Supreme Court rules Rastafari man can't sue Louisiana prison officials who cut his dreadlocks
Source: AP
Updated 10:17 AM EDT, June 23, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday barred a former Louisiana inmate from suing prison officials who cut off his dreadlocks in violation of his Rastafari religious beliefs.
The justices condemned what happened to the former inmate, Damon Landor. But they ruled that a federal law designed to protect the religious rights of inmates does not permit lawsuits for money damages even when rights are violated.
The high court agreed with lower courts that without exception had ruled that the law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, can’t be used to hold those who violate inmates’ rights financially responsible. The justices refused to apply the rationale from their decision in 2020 that allowed Muslim men to sue over their inclusion on the FBI’s no-fly list under a sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The Justice Department, which argued against the plaintiffs in the no-fly list case in President Donald Trump’s first Republican administration, had sided with Landor.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-prison-dreadlocks-rastafari-louisiana-f9b4d53346daee56335185542db3d4ec
Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/23-1197_h3ci.pdf
= new reply since forum marked as read
and had SCOTUBlog up to get the ruling link!
This was really a case about disallowing suits against employees in their personal capacities.
And top 'o the rainy morning to you. 
In a 6-to-3 vote dividing the court along ideological lines, the majority said federal law did not allow the prisoner, Damon Landor, to sue individual guards in their private capacity for violating his religious beliefs.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, saying there were limits to Congress’s power to attach strings to the federal money given to state institutions like the Louisiana prison where Mr. Landor was held. The three liberal justices dissented, warning that the court’s decision would leave few options for state prisoners whose religious rights were violated.
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The decision was a departure from a series of Supreme Court rulings in recent years that have repeatedly bolstered religious rights. In 2022, the court sided with a Texas death row inmate who wanted his pastor to touch him and pray aloud at the time of his execution. That same year, the court said a high school football coach had a constitutional right to pray at the 50-yard line after his team’s games.
The Trump administration and lawyers for the former inmate, Mr. Landor, had urged the Supreme Court to allow his lawsuit to proceed.
Yes, the Neoconfederate Six got to the right of the Trump administration on this. I recommend Jackson’s dissent in its entirety, but the bottom line:
It’s a particular thumb in the eye for Roberts to assign the opinion to Gorsuch, who authored the opinion granting the expansive religious freedom claim brought by a Christian based on a completely fraudulent set of facts. But it really underscores who gets a favorable hearing for their asserted rights and who doesn’t.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/06/supreme-court-republicans-invent-bizarre-rule-to-deny-a-remedy-to-rastafarian-whose-rights-were-egregiously-violated