|
|
| 9th Circuit sides with prisoner vs. long-hair ban |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/02/2005 |
|
A federal appeals court ruled late last week that the California prison system's ban on long hair for male prisoners violated a former Indian inmate's religious freedom. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court decision that denied Billy Soza Warsoldier a preliminary injunction against prison rules that ban hair longer than three inches on male inmates. In its July 29 decision, the appeals court also ordered the trial court to reconsider the case in light of the panel's ruling. Warsoldier, a Cahuilla Indian who served about 14 months in a minimum-security prison at Adelanto, said his religion teaches that hair symbolizes and embodies the knowledge that a person acquires during a lifetime. Cutting his hair, except when a close relative dies, would prevent him from joining his ancestors in the afterlife, he added. He hasn't cut his hair since his father died in 1980, the court said, and it now extends to his belt. For violating the grooming policies, Warsoldier was confined to his cell, denied sentence-reducing credits, expelled from print-shop and landscaping classes, denied telephone calls, removed from an inmate advisory council position, denied recreation privileges in the main yard and limited in what he could buy at the prison store. Prison officials said the limits on hair length were needed for security and health reasons. But the appeals court said California prisons don't limit the hair length of female inmates and that the federal prison system and prisons in some other states don't have restrictions on hair length. The justices said the prison hair policy forced Warsoldier "to choose between following his religious beliefs and suffering continual punishment. "We have previously held that putting substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs infringes on the free exercise of religion," they added. Ben Wizner, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who helped represent Warsoldier, said the ruling "marks the writing on the wall for restrictions on inmate religious practices that are not strictly necessary for prison security." Warsoldier, a 56-year-old Riverside artist and gallery owner who was released from prison in May 2004, said the decision was a victory for Indian men. "I was just upholding something I have always believed in," he added. He said he was charged with drunken driving and possession of brass knuckles after he was stopped for speeding near Van Nuys. A spokesman for the Department of Corrections, Todd Slosek, said the state's attorneys wanted to review the ruling before commenting. Andrey Huang, a private attorney who also represented Warsoldier, said he probably would be willing to drop his lawsuit if the department agreed to revise its grooming requirements "on a broad basis." |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think