A federal judge in Corpus Christi has issued an injunction to allow three Texas-based Native American male inmates to grow their hair long to accommodate their religious beliefs.
In the 23-page ruling, issued Thursday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of the Southern District of Texas rejected the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s argument that allowing male inmates to wear their hair long opened the door for them to smuggle contraband and perpetrate violence such as suicide, hair-pulling fights and jealousy-fueled fights over said long hair.
The ruling is a slam-dunk win for Houston attorneys Rob Ellis and Steven Messer of Yetter Coleman, who represented the inmates pro bono in a three day bench trial over the issues in August. It also catapults the longstanding litigation, which began six-and-a-half years ago, toward a conclusion.
Ellis said the win is important because it could potentially provide a significant impact on how Texas treats its religious minorities in its prisons. He said they brought their claims under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a sister statute to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was unanimously passed in 2000 and aimed at protecting the religious rights of prison inmates.
“We were excited about this case… we feel it’s important because religious liberty is such a bedrock value and nonpartisan issue,” Ellis told The Texas Lawbook. “I especially think it is important for other Native Americans [whose] religious views might not be as widely known and accepted.”
Benjamin Dower of the Texas Attorney General’s Office, who represents TDCJ in the case, declined to comment on the ruling. The Texas Lawbook has reached out to the Attorney General’s press office for a comment.
Although TDCJ allows female inmates to wear their hair long because of the “cultural norm,” the state argued the standards were not the same for men even though TDCJ “conceded that the disparity in the male and female grooming policies is not connected to any difference in the propensity for violence, smuggle contraband or to facilitate proper hygiene between men and women.”
But in her ruling, Judge Ramos cited plaintiffs’ expert Joan Palmateer, a 32-year veteran in the correctional industry whose testimony the judge found “highly credible and authoritative.”
Before this case, Palmateer had only testified on behalf of prisons, but agreed to be an expert for the plaintiffs in this case because “she understands from personal experience and expertise that the ability to practice a religious faith is important to the correction system’s goal of rehabilitation of inmates,” the ruling said.
“The practice of religious causes inmates to actively engage in an activity that is both meaningful and provides perspective,” Judge Ramos wrote in reference to Palmateer’s testimony.
At trial, Judge Ramos also heard from the three inmates – Robbie Dow Goodman, William Casey and Raymond Cobb, who all recounted their pre-TDCJ days in Texas county jail, where they were allowed to wear their hair long and did so “without incident.” All three inmates are currently incarcerated at a low security custody level akin to popular Netflix series Orange is the New Black, which portrays the inmate characters as sleeping in dormitories instead of individual cells.
The inmates testified that their religion requires them to grow their hair long because “their hair is considered an extension of their souls, is only to be cut in mourning, and is essential to being recognized and accepted by their ancestors in the afterlife,” the ruling says.
The litigation began in May 2012. The three plaintiffs originally filed their lawsuits as separate actions, but they were eventually consolidated into one case.
While they were still separate, Goodman, who was pro se at the time, filed a suit that was dismissed in a summary judgment ruling. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the ruling, citing the 2015 Holt v. Hobbs U.S. Supreme Court decision, which determined Arkansas corrections officials violated the religious liberty rights of Muslim inmates when they forbade them to grow beards. After the Fifth Circuit’s reversal, Goodman’s case got consolidated with the other two inmates.
Texas is among only eight states in the U.S. that currently ban male inmates from having long hair. The others are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia.