approval to obtain religious items and attend religious services consistent with their religion. The case will remain open until the agency complies with that requirement.
RIDOC had repeatedly denied Wolf’s requests for a headband on the grounds that his religion was designated as “Pagan/Wiccan” in RIDOC’s data management system and an Apache headband was not an approved religious item for people with that designation and, further, Apache headbands had not been approved as a religious item in any RIDOC facility. But the lawsuit pointed out that RIDOC’s system does not include a religious designation for adherents of Native American religious traditions, and the designation chosen unlawfully determined “the religious observances [prisoners] will be allowed to attend and the religious items they will be allowed to obtain.”
The suit was brought under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which 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. In 2021, Wolf, formerly known as Brian Brownell, filed a petition in state court to change his name to express his Apache heritage and faith. He noted that he was given the name Pawochawog-Mequinosh as a child by an Apache elder, and that changing his legal name was important to him because it connected him to his “spirituality, religion, and history.” The petition to change his name was granted a year later.
Attorney Goldstein said today: “This case reflects a fundamental principle: People in prison may lose their liberty but they cannot be deprived of their humanity, and the free exercise of religion is a basic human right. Today’s settlement is a first step in getting the Department of Corrections to accommodate Native American religion, as the law requires. Now that Wolf has his headband, we look forward to RIDOC’s adoption of new policies that will more broadly allow Native Americans imprisoned at the ACI to be able to practice their religious traditions to the same extent that Christian, Jewish, and other prisoners can practice theirs.”
