37. Religion.

U.S. Appeals Court

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Conyers v. Abitz, 416 F.3d 580 (7th Cir. 2005). A state prison inmate brought a [section] 1983 action against prison officials, challenging a search imposed on him when he left a prison chapel. The inmate also claimed that prison officials hindered his observance of a religious fast, violating his right to religious exercise. The district court granted summary judgment for the officials on the ground that the inmate failed to his exhaust his claims. The inmate appealed. The appeals court affirmed in part, and vacated and remanded in part. The court held that any Fourth Amendment privacy interest that the inmate had in not being frisked upon leaving a prison chapel was insufficient to overcome the judicial deference generally afforded to prison officials when they are evaluating what is necessary to preserve institutional order and discipline. The court noted that the officials produced evidence that they had a legitimate security interest in frisking inmates as they left the prison chapel because the chapel was a hotbed of contraband exchanges. The court held that summary judgment was barred by fact issues as to whether prison officials bad sufficient reasons to ignore the inmate's request to participate in a religious fast, which was made after an administrative deadline. The court found that the inmate's procedural shortcoming of failing to follow the prison's time deadlines for filing a grievance only amounts to a failure to exhaust administrative remedies, as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), if prison administrators specifically relied on that shortcoming. (Illinois)

U.S. Appeals Court

ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE SINCERITY SERVICES RESTRICTIONS

Kaufman v. McCaughtry, 419 F.3d 678 (7th Cir. 2005). A state prison inmate brought a [section] 1983 First Amendment action against corrections officials, challenging their refusal to permit him to organize an atheism study group among inmates, and challenging his right to receive certain publications by mail. The district court dismissed the action and the inmate appealed, The appeals court affirmed in part and vacated and remanded in part. The court held that the inmate's atheism qualified as a "religion" for the purposes of the First Amendment, where the inmate maintained that his atheistic beliefs played a central role in his life, and there was no dispute that those beliefs were deeply and sincerely held. The court held that officials' refusal to permit...