The Supreme Courtroom broke spiritual liberty. Damon Landor is the sufferer.

[ad_1] Damon Landor suffered probably the most blatant and apparent violations of his spiritual liberty conceivable.

Landor is Rastafarian and, as a part of his spiritual devotion, doesn't minimize his hair. In response to his legal professionals, he stored this vow for greater than 20 years, and his hair grew lengthy sufficient to fall “ nearly to his knees .” Then, whereas he was serving a five-month jail sentence for a drug-related crime in 2020, jail officers handcuffed him to a chair, held him down, and shaved his head .

Essentially the most outstanding factor about Landor’s case is, when Landor was transferred to the jail facility the place he was shaved, he introduced with him a duplicate of a federal appeals court docket’s choice in Ware v. Louisiana Department of Corrections (2017), which held that Louisiana’s coverage of chopping the hair of Rastafarian prisoners violates a federal spiritual liberty legislation. But, although Landor confirmed this choice to jail officers, they shaved his head anyway.

<img alt="A prison ID showing Landor after his head was shaved." data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="mvmjsc0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/temp_be1711.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=3.7425149700599%2C0%2C92.51497005988%2C100&w=2400"/> A jail ID exhibiting Landor after his head was shaved. Supreme Courtroom of the USA

Given these info, it certain looks like Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections needs to be a slam-dunk case for the plaintiff. On the time that he was shaved, there was a federal court docket choice clearly establishing that Louisiana could not shave Rastafarian inmates who share Landor’s perception that they need to develop their hair lengthy. And the jail officers who shaved him had been clearly conscious of that call as a result of Landor introduced a duplicate of the case with him to jail.

However his case, sadly, is way extra difficult than it needs to be, for 2 causes. One is that Landor is suing a number of of the jail officers liable for shaving him, together with the jail warden and a number of other guards — claiming that they personally owe him for violating his authorized rights. This Supreme Courtroom is often hostile to plaintiffs who search cash damages from particular person legislation enforcement officers, though a 2020 Supreme Courtroom choice means that they're less so in cases involving religious liberty .

The opposite unnecessary issue of Landor’s case stems from a battle over judicial supremacy that consumed just about all the Nineteen Nineties. In Employment Division v. Smith (1990), the Supreme Courtroom drastically restricted the scope of the Structure’s provision defending the free train of faith. Congress then enacted a legislation searching for to undo Smith , however the Supreme Courtroom nullified a lot of that legislation in City of Boerne v. Flores (1997).

Landor sued jail officers below the Non secular Land Use and Institutionalized Individuals Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), which sought to revive a number of the spiritual liberties denied by the Courtroom in Metropolis of Boerne . The Landor case activates whether or not Congress was truly allowed to do this: to revive the precise to sue particular person authorities officers who violate spiritual liberty, which existed previous to Smith .

It's seemingly that the Supreme Courtroom will facet with Landor. The present crop of justices tends to be hyperprotective of non secular rights, especially when the rights of conservative Christians are involved . However this concern about spiritual liberty generally spills over to learn individuals of different faiths. In Holt v. Hobbs (2015), for instance, a unanimous Courtroom sided with a Muslim inmate who wished to develop a beard whereas incarcerated.

However, even when the Courtroom is inclined to help Landor, it must untangle an online of arcane precedents to take action.

A quick historical past of how US spiritual liberty legislation grew to become so muddled

To totally perceive Landor , we have now to return to the Nineteen Sixties. In Sherbert v. Verner (1963), the Supreme Courtroom dominated in favor of a employee who was denied unemployment advantages after he refused to work on Saturdays for spiritual causes, although the state offered advantages to Sunday sabbatarians in comparable circumstances. Sherbert established that the Structure generally permits individuals of religion to hunt exemptions from state and federal legal guidelines that battle with their spiritual beliefs.

The Smith choice effectively overruled Sherbert , holding that the “proper of free train doesn't relieve a person of the duty to adjust to a ‘legitimate and impartial legislation of common applicability on the bottom that the legislation proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his faith prescribes (or proscribes).’” Thus, Smith meant that as long as a legislation applies evenhandedly to individuals of all faiths (and to individuals of no religion), all individuals should adjust to that legislation.

However the politics of non secular liberty have scrambled significantly since Smith was determined in 1990. Smith was authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, a Reagan appointee and conservative icon. However Republicans have since embraced a really broad interpretation of Sherbert that permits spiritual conservatives to defy state or federal legal guidelines that battle with their very own spiritual beliefs — comparable to legal guidelines prohibiting discrimination towards LGBTQ individuals, or legal guidelines requiring employee health plans to cover contraception .

Democratic justices, in the meantime, have usually argued that spiritual liberty shouldn't be understood to “ detrimentally affect others who do not share ” a specific plaintiff’s perception. Thus, for instance, an employer who objects to contraception on spiritual grounds shouldn't be capable of minimize off their worker’s entry to contraception.

However this partisan dispute isn't actually current within the Landor case, as a result of it’s exhausting to see how Damon Landor’s dreadlocks impacted anybody aside from himself. And there’s a broad political consensus that, when somebody workout routines their religion in a approach that doesn't hurt others, they need to be allowed to take action.

