Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety

Faith behind bars 

Damon Landor, a devout Rastafarian, honored his vow for nearly twenty years by growing dreadlocks, a profound and living symbol of his unyielding devotion to God. Both Damon and the prison staff knew the law protected his right to keep his dreadlocks, especially after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had recently ruled that forcing Rastafarian inmates to cut their hair violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a federal law passed with bipartisan support to protect religious liberty in two areas where it is most vulnerable: land use and prisons. For four months, prison staff allowed Damon to wear his hair or keep it under a rastacap. 

Religious freedom cut short 

With only three weeks left before his release, Damon was transferred to Raymond Laborde Correctional Center. At intake, he explained his beliefs, showed proof of past accommodations, and handed the guard a copy of the Fifth Circuit decision protecting Rastafarian inmates. The guard threw it in the trash. The prison warden then demanded that Damon “prove” his religion by providing documentation from his sentencing judge—something impossible to get immediately. When Damon offered to contact his lawyer, the warden said it was “[t]oo late for that.” Guards proceeded to take him to another room, forcibly handcuff him to a chair, and shave his head bald.  

After his release, Damon sued the warden, the state corrections secretary, and the prison guards for damages. The district court dismissed his claims, and a divided Fifth Circuit upheld that decision. While a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit “emphatically condemn[ed]” the abuse Landor suffered, it nevertheless found that it was bound by prior decisions to rule that RLUIPA does not allow former prisoners to sue individual officials for damages. When Damon asked the full court to rehear his case, the majority of Fifth Circuit judges declined—even while denouncing the abuse as “stark and egregious.” Several Fifth Circuit judges dissented and urged the Supreme Court to take the case. 

Becket defends freedom of the faithful in prison 

On September 2, 2025, Becket filed a friend-of-the-court brief at the Supreme Court in support of Damon. The brief explains that just like its sister statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), RLUIPA authorizes damages suits against individual officials who violate religious rights. It also emphasizes that damages are essential to make RLUIPA’s protections real. Without liability for damages, officials can violate religious freedom without consequence. And even absent bad faith, the ordinary realities of prison life—transfers, releases, and time-limited stays—make it very difficult to vindicate religious freedom, even in the most egregious cases like Damon’s. 

Importance to religious liberty:  

  • RLUIPA: Like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) was passed with bipartisan support. RLUIPA ensures religious liberty in two areas where it is most vulnerable: land use and prisons. 
  • Individual freedom: Religious freedom protects the rights of individuals to observe their faith at all times, including in prison. 

Dier v. Landry

America’s tradition of religious symbols in the public square 

Religious symbols have been a fixture of American public life since before the founding. Just after declaring independence, the Continental Congress tasked Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams with designing a national seal. Both Franklin and Jefferson proposed overtly religious designs drawn from the Hebrew Bible: Franklin’s featured Moses causing the Red Sea to overwhelm Pharaoh, and Jefferson’s depicted the Israelites guided by a cloud and a pillar of fire. While the Great Seal eventually adopted a different design, it still includes religious imagery—an eye of Providence above the Latin phrase “He [God] has favored our undertakings.” 

Over the centuries, many state and local governments have followed the Founders’ lead by including religious elements in their flags, seals, and buildings to commemorate history and culture and to acknowledge the beliefs of their citizens. Among the most enduring of these religious symbols is the Ten Commandments, which is even featured prominently on the walls of the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law 

Louisiana recently passed H.B. 71, which requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms by January 1, 2025. The displays must contain a specific context statement explaining the history of the Commandments in American public education, and schools have flexibility in how to design them. For example, schools may choose to incorporate the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents, like the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact, and the Northwest Ordinance. No school board is required to spend its funds to purchase the displays; they must instead accept private donations or donated displays. 

Schools can also be even more creative in implementing the law. For example, mockups of potential displays show how the Ten Commandments can be used to draw comparisons between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Moses, explain the structure of the House of Representatives, or explore important Supreme Court cases. 

Courts shall not rid Louisiana of religious symbols 

Soon after the governor signed H.B. 71 into law—and before any actual displays ever appeared in any classroom—a teacher in New Orleans filed a lawsuit against Louisiana in federal district court. He claims the displays are religiously “coercive” in violation of the First Amendment.  

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga, and Becket are working together to defend Louisiana’s law. The teacher’s lawsuit is the second attempt to stop Louisiana from following our nation’s long tradition of passively displaying religious symbols within the public view. The other lawsuit, filed by the ACLU, is scheduled to be heard by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on January 23, 2025. 

Both cases are similar to atheist activist challenges to “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Motto “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins. Becket was able to help beat challenges to the Pledge and Motto. Courts should reject this lawsuit just as they rejected those ones. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

  • Public square: Religion is a natural part of human culture and should not be scrubbed from the public square. 

