Louisiana prison guards cut inmate's dreadlocks. Supreme Court deciding if he can sue

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had a few weeks left in his sentence for drug possession

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Damon Landor had a few weeks left in his sentence for drug possession when guards at a Louisiana prison handcuffed him to a chair and shaved off the knee-length dreadlocks he had grown over nearly two decades. Minutes earlier, Landor had handed them a judicial opinion requiring prisons to allow dreadlocks for religious purposes.

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and avoiding contact with dead bodies

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July 2, 2018

COVINGTON—District Attorney Warren Montgomery reports that a St. Tammany Parish jury found Damon Jamel Landor, 40, of Slidell, guilty as charged Friday (June 28) of possession of methamphetamine, possession of cocaine, and possession of amphetamine.

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The District Attorney’s Office plans to pursue sentencing for Landor as a multiple offender, and he faces up to 10 years in prison due to prior convictions.

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Landor has the following prior convictions: distribution of cocaine, distribution of imitation/fraudulent controlled dangerous substance, and possession of cocaine, all in 1998; and misdemeanor battery of a police officer in 2014 and 2018. He also was on federal parole for a conspiracy to distribute cocaine conviction in 2004 but is now facing revocation.

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He absolutely should do things to avoid prison like not breaking the law.

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The Supreme Court on Monday appeared unsympathetic to the plight of a Louisiana man who is suing prison officials who shaved his dreadlocks despite a federal appeals court ruling that established his right to keep them. After nearly two hours of oral argument, a majority of the justices seemed to agree that a federal law intended to protect the religious rights of prisoners does not allow Damon Landor to sue the prison officials in their personal capacities for money damages.

The dispute in Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections began five years ago, when Landor was transferred to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center with three weeks left in his sentence. Landor, who is a devout Rastafarian, had served five months in two other prisons. As part of his faith, he had grown his hair for nearly 20 years without cutting it – making a promise known as the Nazarite Vow. The previous two prisons had allowed him to keep his hair long or under a “rastacap.”

When Landor arrived at the RLCC he provided the intake guard with a copy of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit holding that Louisiana’s policy of cutting the hair of Rastafarians violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a 2000 law intended to protect the religious rights of prisoners. But prison officials threw the copy in the trash, carried Landor to another room, handcuffed him to a chair, and shaved his head bald.

Landor sued the state and the prison officials in federal court. He pointed to a provision of RLUIPA that allows individuals to bring lawsuits against the government and government officials for “appropriate relief.”

The district court threw out the claims against the prison officials in their personal capacity. Chief U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ruled that RLUIPA does not permit private individuals to bring such claims seeking money damages.

Although the three judges that reviewed Landor’s appeal indicated that they “emphatically condemn[ed] the treatment that Landor endured,” the 5th Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling. It pointed to its 2001 ruling holding that plaintiffs cannot sue government officials in their individual capacity for money damages.

The full court of appeals turned down Landor’s plea to weigh in. In a concurring opinion joined by eight other judges, Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote that “Landor clearly suffered a grave legal wrong. The question is whether a damages remedy is available to him under RLUIPA. This is a question,” Clement emphasized, that “only the Supreme Court can answer.”

Landor then went to the Supreme Court, which agreed in June to review his case. On Monday, his lawyer, Zachary Tripp, told the justices that it is “undisputed” that Landor has alleged an assault that is “brazenly illegal.” Landor’s case, he said, “is the poster child for a RLUIPA violation.” In its 2020 decision in Tanzin v. Tanvir, the Supreme Court held that “appropriate relief” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law that provides similar protection from the federal government for religious liberties, can include money damages in lawsuits brought against government officials in their individual capacities. RLUIPA and RFRA are like “twins separated at birth,” Tripp insisted. The purpose of allowing state officials to be sued in their personal capacity under RLUIPA is to allow lawsuits for money damages against them. Otherwise, Tripp said, those officials can treat the law “like garbage.”

Much of Monday’s argument focused on whether prison officials had the kind of clear notice that they could be held liable to subject them to money damages under RLUIPA. Justice Brett Kavanaugh was among the first to voice these concerns, telling Tripp that a “clear statement” was needed for Landor to bring such claims against the prison officials. RLUIPA’s use of the phrase “appropriate relief,” Kavanaugh posited, is “not as clear as it could be.”

Tripp countered that when officials can be sued in their personal capacity, the ordinary rule is that “where there’s a right, there’s a remedy” unless Congress says otherwise. And unless damages are available to prisoners like Landor, he said, claims against an official in his individual capacity would be “totally meaningless.” If the only remedy that a prisoner can obtain is a court order instructing an official not to do something, Tripp cautioned, an official can “turn off” RLUIPA’s application simply by transferring the inmate to a different facility.

Justice Neil Gorsuch pushed back, telling Tripp that the federal courts of appeals are “unanimously against you” on this issue and “have been for many, many, many years.” Where, Gorsuch queried, did the individual officials agree to be bound by RLUIPA and to be subject to money damages? What notice, he continued, did they have? Moreover, he added later, the federal government in Tanzin had indicated that RLUIPA does not authorize suits for money damages against officials in their personal capacity, which undermined any argument that the availability of those damages was “obvious.”

Justice Samuel Alito also seemed to agree. If, as the court held 14 years ago, RLUIPA’s reference to “appropriate relief” was not sufficiently clear to overcome sovereign immunity and allow an inmate to sue the state for money damages for a RLUIPA violation, how is it clear enough to provide notice for purposes of the Constitution’s spending clause, which allows Congress to make the availability of federal funds hinge on the recipient’s agreement to comply with specific conditions. Why, Alito queried, should the standard be less demanding?

Libby Baird, the assistant to the U.S. solicitor general who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, which filed a brief supporting Landor, told the justices that RLUIPA clearly authorizes individual damages against state officials. RLUIPA, Baird said, “puts states on clear notice” that officials can be sued for damages in their personal capacity.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed. In this case, she said, the prison officials work for the state, which is the recipient of federal funding, and they have to comply with RLUIPA as part of accepting their jobs.

Chief Justice John Roberts resisted this idea, however, responding that it was “based on a legal fiction” and “not what happens as a matter of practice.”

But Justice Elena Kagan also appeared to agree. She suggested that government officials are not surprised when they are sued under Section 1983, which allows suits against state and local government officials for money damages for violations of constitutional rights. They could raise the same objections as the officials in this case, she said.

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