Court to decide whether government officials can be held personally liable for violating inmate’s religious liberty

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether an inmate can sue a government official in his individual capacity – that is, seeking to hold an official personally liable, rather than the government entity itself – for violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a law enacted by Congress in 2000 partly to strengthen the religious liberty rights of prisoners. In a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week, the court also declined to take up the case of a Vietnam veteran whose execution is scheduled for Wednesday in Mississippi. 

The Supreme Court will hear argument in the fall in the case of Damon Landor, who is a devout Rastafarian. For almost 20 years, Landor adhered to a promise that he made – known as the Nazarite Vow – to grow his hair without cutting it. But in 2020, just three weeks before he finished serving a five-month sentence in the Louisiana prison system, prison officials shaved his head. Landor had attempted to explain his religious beliefs and provided a prison guard with a copy of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit striking down the state’s policy prohibiting dreadlocks, but the guard threw the opinion in the trash.

Landor filed a lawsuit under RLUIPA in federal court against the state and against the prison officials in both their individual and official capacities. The district court dismissed the claims against the prison officials in their individual capacities, holding that RLUIPA does not allow private individuals to bring such claims seeking money damages.

After the 5th Circuit upheld that ruling, Landor came to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to weigh in. In a brief filed in May, the federal government agreed that the justices should take up Landor’s case, telling them that the 5th Circuit’s decision conflicted with two Supreme Court decisions: Sossamon v. Texas, holding that money damages are not “appropriate relief” in lawsuits against states; and Tanzin v. Tanvir, holding that “appropriate relief” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act can include money damages in lawsuits brought against government officials in their individual capacities. Those two cases, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote, “together are thus best understood to hold that money damages do not constitute ‘appropriate relief’ in suits against sovereigns, but may constitute appropriate relief in suits against individual government officials—under RFRA and RLUIPA alike.”

The justices considered Landor’s case at two consecutive conferences before granting his petition for review.

Also on Monday, the Supreme Court declined to review the case of Richard Jordan, who was sentenced to death for the 1976 kidnapping and murder of Edwina Marter. Jordan, a Vietnam veteran who was honorably discharged and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday.

Jordan contended that when he was resentenced in 1998, he should have had an independent mental health expert assisting with his defense. Instead, he said, he was evaluated by a psychiatrist employed by the state, whose report was also given to the state – and which prosecutors used against him at sentencing.

The Mississippi Supreme Court’s denial of his request for post-conviction relief, Jordan argued, conflicts with the Supreme Court’s 1985 decision in Ake v. Oklahoma, holding that when a defendant’s mental health will be an issue in his trial, the state must give him access to a competent psychiatrist to assist him with his defense, and McWilliams v. Dunn, the court’s 2017 decision clarifying that due process requires the mental health expert to be an independent one.

The court granted a request to resume briefing in Department of Education v. Career Colleges and Schools of Texas. In January, the justices agreed in that case to review a ruling by the 5th Circuit that suspended the implementation of a Biden administration-era rule intended to streamline the process for reviewing requests for student loan forgiveness from borrowers whose schools defrauded them or were shut down. In early February, the challenger in the case, a group of for-profit colleges, agreed to pause the briefing schedule to give the Trump administration time to take another look at the regulations.

In May, Sauer notified the court that the Department of Education would continue to defend the rule and wanted to resume briefing. In a brief order on Monday, the justices granted that request. The case now will likely be argued in the fall.

The court also asked the federal government for its views in a patent dispute between two drug companies over generic-drug labeling. There is no deadline for the government to file its brief in Hikma Pharmaceuticals v. Amarin Pharma.

[Disclosure: I was among the counsel in the Supreme Court to Harvey Sossamon.]