Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, member of RFI’s Board of Directors, commented this week on Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety, an important religious freedom case before the Supreme Court this term. Picciotti-Bayer, who is also a legal analyst for EWTN News and Director of the Conscience Project, summed up the majority opinion as saying that “federal law protecting the religious rights of prisoners does not offer them the right to sue individual prison officials personally for money damages.”

The disturbing incident that led to this case involved Damon Landor, a Rastafarian inmate who had worn dreadlocks as an act of religious devotion for nearly 20 years. Picciotti-Bayer writes:

With only three weeks left in his sentence, Landor was transferred to a new facility. When a guard moved to cut his hair, Landor produced a copy of the court decision protecting Rastafarian inmates. The guard threw it in the trash. The warden arrived, demanded paperwork from Landor’s sentencing judge, and when Landor offered to call his lawyer, the warden replied: “[t]oo late for that.” Guards handcuffed Landor to a chair and shaved his head.

Picciotti-Bayer concludes by pointing not to what the Court should have done, but to what Congress should now do in response:

Damon Landor will not receive a dollar for what was done to him. But he has done something important by carrying a case that exposed a real gap in the law all the way to the highest court in the country. The question now is whether Congress is paying attention. The Supreme Court has rendered its verdict on what remedies are available under RLUIPA. It is time for Congress to make clear that no prison official can ignore the religious rights of inmates under their charge and walk away with no consequences.

Read the full article: “Supreme Court Rules 6-3 Against Prisoner Seeking Damages for Religious Rights Violation.”