ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 18, 1996 TAG: 9606180087
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
A JUDGE CONSIDERS a longer-lasting injunction barring rules that make it more difficult for Jewish and Islamic prisoners to get special food.
Rahim X, 25, has been incarcerated since he was 17, but in federal court Monday he displayed the oratorical skills of a young lawyer.
He represented himself in a case challenging the state prison system's new policy that makes it harder for him to get a proper Muslim diet.
U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson did not rule from the bench after the three-hour hearing, but said he would decide quickly whether to turn his recent temporary restraining order into a longer-lasting injunction forbidding prison officials from enforcing the policy.
In his temporary order, Wilson said the policy's requirement that outside clergy vouch for prisoners' beliefs violated the First Amendment.
The policy, implemented in May, affects Jewish and Islamic inmates who want special meals that accommodate their dietary restrictions. To qualify under the new policy, they must get written affirmation from clergy that they sincerely hold their beliefs. Clergy also are required to submit their credentials to the Department of Corrections for verification.
Before he heard arguments, Wilson said the issue was not whether inmates are entitled to special diets. In fact, he believes the state has a "strong interest" in offering the same diet to every prisoner.
But since the prison does offer the diets, the question Wilson said he wanted to consider was whether the new policy "fosters excessive government entanglement" in inmates' religious practices.
"We're doing our dead level best to avoid" excessive entanglement, Assistant Attorney General Mark Davis told Wilson.
The policy was a result of a huge increase in the number of prisoners who wanted the special diets and of the high turnover of inmates who weren't adhering to the diet and were removed from it. Corrections officers sought a way to verify that prisoners seeking the diet were sincere. Buckingham Correctional Center, where X is serving a sentence for robbery, is the only prison that provides the religious diets, which means that qualified inmates must be transferred there from around the state.
Kosher diets for Jewish inmates eliminate pork and serve meat and dairy products separately. The Muslim diet skips pork and other foods, including soy products, lima beans and peanut butter, which adherents cannot eat, X said.
Prison officials acknowledged in court Monday that they were uncomfortable deciding themselves whether an inmate's religious beliefs were sincere. So they fashioned a policy that left the responsibility to the inmate to find outside clergy willing to vouch for him.
"My personal feeling is it's not the department's job," testified Ed Morris, deputy director of the Department of Corrections. "I don't see where the state should be deciding."
But X argued that corrections officials were wrongly shifting a responsibility that should be theirs.
"I have no doubt the diet probably poses some problems in its implementation," X said. "But they're providing it. The question is the method they're using to screen the inmates."
He cited several Supreme Court cases and said the court has upheld proof of sincerity as a valid requirement for practicing one's religious beliefs, such as in conscientious objector cases during war. But he argued that the courts have never upheld such a narrow means of proof as that required by the state prison system.
Many clergy refuse to vouch for inmates they've never met or they find it "repugnant" that they would be asked to judge the depth of another person's belief, he said.
"I don't think the policy is tailored to accommodate the personal nature of religious beliefs," he argued, as two prison guards sat behind him. "They're delegating to a religious person a judgment they're supposed to make. It's way out of bounds, I think."
Davis and prison officials said the state offers religious diets because they believe they were ordered to in a 1987 decision by U.S. District Judge James Turk, who also sits in Roanoke.
Davis urged Wilson to decide whether X's beliefs are sincere, but the judge said he would not.
"The sincerity-question decision needs to be made not by this court - I'm not saying the decision ought to be made by anyone," Wilson said.
But it is the prison's decision who should be eligible for any kind of special diet, he said, and the only question he would review was whether the criteria the system uses is appropriate.
Davis put on evidence of X's sincerity, anyway, to make it part of the record should the case get appealed.
X, who legally changed his name from Richard Harris, said he has been studying and practicing Islam for eight years.
But Davis questioned X on whether a devout Muslim would have been involved in 50 to 100 disciplinary proceedings as X had been while in prison or would have assaulted a guard, of which he was found guilty. X denied assaulting the guard, but said it is a Muslim's duty to disregard unjust laws.
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