The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that former Louisiana inmate Damon Landor, a Rastafarian, cannot sue prison officials for money after they cut off his dreadlocks in violation of his faith. The justices condemned what happened to him, but in a 6-3 decision said a federal law protecting prisoners' religious rights does not allow damages claims against individual officials, even when those rights are violated.
The ruling followed lower-court decisions that had already held unanimously that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, known as RLUIPA, cannot be used to impose financial liability on guards. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the statute contains no basis for personal lawsuits against prison officers. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by two other liberal justices, dissented and warned that the decision gives prison officials little incentive to follow federal law.
Landor was serving a five-month sentence starting in 2020 for a drug offense. At two prisons, officials respected his religion, and he carried a copy of an appellate ruling in another inmate's case saying that cutting a Rastafarian's dreadlocks violates federal law. At Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Cottonport, about 130 kilometers northwest of Baton Rouge, a guard threw that ruling in the trash, then the warden ordered the dreadlocks removed. Landor says two guards strapped him to a chair while a third shaved his head to the scalp.
After his release, Landor sued, but the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and other courts rejected his case, though the appeals court said it regretted how he was treated. Louisiana later said it had changed its prison policy to prevent a repeat. In a statement to USA Today, Landor said his dreadlocks are "part of me and part of who I am," adding that when they cut his hair, "they cut off my crown."