 

Roake v. Brumley

America’s tradition of religious symbols in the public square 

Religious symbols have been a fixture of American public life since before the founding. Just after declaring independence, the Continental Congress tasked Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams with designing a national seal. Both Franklin and Jefferson proposed overtly religious designs drawn from the Hebrew Bible: Franklin’s featured Moses causing the Red Sea to overwhelm Pharaoh, and Jefferson’s depicted the Israelites guided by a cloud and a pillar of fire. While the Great Seal eventually adopted a different design, it still includes religious imagery—an eye of Providence above the Latin phrase “He (God) has favored our undertakings.” 

Over the centuries, many state and local governments have followed the Founders’ lead by including religious elements in their flags, seals, and buildings to commemorate history and culture and to acknowledge the beliefs that motivated their settlers. Among the most enduring of these religious symbols is the Ten Commandments, which is even featured prominently on the walls of the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law 

Louisiana recently passed H.B. 71, which requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms by January 1, 2025. The displays must contain a specific context statement explaining the history of the Commandments in American public education, and schools have flexibility in how to design them. For example, schools may choose to incorporate the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents, like the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact, and the Northwest Ordinance. No school board is required to spend its funds to purchase the displays; they must instead accept private donations or donated displays. 

Schools can also be even more creative in implementing the law. For example, mockups of potential displays show  how the Ten Commandments can be used to draw comparisons between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Moses, explain the structure of the House of Representatives, or explore important Supreme Court cases. 

Courts shall not stop Louisiana from displaying religious symbols 

Just five days after the governor signed H.B. 71 into law—and before any actual displays ever appeared in any classroom—the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Louisiana in federal district court. The ACLU claims the displays will harm schoolchildren by forcing them to be in the presence of religious messages in public school classrooms.

With Becket’s help, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga are defending Louisiana against the ACLU lawsuit. Louisiana argues that the ACLU’s lawsuit is premature and should be dismissed because no displays have been installed, and that Louisiana is following a long national tradition of displaying passive religious symbols within the public view. Indeed, this case is very similar to atheist activist challenges to “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Motto “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins. Becket was able to help beat challenges to the Pledge and Motto. Courts should reject this lawsuit just as they rejected those ones.

After a federal judge agreed with the ACLU and temporarily put Louisiana’s law on hold, Louisiana filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. A panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit left the lower court’s ruling in place. The State now asks the Fifth Circuit to hear the case “en banc,” meaning in front of all active judges on the court.

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

Public square: Religion is a natural part of human culture and should not be scrubbed from the public square. 

Negusie v. Mukasey

Daniel Negusie, an Eritrean Christian, was imprisoned in inhumane conditions for his refusal to serve in his country’s military. While in prison, he was punished and threatened with death for his conversion to Christianity.  After two years of imprisonment, he was made a guard and threatened with more punishment if he did not carry out his duties as a guard.  However, Negusie disobeyed orders to inflict violent punishment on prisoners, allowed prisoners to take showers, and sneaked basic amenities to prisoners. After two more years, he was able to flee the prison and the country, hiding in a container on a ship bound for the United States.

However, upon arriving at a U.S. port, he was denied asylum because, as a prison guard, he “assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of others.” The U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals agreed, saying “the fact that [Negusie] was compelled to participate as a prison guard, and may not have actively tortured or mistreated anyone, is immaterial.”

The case went before the Fifth Circuit Court in Louisiana and ultimately the Supreme Court, where Becket created and led a coalition of religious and human rights organizations which filed an amicus brief in his support. The brief argued that Mr. Negusie should not be punished for acting as a guard, since he was forced to do so as a part of his punishment. This was a crime committed against Negusie, not by Negusie. Becket argued that it is common for thug regimes to set believers against one another and alienate the religious from their consciences, a form of persecution the U.S. must condemn.

The Supreme Court sided with Becket and Mr. Negusie, ordering the lower court to rethink its decision.

Becket’s brief was co-signed by a range of human rights organizations that included the American Islamic Congress, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), China Aid Association, the Dalit Freedom Network, the Hindu American Foundation, the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, Human Dignity International, the Institute for Global Engagement, The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Jubilee Campaign, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, Open Doors USA, the Queens Federation of Churches, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and United Sikhs.

Negusie was represented by Mayor Brown LLP; Yale Law School Supreme Court Clinic.

 

Mitchell v. Helms

In a case challenging the constitutionality of a government school aid program as applied to parochial schools, the Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which had found that the program violated the Establishment Clause.

Justice Thomas’s plurality opinion (joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Kennedy) relied on the Becket Fund’s amicus brief, which described the anti-Catholic animus motivating state Blaine Amendments (forbidding state funds from supporting religious institutions).

In rejecting a method of analyzing an Establishment Clause challenge by asking whether the benefitted institution is “pervasively sectarian,” Justice Thomas’s opinion echoed the sentiments of Becket’s amicus brief: “hostility to aid to pervasively sectarian schools has a shameful pedigree that we do not hesitate to disavow” and “[t]his doctrine, born of bigotry, should be buried now.”

Michael McConnell was counsel in this case.