When Rights Have No Remedy

Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections

​When Rights Have No Remedy

A right without a remedy is no right at all. That is why Protect The 1st is disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court last week did not uphold the right of a Rastafarian prison inmate to seek damages after Louisiana prison officials forcibly shaved off his dreadlocks.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), shorn of such a remedy, will now offer less than full protection for profound violations of the free exercise of religion for people of all faiths – Jews, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and others.

“Looking at the broader defense of religious freedom, however, PT1st remains optimistic,” said Gene Schaerr, PT1st general counsel. “Today’s opinion is unfortunate, but this Supreme Court has been the strongest ever in supporting the free exercise of religion. Protect The 1st looks forward to advancing the cause of religious freedom in future cases.”

Prison officials threw the law into a trash bin

The case arose from the experience of Damon Landor, a devout Rastafarian who had grown his dreadlocks for nearly two decades as an expression of his faith. After being transferred to a different Louisiana prison only weeks before his release, Landor explained that his religion prohibited him from cutting his hair. He even presented prison officials with documentation showing that courts had already recognized his right to maintain his dreadlocks under RLUIPA.

Instead, officers threw the court decision into the trash, restrained Landor in a chair, and forcibly shaved his head. 

Turning the law into an unenforceable “parchment promise”

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, Protect The 1st noted that RLUIPA was enacted to ensure that incarcerated Americans do not surrender their religious liberty at the prison gate. Congress recognized that prisoners are uniquely vulnerable to arbitrary government action and therefore provided robust protection for their sincerely held religious beliefs.

The issue before the Court was whether those protections include the ability to recover damages from officials who knowingly violate the law. Without that remedy, many violations will never receive meaningful judicial review. Sometimes, prisoners’ rights are violated before courts can issue injunctions, leaving no practical consequence for officials who disregard religious rights. That, of course, is what happened to Landor. And, as we warned when the Court accepted this case, legal protections risk becoming little more than a “parchment promise” if they cannot be enforced retroactively through monetary relief. 

The Court has now concluded that RLUIPA does not authorize damages against individual state officials. As a practical matter, that means many future victims of similar violations will have little recourse once the immediate injury has passed. 

Yet this decision should not obscure the larger trajectory of religious liberty at the Supreme Court. Over the last decade, the Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that government must respect the free exercise of religion, whether the claimant is a church, a religious school, a family-owned business, or an individual seeking to live according to conscience.
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Protect The 1st will continue advocating for Americans of every faith and no faith to ensure that the First Amendment’s promise of religious liberty remains meaningful. Even after this setback, we remain hopeful that the cause of religious freedom is moving forward, one case at a time.

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