DENVER — Colorado prisons must provide kosher meals to Orthodox Jewish inmates and not charge them the extra cost, a federal judge ruled in an order made public last week.
"Defendants are in violation (of the Constitution's guarantee of religious rights) by failing to provide plaintiffs with a kosher diet," U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock wrote in a 19-page decision dated Jan. 27.
Jewish inmates in several states, including Pennsylvania and Arizona, are in court battles with prison authorities on the same issue, the attorney for the Colorado inmates, Scot Peterson said.
"This is not frivolous litigation," Peterson said. "This has to do with religious practice. These men are trying to turn their lives around."
In New York state, court-ordered kosher meals for Jewish inmates have been in place since the 1970s, he said. Some other states also provide kosher meals, he said.
The Colorado Department of Corrections fought the lawsuit filed in 1995 by three inmates. Rabbis testified that the inmates must have kosher meals to follow the tenets of Orthodox Judaism. Fourteen inmates have asked for kosher meals.