The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear the appeal from a former Louisiana inmate who said prison guards violated his religious rights by cutting his dreadlocks.
Damon Landor, a former inmate who began the case while incarcerated, is a Rastafarian. Dreadlocks hold a spiritual and cultural significance for adherents to the religion. He was incarcerated in 2020, and brought the case after he said prison guards forcibly shaved his dreadlocks and violated his First Amendment rights.
The justices will review an appellate ruling that held Landor could not sue the prison officials for money damages under federal protection for prisoners’ rights.
When he entered the Louisiana prison system in 2020, Landor had not cut his hair in nearly 20 years.
Officials at first respected his religious practice of having long dreadlocks, but when he arrived at a correctional facility to finish the final weeks of his five-month sentence, the warden at Raymond Laborde Correctional Center ordered guards to cut his hair. After being released from prison, Landor sued.
Lower courts dismissed his case and he then appealed. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling “emphatically” condemned Landor’s treatment, but said he could not sue the guards in their individual capacities under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
It follows a unanimous decision from the justices in 2020 finding the act’s sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, allowed Muslim men to sue over being placed on the FBI’s no-fly list, The Associated Press reported.
Landor is backed by the Trump administration, which filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the case and support him.
The justices will review the appeal’s ruling and hear oral arguments during their next term, which begins in October.