Thus, Congress tried to overturn Smith when it enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, a legislation that was unanimously passed by the House and was handed by the Senate in a 97-3 vote. Had RFRA taken full impact, it might have restored the identical rule the Supreme Courtroom first established within the Nineteen Sixties in Sherbert .

However Metropolis of Boerne successfully abolished half of RFRA. As initially enacted, RFRA would have restored pre- Smith spiritual liberty and required each state and federal governments to grant authorized exemptions to non secular believers who had been entitled to them below Sherbert . Metropolis of Boerne , nevertheless, held that Congress couldn't require states to adjust to pre- Smith legislation. (Congress could require the federal authorities to adjust to nearly any rule it chooses.)

Whereas the authorized commonplace introduced in Metropolis of Boerne is obscure and troublesome to clarify concisely, the choice is greatest understood as an announcement of judicial supremacy. The Supreme Courtroom had concluded, in Smith , that the Structure offers solely slim safety to non secular liberty. And the Supreme Courtroom wasn’t going to let Congress overrule it on a query of constitutional interpretation.

The statute at situation within the Landor case, RLUIPA, was Congress’s response to Metropolis of Boerne . Fairly than imposing a blanket rule that every one state officers in each state should adjust to Sherbert , RLUIPA took a extra focused method. The supply of RLUIPA on the coronary heart of Landor requires state prisons that obtain federal funding to accommodate prisoners who object to a legislation or jail coverage on spiritual grounds.

Congress structured this provision this fashion as a result of the Structure typically permits Congress to impose circumstances on states that settle for federal funding. In South Dakota v. Dole (1987), for instance, the Courtroom held that Congress might require recipients of federal freeway funds to boost their consuming age to 21 — although Congress doesn't ordinarily have the facility to command states to alter their very own legal guidelines.

And that brings us to the very particular authorized query that’s earlier than the Courtroom in Landor . The case isn’t truly about whether or not Louisiana violated Landor’s rights when it illegally shaved its head. It's about whether or not the Structure permits the federal authorities to require jail guards, who work in state prisons that take federal funds, to compensate a prisoner in the event that they violate that prisoner’s rights below RLUIPA.

When you discover that query — or, for that matter, this whole dialogue of the Nineteen Nineties-era faith wars between Congress and the Supreme Courtroom — to be mind-numbingly technical and arcane, then congratulations on not having your mind scrambled by legislation faculty. However one essential lesson to remove from this historical past is that this battle between Congress and the Courtroom remodeled Landor , which ought to have been a very simple case, into one thing needlessly troublesome.

Underneath current legislation, Landor would lose his case

If Smith had been by no means determined, then Landor could be entitled to hunt cash damages from the jail officers. He seeks an exemption from a jail coverage requiring him to chop his hair on spiritual grounds, and giving him an exception wouldn't hurt anybody else. Furthermore, a federal law permits people who find themselves denied their constitutional rights to sue state officers who denied them that proper for cash damages.

However Smith held that the Structure doesn't defend individuals like Landor, and there's a vast consensus among the many decrease federal courts that Congress didn't have the authority to reauthorize fits towards particular person jail officers when it enacted RLUIPA.

As Louisiana factors out in its brief to the justices , a number of federal appeals courts have all agreed that prisoners like Landor should not allowed to hunt cash damages from jail officers, even when these officers violate RLUIPA. The rationale why is that, when a state takes cash from the federal authorities, the Courtroom’s precedents deal with that settlement as a contract which binds the states to any circumstances Congress locations upon these funds. However jail guards and different jail officers should not a celebration to this settlement.

As one federal court put it, “RLUIPA can't impose direct legal responsibility on Defendants, who weren't events to the contract created between [the state] and the federal authorities.”

Landor’s legal professionals, in the meantime, suggest a number of methods round this reasoning. They argue, for instance, that jail officers “voluntarily work” for a state that has agreed to adjust to RLUIPA. In the event that they don’t need to adjust to this legislation, they may work for another person. These and comparable arguments, nevertheless, haven't fared properly within the decrease courts.

One other chance, though Landor’s authorized crew doesn't suggest this in its transient, is that the Courtroom might formally overrule Smith — one thing this Courtroom has already come very close to doing .

Recall that Smith held that spiritual objectors should adjust to a “impartial legislation of common applicability” that doesn't single out individuals of religion for inferior therapy. In Roman Catholic Diocese v. Cuomo (2020), a 5-4 majority of the Courtroom learn this language very narrowly: They primarily held that church buildings searching for an exemption from COVID-era public well being legal guidelines could obtain one if they will determine any secular establishment that's topic to much less restrictive guidelines, even when that secular establishment is kind of totally different from a church.

Roman Catholic Diocese was a major blow to Smith , as a result of it primarily established that states should enable spiritual exemptions to their legal guidelines if they allow another exemptions, even when these different exemptions apply to individuals or companies in very totally different circumstances. Landor, nevertheless, doesn't allege that Louisiana permits any non-Rastafarian prisoners to put on lengthy dreadlocks. So he can't profit from Roman Catholic Diocese .

Nonetheless, Roman Catholic Diocese was such a deep minimize at Smith that it wouldn’t change very a lot in any respect if the Courtroom had been to overrule Smith in its entirety. However such a choice would matter an important deal to somebody like Damon Landor.